Remaining vestiges of apartheid legislation formally disappeared from the South African statute book at the end of June, in accordance with a pledge given by President F. W. de Klerk on Feb. 1. The measures failed to satisfy the African National Congress (ANC) which had been demanding the restitution of land seized from blacks and other reparations for the victims of racial discrimination.
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By 112 votes to 30, the House of Assembly (the white chamber of the tricameral Parliament) passed the Repeal of Discriminatory Land Measures Act on June 5, effectively nullifying the Land Acts of 1913 and 1936 and the Group Areas Act of 1950. The 30 votes against were all cast by members of the right-wing Conservative Party, the main opposition in the House of Assembly, whose spokesman, Jan Hoon, condemned the repeal as "an act of betrayal".
The new legislation made it possible for all South Africans to purchase freehold tenure to the 87 per cent of South Africa's land hitherto reserved for the white minority, although it placed no obligation on white owners to sell, and commentators pointed out that few blacks had the means to buy. The legislation offered no compensation for the estimated 3,500,000 blacks dispossessed of their land since 1950. Nor, critics pointed out, did it give blacks automatic access to home ownership in previously white areas. Under the controversial Clause 7 of the new act, 100 or more residents would be allowed to draft and enforce "norms and standards" of maintenance and density in their neighbourhood. Objectors said the clause could enable white residents to prevent blacks moving in.
On June 17, by 89 votes to 38 with 11 abstentions, the Assembly repealed the Population Registration Act of 1950, the legal foundation of apartheid, from which hundreds of other discriminatory laws had derived. De Klerk told a joint session of the tricameral parliament that the way was now clear for constitutional talks with black leaders to "guarantee participation and representation to all South Africans in a true democracy, with effective protection of minorities".
Under the repeal measures the government ended the registration by race of newborn babies and immigrants as black, white, Asian or "coloured" (of mixed race). However, the register, classifying the remainder of the country's 36,000,000 people, only 4,500,000 of them white, was due to remain in force until the agreement of an eventual new constitution which, de Klerk told parliament, was "within our reach within a few years". The ANC, the government's main interlocutor, continued to insist on the release of remaining political prisoners and on government action to end factional fighting among blacks, as preconditions to constitutional talks.
Critics also pointed out that the legislation enacted in June left black South Africans, representing approximately 68 per cent of the population, still without the vote. It retained compulsory military service for whites only, and retained inequalities whereby whites received higher pensions than other races, blacks receiving least of all. It did little or nothing to remove de facto segregation in certain institutions, and apparently made no impact on imbalances in the distribution of wealth in South Africa. Nor, it was pointed out, had any action been taken to end the discriminatory "Status Acts" passed between 1976 and 1981 which unilaterally conferred "independence" on the homelands of Transkei, Bophutatswana, Venda and Ciskei, whose people, totalling 8,000,000, had been deprived of their South African nationality.
On June 21, parliament passed the Internal security and Intimidation Bill to reform the 1982 Internal security Act under which the government had powers to ban organizations, to restrict publications and individuals, and to detain terrorism suspects without trial. While retaining some basic provisions of the original act, the reforms severely curbed official powers, including limiting detention without trial to 10 days.
This article comes from Keesings Worldwide Online
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