announced that in terms of Standing Order No 15 he had nominated the following members to act as temporary Chairmen of Committees in the House of Assembly: Messrs G C du Plessis, A Geldenhuys, J J Lloyd, B W B Page, H H Schwarz, K D Swanepoel, R A F Swart, C Uys, G J van der Linde and Dr L van der Watt.

as Chairman, presented the First Report of the Standing Select Committee on Trade and Industry, relative to the Convention on Agency in the International Sale of Goods Bill [B7—86(GA)], as follows:

J H HEYNS,

Chairman.

Committee Rooms

Parliament

14 October 1985.

Bill to be read a second time.

as Chairman, presented the Second Report of the Standing Select Committee on Trade and Industry, relative to the Companies Amendment Bill [B23—86(GA)], as follows:

J H HEYNS,

Chairman.

Committee Rooms

Parliament

20 November 1985.

Bill to be read a second time.

as Chairman, presented the Third Report of the Standing Select Committee on Trade and Industry, relative to the Close Corporations Amendment Bill [B 33—86 (GA)], as follows:

J H HEYNS,

Chairman.

Committee Rooms

Parliament

20 November 1985.

Bill to be read a second time.

as Chairman, presented the Fourth Report of the Standing Select Committee on Trade and Industry, relative to the Maintenance and Promotion of Competition Amendment Bill [B 21—86 (GA)], as follows:

J H HEYNS,

Chairman.

Committee Rooms

Parliament

20 November 1985.

Bill to be read a second time.

as Chairman, presented the First Report of the Standing Select Committee on National Education, relative to the National Study Loans and Bursaries Act Repeal Bill [B 9—86 (GA)], as follows:

R P MEYER,

Chairman.

Committee Rooms

Parliament

24 October 1985.

Bill to be read a second time.

as Chairman, presented the Second Report of the Standing Select Committee on National Education, relative to the “Woordeboek van die Afrikaanse Taal” Amendment Bill [B 19—86 (GA)], as follows:

R P MEYER,

Chairman.

Committee Rooms

Parliament

6 November 1985.

Bill to be read a second time.

as Chairman, presented the Third Report of the Standing Select Committee on National Education, relative to the National Policy for General Education Affairs Amendment Bill [B 8—86 (GA)], as follows:

R P MEYER,

Chairman.

Committee Rooms

Parliament

7 November 1985.

Bill to be read a second time.

as Chairman, presented the Fourth Report of the Standing Select Committee on National Education, relative to the War Graves and National Monuments Amendment Bill [B 10—86 (GA)], as follows:

R P MEYER,

Chairman.

Committee Rooms

Parliament

17 January 1986.

Bill to be read a second time.

as Chairman, presented the First Report of the Standing Select Committee on Foreign Affairs, relative to the Broadcasting Amendment Bill [B 6—86 (GA)], as follows:

G P D TERBLANCHE,

Chairman.

Committee Rooms

Parliament

4 November 1985.

Bill to be read a second time.

as Chairman, presented the Second Report of the Standing Select Committee on Foreign Affairs, relative to the Economic Co-operation Promotion Loan Fund Amendment Bill [B 11—86 (GA)], as follows:

G P D TERBLANCHE,

Chairman.

Committee Rooms

Parliament

4 November 1985.

Bill to be read a second time.

as Chairman, presented the First Report of the Standing Select Committee on Home Affairs, relative to the Public Service Laws amendment Bill [B 12—86 (GA)], as follows:

A E NOTHNAGEL,

Chairman.

Committee Rooms

Parliament

6 November 1985.

Bill to be read a second time.

as Chairman, presented the Second Report of the Standing Select Committee on Home Affairs, relative to the Marriages, Births and Deaths Amendment Bill [B 5—86 (GA)], as follows:

A E NOTHNAGEL,

Chairman.

Committee Rooms

Parliament

6 November 1985.

Bill to be read a second time.

as Chairman, presented the Third Report of the Standing Select Committee on Home Affairs, relative to the Matters concerning Admission to and Residence in the Republic Amendment Bill [B 35—86 (GA)], as follows:

A E NOTHNAGEL,

Chairman.

Committee Rooms

Parliament

20 January 1986.

Bill to be read a second time.

as Chairman, presented the First Report of the Standing Select Committee on Communications and Public Works, relative to the Post Office Amendment Bill [B 13—86 (GA)], as follows:

C J VAN R BOTHA,

Chairman.

Committee Rooms

Parliament

13 November 1985.

Bill to be read a second time.

as Chairman, presented the Second Report of the Standing Select Committee on Communications and Public Works, relative to the Professional Land Surveyors’ and Technical Surveyors' Amendment Bill [B 14—86 (GA)], as follows:

C J VAN R BOTHA,

Chairman.

Committee Rooms

Parliament

13 November 1985.

Bill to be read a second time.

as Chairman, presented the First Report of the Standing Select Committee on Environment Affairs and Tourism, relative to the National Parks Amendment Bill [B 26—86 (GA)], as follows:

A GELDENHUYS,

Chairman.

Committee Rooms

Parliament

13 November 1985.

Bill to be read a second time.

as Chairman, presented the Second Report of the Standing Select Committee on Environment Affairs and Tourism, relative to the South African Tourist Corporation Amendment Bill [B 25—86 (GA)], as follows:

A GELDENHUYS,

Chairman.

Committee Rooms

Parliament

13 November 1985.

Bill to be read a second time.

as Chairman, presented the Third Report of the Standing Select Committee on Environment Affairs and Tourism, relative to the Wattle Bark Industry Amendment Bill [B 27—86 (GA)], as follows:

A GELDENHUYS,

Chairman.

Committee Rooms

Parliament

13 November 1985.

Bill to be read a second time.

as Chairman, presented the First Report of the Standing Select Committee on Justice, relative to the Stock Theft Amendment Bill [B 3—86 (GA)], as follows:

H M J VAN RENSBURG,

Chairman.

Committee Rooms

Parliament

20 November 1985.

Bill to be read a second time.

as Chairman, presented the Second Report of the Standing Select Committee on Justice, relative to the Criminal Procedure Amendment Bill [B 15—86 (GA)], as follows:

H M J VAN RENSBURG,

Chairman.

Committee Rooms

Parliament

20 November 1985.

Bill to be read a second time.

on behalf of the Chairman, presented the Third Report of the Standing Select Committee on Justice, relative to the Special Courts for Blacks Abolition Bill [B 16—86 (GA)], as follows:

D P A SCHUTTE,

p Chairman.

Committee Rooms

Parliament

21 November 1985.

Bill to be read a second time.

as Chairman, presented the First Report of the Standing Select Committee on Finance, relative to the Public Accountants’ and Auditors’ Amendment Bill [B 30—86 (GA)], as follows:

C H W SIMKIN,

Chairman.

Committee Rooms

Parliament

27 November 1985.

Bill to be read a second time.

as Chairman, presented the Second Report of the Standing Select Committee on Finance, relative to the Finance Charges Amendment Bill [B 31—86 (GA)], as follows:

C H W SIMKIN,

Chairman.

Committee Rooms

Parliament

28 November 1985.

Bill to be read a second time.

as Chairman, presented the Third Report of the Standing Select Committee on Finance, relative to the Financial Institutions Amendment Bill [B 32—86 (GA)], as follows:

C H W SIMKIN,

Chairman.

Committee Rooms

Parliament

28 November 1985.

Bill to be read a second time.

as Chairman, presented the First Report of the Standing Select Committee on Transport Affairs, relative to the Carriage of Goods by Sea Bill [B 42—86 (GA)], as follows:

D M STREICHER,

Chairman.

Committee Rooms

Parliament

20 January 1986.

Bill to be read a second time.

as Chairman, presented the Second Report of the Standing Select Committee on Transport Affairs, relative to the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships Bill [B 41—86 (GA)], as follows:

D M STREICHER,

Chairman.

Committee Rooms

Parliament

20 January 1986.

Bill to be read a second time.

as Chairman, presented the First Report of the Standing Select Committee on Manpower, relative to the Unemployment Insurance Amendment Bill [B 22—86 (GA)], as follows:

J J LLOYD,

Chairman.

Committee Rooms

Parliament

28 January 1986.

Bill to be read a second time.

as Chairman, presented the Report of the Select Committee on Pension Benefits, as follows:

1. (a) The manner in which satisfactory pension benefits can be provided for or assistance can be given to that section of the public which has no or insufficient pension cover;
2. (b) The compulsory preservation of pension rights by means of transferability or otherwise;
3. (c) The commutation of a part of lumpsum benefits into annuities;

J W H MEIRING,

Chairman.

Committee Rooms

Parliament

18 November 1985.

Mr Speaker, I wish to move the motion printed in my name on the Order Paper, as follows:

Mr Speaker, after the State President’s Opening Speech last year, I introduced my motion of no confidence by saying that in a debate of this nature one judged the Government not in terms of its promises in relation to the future but in terms of its performance in the past. I then went on to motivate my motion by saying that the Cabinet deserved no confidence then because “its politics are destroying the economy and the quality of life of all the people in this land.”

Economically I tried to demonstrate this by showing how politics had destroyed confidence in the economy, by how it had increased Government spending, and by how it had increased the rate of inflation.

Politically I motivated this, Mr Speaker, by saying that there could be no confidence because the Government did not seriously want to change its political framework within which the money had to be spent, and that the Government was trying to sloganize South Africa out of constitutional difficulties instead of going for fundamental reform.

Real reform, I said then, meant changing laws, and I should like to come back to this aspect again today. However, Mr Speaker, I ended on a note of optimism as a result of what had been stated in the State President’s Opening Speech, and in this regard I am quoting now from what I stated in that speech of mine last year, as follows (Hansard, 1985, col 44):

That, Mr Speaker, was the note of optimism on which I concluded my speech last year. Now, a year later, we have heard yet another Opening Speech by the State President. What must one say about it, and how must one judge it?

Where is the confidence in the economy? This time last year the rand/dollar exchange rate stood at 47 cents. When the State President delivered his Opening Speech this year the rand was worth only 43 American cents. What is the level of Government spending? What is the rate of inflation? In January 1985 it was 13,25%. This year it is 18,4%.

What was said in 1985 that gave us hope? I went through that speech very carefully, Mr Speaker. There mention was made of equal education for all in a new central Department of Education. It was stated that the Government wished to pursue peaceful and democratic solutions; that full property rights for Blacks would be considered in certain cases; that consideration would be given to the elimination of negative and discriminatory aspects of influx control; that urban Blacks were seen as distinct from rural Blacks and that they had to be accommodated in their own right up to the highest level; that the Government would consider an overall framework with the various political entities that found themselves within the South African context; and that a non-statutory forum chaired by the hon the Minister of Constitutional Development and Planning, consisting of representatives from interest groups, would advise the Government on constitutional matters.

However, apart from these hopeful statements, there were also statements that bothered one—statements that were ambiguous. Fundamental constitutional guidelines were laid down. I quote one example in this respect, as follows:

It was stated further:

Further on again the State President said:

In other words, Mr Speaker, all reforms would take place within the Government’s concept of group membership for constitutional purposes. That was the ambiguous part of the State President’s speech last year.

Sir, what has been said now, in 1986, to which one can look for hope? We must remember, Mr Speaker, that between the two speeches mentioned 334 people died in 201 days leading up to the state of emergency in certain areas, and 575 have been killed since it went into effect more than 190 days ago. Furthermore, 7 200 people were detained without trial and 3 600 were held under permanent security legislation. A total of 920 schools were either destroyed or extensively damaged, as well as 33 churches, 17 clinics, 639 shops, 286 liquor stores, 2 528 private homes, 5 054 buses and 5 338 private vehicles. These are according to statistics furnished by the department of the hon the Minister of Law and Order. Many Black townships, at this very moment, still function under conditions tantamount to siege and martial law. The Government’s constitutional programme virtually ground to a halt in 1985. The Stock Exchange closed down and the rand plunged to 35 American cents. International isolation and sanctions became much more severe and internally we ended the year with more polarization and hostility than ever before.

Therefore, with some justification, Mr Speaker, we here, and the whole world, could expect some signs of hope from what the State President stated in his 1986 speech. What were these?

The State President renewed the Government’s commitment to equal education under one overarching department; to the restoring of South African citizenship to Blacks who had lost it; to extending the powers of self-governing states; to the involvement of Black communities in decision-making; to freehold property rights for members of Black communities; to a uniform identity document; and to removing influx control. The State President also stated clearly and unequivocally—coining a phrase which has since then been used repeatedly in the media—that we had outgrown the outdated concept of apartheid. Last but not least, we also heard from the State President a much clearer restatement of basic guidelines for constitutional development.

Again, however, we find in that speech some guidelines which are ambiguous—just as in the 1985 speech. Let me quote two statements. The first of these is as follows:

The second statement is as follows:

Again one tends to come to the conclusion that all reforms would take place within the Government concept of group membership for constitutional purposes. I put this as a question, Sir, because on this issue, I believe, revolves the success or failure of effective reform—the Government’s concept of group membership.

The major difference between the speech of 1985 and the speech of 1986 was the style and marketing of the 1986 speech. The State President spoke much more clearly about power-sharing, apartheid and reform, and for this he is to be commended. However, precisely because he has done so, he has raised fundamental issues that have to be clarified in this debate.

At the outset let me say that to put Blacks onto the present President’s Council with its constitutional role in the tricameral Parliament, is to my mind absolute nonsense. Furthermore, it is not quite clear what exactly the difference is between the non-statutory forum with the Minister of Constitutional Development and Planning as chairman, and a national statutory council with the State President as chairman which is going to persuade credible Black leaders to serve on it. We shall have to find out what the real difference is because this fact is not clear from the speech of the State President. I believe that a forum of this kind should conclude a process of negotiation rather than precede it. However, that is something we can debate.

*Mr Speaker, these are criticisms concerning the contents of the State President’s speech which can be debated during the coming week. Let met get one thing off the agenda at the outset: The State President’s view and standpoint in respect of reform within the context of NP policy and politics are a sign of courage and renewal. It would be petty and untrue to say that changes in established NP policy concerning influx control are cosmetic. The State President has said things which no NP leader before him has said or dared to say. If I enter into a debate with the State President or the Government about reform, therefore, it is not in order to question motives or attitudes, but precisely because I feel strongly about the process of fundamental reform and because I want to test the adequacy of Government measures. My criticism may be severe, but I trust that it will not be petty or personal.

†The first point that I want to make about reform is an old one, namely that the dilemma of reform is that it has to take account of the law of diminishing options. If reforms are brought about in such a way that they simply generate demands for more reforms, then a government can find itself in a position of always trying to catch up with history. However, if reforms are brought about in such a way that they anticipate major demands, then a government can be a step ahead and actually take the initiative for reform. That is why my first response to the State President’s speech is that this time I am not going to be caught for a sucker. Last year I responded by saying that we should accept the Government’s bona fides and work in hope. This time I say: “Talk is cheap; money buys the whisky!” Why do I say this? It is because despite the promises of 1985, that year will also become known as the year when this Government started losing control over the future of this country.

It certainly lost control over our finances because the Stock Exchange closed and we reneged on our international debts. It also lost control over normal law and order because it had to declare a state of emergency in certain areas. It lost regional control through mutual co-operation because it violated its own accord. It lost political control because its constitutional programmes could find no negotiators.

In fact, we ended 1985 with the Government talking more and people understanding less than ever before in its history: leaderless, directionless, hopeless. That is how we ended 1985. The only real stability we had was not because of consensus or co-operation or confidence in the economy or improved international standing, but because of the efforts of the security forces; in other words, an uneasy, undependable, short-term, coercive stability, and they themselves will acknowledge it.

Because of this the speech of 1986 has to be judged more harshly than the speech of 1985. The demands for it to generate hope take place against a much tougher background than 1985, and therefore are more difficult to satisfy.

I shall motivate my motion of no confidence on two legs. The first would be to identify the major errors, as I see them, of 1985. The second would be to present the Government with a challenge on how we can get the politics of negotiation off the ground. I shall, in other words, first concentrate on the sins of the past before I shall concentrate on the promises of the future.

Looking at the errors of 1985 I want to identify three. The first major error is the Government’s and the State President’s utter and complete contempt for parliamentary government … [Interjections.] … and this I shall demonstrate. There are not many countries with parliamentary government where a state of emergency would be declared, the Stock Exchange closed down and the Government renege on its international debts; where the government would admit that it had violated its own accord with a neighbouring State; inflation would shoot up to an all-time high and the government would not at least feel slightly guilty and call Parliament together in order to explain its actions in this regard. [Interjections.] The Government dismisses with contempt and in sneering tones any appeal in this regard.

It is becoming abundantly clear that the Government simply sees Parliament as a political laundry machine to wash out its legislative programme for a few months in the year—the shorter the better—in order to do whatever it wants to do in any case. Parliament is becoming a rubber stamp for the Government and not a forum where the Government is called to account.

By reason of the Government’s contempt of Parliament it is becoming more remote from the rest of the country and the rest of the society, and the people know less and less of what is going on in this country. More and more it is government by stealth and subterfuge; government by obfuscation and double-speak. The Government have forgotten how to open up to the people because they have become masters of the cover-up.

By reason of its contempt of Parliament, the Government also has contempt for opposition. [Interjections.] It is arrogant and self-righteous; it knows what is best for everybody, and anybody who questions its word is automatically considered misguided or perhaps even unpatriotic or subversive.

When I returned from speaking to the ANC in Lusaka and offered to brief the State President or anybody in Government on what happened and what my impressions were, I was told that if I wanted to know what the ANC thought, I should go to the Government and not to Lusaka. [Interjections.] When Stellenbosch students want to go to have discussions, the Government threatens to take away their passports, because “it is not in the country’s interests”. A newspaper editor is arrested for quoting Oliver Tambo, but the State President quotes him selectively and indiscriminately during by-elections.

The average South African is treated like a child. We are told the Government knows best and we have to accept their word. What, however, is the worth of their word when they themselves admit that they have deliberately misled Parliament and will do so again, when they admit that they have deliberately not honoured their obligations? It is this kind of arrogance, this kind of total contempt on the part of the Government which dominated the period between the speeches of 1985 and 1986.

Let me give some examples. Firstly there is the handling of the state of emergency. Ever since the shootings at Langa last year—indeed, before that—the security situation has been deteriorating. Four people, for example, died on 18 March in two separate incidents. On the day of the Langa shootings there were incidents of unrest in Sebokeng, Alexandra, Sharpeville, Welkom and Kimberley. Two more people were killed by the Police on 27 March in New Brighton. On the night of 28/29 March six schools in New Brighton were set alight. Unrest continued on 28/29 March in Langa itself, Graaff-Reinet, Bontrug, kwaNobuhle, Alexandra, Lamontville, Durban, Sharpeville, Sebokeng, Zamdela, Stilfontein and Parys.

On 31 March unrest continued in kwaZikhele, New Brighton, Zwide, Veeplaas, kwaNobuhle and Cookhouse. On 3 April, incidents occurred in Fingo Village, Tantje—this place is near Grahamstown—Langa, New Brighton and Tinus. Between 12 and 21 April a further 20 people died in the unrest in the Eastern Cape Townships, while other incidents of unrest were reported from as far afield as Meyerton. By the beginning of May, 161 people had died countrywide. By the beginning of June this number had risen to 227, and by the beginning of July, to 262.

There was no doubt, whilst we were sitting here in Parliament, that the situation was getting out of control. Yet the hon the Minister of Law and Order, together with other hon members, devoted his time to attacking the PFP. A state of emergency could have been declared at any time during the Parliamentary session, thereby affording Parliament the opportunity of discussing the unrest and the State’s response to it. However, the Government chose to wait until Parliament had adjourned before taking this step. That forms a prima facie case of deliberate contempt for parliamentary control over the actions of the executive.

When on 21 and again on 23 July I called for the urgent reconvening of Parliament to discuss the emergency, the unrest and ways to end it, the State President rejected the call, saying:

The implication was clearly that the executive was able to deal with the situation and that it ought not to concern Parliament. There was no contribution that Parliament could make towards stabilizing the situation in the country.

The second example that I want to mention refers to the so-called Vaz Diaries. These were the diaries that were captured by the armed forces of Mozambique and Zimbabwe at the end of August 1985. Apart from questioning matters of content and detail, even the Government accepts these diaries as having been written by a Mr Joaquim Vaz, Secretary to the President of Renamo. I have studied these diaries in detail in an attempt to gauge their authenticity, and if most of the serious allegations in the document are true, then two critical questions arise. I appeal to the State President and the hon the Minister of Defence to try to furnish answers to these two questions. Firstly, did the State President and the Government know before the Nkomati Accord was signed that it was going to be violated both during and after its signing; or secondly—and perhaps even worse—were the State President and most of his executive unaware of that fact? If the latter is the case, then who was in charge?

For example, was the State President or the hon the Minister of Defence or the hon the Minister of Foreign Affairs aware that according to the diaries, arms supplies sufficient for eight weeks after the signing on 16 March 1984 and been decided on by 7 February 1984 at the latest because, and I quote from the diaries:

Secondly, on Friday 24 February 1985 a SADF General will, and I quote:

These are important questions that have to be clarified in Parliament because if they are true, then we are fools to sit here and allow ourselves to be disinformed about what is actually happening. If this is not true, then why were we not informed? Why did the Government not call us in and explain the situation to us? What exactly is true and what is not true in those diaries? Parliament has no idea. Each one of us has to do his own research into these questions in a painstaking attempt to obtain the responses of Government.

Now the Government has admitted that it violated the accord. A Deputy Minister has admitted to not informing his Minister about going into Mozambique on a clandestine visit because he knew he would not have been given permission to do so if he had informed him. In this regard I asked for a parliamentary commission of inquiry. This was slapped down and a two-man internal inquiry was conducted upon which the State President declared himself satisfied. Where was Parliament in all of this? Nowhere. I made attempts to find out what was going on. I cannot speak for other hon members, but I was not called in and told what had happened or what the contents of the diaries were. I read about it in the newspaper. The Press wanted my reactions to the matter, to which I responded that if the content of the diaries was true, then they represented a very dangerous situation. I then made attempts to ascertain from others whether the diaries were authentic. At international seminars people laugh at me, saying: “Don’t you know that those diaries are 100% authentic?” I just have to stand there and say that I do not know because my Government does not inform Parliament. The Government does not tell us. In the attempt to find out what was going on I even went to see President Machel. There certain very serious allegations were made. I said at the Press conference that they were serious and that I would come back and question the Government on the allegations. I was not going to adopt an attitude on the matter while being outside the country. Even then there was no attempt by the Government to contact us and to say: “Look, this was what really happened”. I then phoned the hon the Minister of Foreign Affairs and asked him if I could please see him to find out what was going on. [Interjections.] I then actually went and spoke to him.

It is thus clear that it was not for want of trying. It reflects an attitude on the part of the Government. It could not care two hoots about parliamentary government. [Interjections.]

The second major error on the part of the Government refers to the Government’s continued destruction of the South African economy. The central theme of my 1985 speech in the no-confidence debate revolved around this issue. Last year showed conclusively that this Government, and particularly the State President, does not have the faintest idea of the relationship between politics and economics in South Africa—not the faintest idea! [Interjections.]

If any single event demonstrated this in a manner never to be forgotten, it was the State President’s speech on 15 August 1985. [Interjections.] With regard to its timing, delivery, content and consequences, that speech was an object lesson on how not to make a speech in front of an international community.

Mr Speaker, I saw Solarz in Washington and he asked me whether I really believed that the State President was going to say something significant on 15 August 1985. I told him that I quite frankly did not think so, not until I saw his face on television after he had spoken to the hon the Minister of Foreign Affairs. That was the first time when I felt that there had to be something. If the hon the Minister of Foreign Affairs could mesmerize a United States congressman in a matter of 45 minutes on a speech that was going to be delivered, there had to be something. So, the Government itself created the expectations which they then dashed, nobody else—neither the international news media nor the foreign embassies. The same applied to the way in which the State President delivered that speech. The State President typified or personified a government that was arrogant, smug, self-righteously bellicose and out of touch with the world and with the people in its own country while our economy was bleeding to death. For everyone who cared for this land and its people that was a frightening and depressing experience. We still have not recovered from the effects of that speech.

I want to ask this Government one thing. Why do they think it is necessary for a federated chamber of industries to come forward with a charter? Why? Why does an economic institution move into the political sphere like the Federated Chamber of Industries does? Furthermore, why is it stipulated in that charter that everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of the state? The answer is because everybody does not have that right now. Why does it further say that everybody has the right to freedom of association and to freedom of peaceful assembly? The hon the Minister of Constitutional Development and Planning knows that there are people who do not have that right now. Everyone must also have the right of equal access to public service. Why is this charter a straightforward political document? The Federated Chamber of Industries is trying to say to this Government that its politics is making it impossible for this economy to recover and that its politics will have to change in line with the developments that they spell out in the charter.

*The third unsatisfactory aspect of 1985 was what I call the role of the military executive. To an increasing extent, 1985 showed that South Africa was being governed by a military executive which was virtually accountable only to itself, and which was inaccessible for public questioning and criticism. This is clear in three areas. Firstly, it appears from the relationship between this military executive and Parliament. Parliament is increasingly becoming the victim of systematic disinformation concerning executive military operations. We do not know what is going on. The information given to us on certain operations is either given too late, or is incomplete or incorrect, or else we are not informed at all. Contradictions between the information of the military executive and that of the rest of the world is simply dismissed as propaganda or as a Russian plot. In some cases, it is subsequently admitted without a blush that the rest of the world was right after all.

Furthermore, there is the relationship between the military executive and domestic policy. We had an excellent example of this last week, when a brigadier took it upon himself to decide, in fact, to issue a decree, that no one is allowed to demonstrate any form of protest visually. He consulted no one; he has the power to do so. The hon the Minister had to tell him that he could not carry on like that, that it was going a little too far. [Interjections.] He had delegated that power to him; he could do with it what he wanted to.

We also see it in the administration of Black townships. At the present moment, the administration of townships in the Eastern Cape is disintegrating. They are being controlled and regulated by the security forces. You can go and talk to the officials. They cannot talk to the people they have to talk to, for either they have been arrested or they have been told that they are not allowed to talk to them. We had an excellent example of this in Port Elizabeth, where the boycott committee tried to negotiate about the local chamber of commerce, until they were sent to jail. Then trouble began to flare up again. Afterwards, when they were released, they were able to negotiate again and to come to an agreement.

†But, Mr Speaker, it is in the area of regional policy that the military executive arm of government is totally controlling this country. The South African Parliament is fast becoming the laughing stock of foreign policy experts and embassies when trying to explain what exactly our involvement in Angola, Mozambique, Lesotho, Zimbabwe etc is.

On all these regions members of those embassies are better informed than the average member of Parliament. When the Department of Foreign Affairs informs one, one is not sure whether the Department of Defence agrees with this. When the Department of Defence does it, one is not sure whether the Department of Foreign Affairs knows anything about it at all. More often than not one ends up not knowing whether one can believe either one. I can give an example, Mr Speaker. The hon the Minister of Foreign Affairs laughs. I put a question to the hon the Minister of Foreign Affairs on 14 May 1985. I asked whether the South African Government has at any time provided the Renamo movement with any financial and other support; if so, why, over what period was this assistance provided and what total amount was given to Renamo in financial support etc? I asked this of the hon the Minister. I asked that question after the hon the Minister had said we do give them some support at times. I just wanted to know what kind of support we gave them. The hon the Minister replied as follows:

So I asked the hon the Minister of Defence what had happened. His reply was: “I have nothing to add to the reply to Question No 4.” [Interjections.] We still do not know anything, who has been helping whom, what is going on, but the whole world does. They know. One can read about it in diaries, in magazines and newspaper articles, but one cannot find out what the truth is from your own Parliament.

Take a few simple examples, Mr Speaker, and one can pick this up in any foreign newspaper. Did we supply Savimbi with arms and use air forces to attack MPLA forces for him? Did we? You read about it, they say yes. Did we or are we supporting the Lesotho Liberation Organization? Are we active in the south of Zimbabwe? Are we still involved with Renamo in Mozambique? These are questions the hon the Minister of Defence must answer. If the answer to any of these questions is yes, what has become of the principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of another country? Why do we keep insisting on this principle as far as we ourselves are concerned but blatantly ignore it as far as others are concerned?

I go back to the speech of the State President on Friday, Mr Speaker. The State President says:

*If we adopt this as our regional policy, and I am confronted, as a member of Parliament, with the allegations I have just mentioned, but Parliament refuses to tell me what is going on here when I request that information, and I have to discover things abroad which the average overseas newspaper reader takes for granted, I cannot speak on behalf of my own community. How can I speak on behalf of South Africa? How can I tell the truth about what is going on?

†That is why I ask what the informing principle of this Government’s regional policy is. What is it? Why is it called “a response to total onslaught”? Why do others call it “regional destabilization with a thump and talk approach”? Why do we need to spend such enormous amounts on defence?

I have tried to get to the bottom of this, and the only model I could come up with is a “total onslaught” model—that the Government, particularly the military and security forces, sees South Africa as being under a “total onslaught”. This is the hon Minister of Defence’s major theme. This justifies all our regional actions. What is the threat? The answer is given—it is Russian imperialism. What is the agent of this threat? Is it a conventional war? I am sure the hon the Minister of Defence will agree with me that we cannot enter into a conventional war with Russia, or any other superpower for that matter. Is it a neighbouring country like Zimbabwe or Lesotho or Swaziland? It cannot be a neighbouring country so the only answer I keep returning to is the ANC. The ANC is the agent of Russian imperialism and therefore it is the issue which is responsible for our policy of total strategy against a total onslaught. That is why we have to understand who the ANC is.

Who is the ANC? Let me identify it before I discuss its strategies. The Government’s view of the ANC is that it is simply an external group of people, funded and controlled by Moscow, engaged in acts of terror inside South Africa. That is it. That is more or less the complete definition as I have tried to identify it. It is an external group, funded by Moscow, controlled by the Communist Party of South Africa and engaging in acts of terror. However, I am afraid that it is not as simple as that. Let us look at the views of experts who have done research on this. Here I have a book entitled South Africa—A Plural Society in Transition, written by Van Vuuren, Wiehahn, Lombard and Rhoodie—none of them members of the PFP. Here on page 352, in a chapter concerning the ANC, I read the following:

That is the attitude adopted by people inside South Africa—among Blacks in the PWV area. Forty-one percent said that they believed it was wrong of those neighbouring territories to do so. Only 7,3% of the respondents believed that these countries were right to expel the ANC and that the ANC was fighting for certain groups only. According to this book—I quote:

A little further on they say the following, and I quote:

Therefore I am saying that the most shortsighted thing this Government can do for the Whites and everybody else in South Africa is to try to externalize the ANC as something foreign. They are not foreign; they have support inside this country and we have to come to terms with that political reality.

I do not know whether the hon the Minister of Defence has read the book written by Major J K Cilliers entitled Counter-insurgency in Rhodesia. It is a brilliant book which has been received favourably by many military strategists overseas, although it is not very well known. The author is a major in the Defence Force. He makes the point that the biggest mistake that they made in Rhodesia—the military that is—was to regard the problem as an external one and to militarize people against that external problem and in the process ignore the political implications of doing so. It is in his book. There he says and I quote:

Then Major Cilliers says:

That is why we have to look very carefully at this situation. The government’s regional policy is determined by the potential for internal instability inside South Africa. We have to recognize it if we want to have success with reform. I am not speaking because I am supporting the ANC or saying I am supporting violence. I am saying as a matter of fact that the Government’s regional policy is formed on a principle that relies on the threat of internal instability here in South Africa.

I am reminded of a statement by President Samora Machel when I spoke to him in Maputo earlier this year. He said to me: Why? There is no problem for the South African Government to destroy Maputo. It can destroy Maputo, it can destroy Zimbabwe, it can destroy all of the neighbouring territories. We know that. It is in the same position that Hitler was in when he embarked upon his expansionist policy. It held good for Czechoslovakia and all the other countries, but, he asked where did the war end for Hitler? It ended in Berlin. He said: I am saying to you the war will end for the South African Government in Pretoria, not because we are going to be successful but because the people inside that country are divided against its own Government. We have to come to terms with this. In other words the regional policy of the military executive government is becoming a symptom of the Government’s failure in domestic policy.

I want to put it differently. The last thing that Russian expansionism would like to see is the effective dismantling of apartheid because this would drastically change South Africa’s domestic, regional and international position. The Russians do not want to get rid of apartheid. They do not want to because it is the most useful phenomenon in the Southern African context. It influences their whole regional approach. Our international position is affected as well as our domestic position.

What does it mean to dismantle apartheid? This brings me to the second leg of my argument and I want to put a challenge to the Government as an alternative I would, however, like to make some preliminary points before I actually spell out concrete steps in response to the State President’s speech.

The first point I have to clarify—because this apparently seems to preoccupy some newspapers who support the Government—is my position on violence. Let me make it quite clear that I abhor violence—all violence, whether by or against the State. The use of terror to achieve political objectives fills me with a deep sense of revulsion. The petrol bomb, the indiscriminate use of landmines, the torture chamber, the burning of villages and houses and the terrorizing of children are instruments of political thuggery which cannot be justified by any cause that I wish to support. If South Africa should become completely polarized between two opposites each depending on such methods to gain the upper hand over the other, there will be no winners, only losers.

Therefore, I condemn the use of violence by the ANC and any other organization. I condemn the use of arbitrary violence by the State against its opponents whenever or wherever it occurs. I condemn Black on Black, White on Black and Black on White violence. It is true that the modern state has a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence. But when it does so without justice in an arbitrary manner and without those who suffer from it having any recourse to the courts, the State loses that legitimacy and very often forces its opponents to seek violence in return. In this way violence begets violence. There is no doubt that apartheid as a political system has used and generated violence. Otherwise we would not find ourselves in our present dilemma. Therefore, to eliminate apartheid is to eliminate a very important source of violence in our society. All the studies of the Human Sciences Research Council, as well as all the commissions of inquiry appointed by this Government, show this.

It is for this reason that, although I deplore and abhor violence, I will not hesitate to talk to those who use violence, in order that I may seek ways to persuade them otherwise. I will do it. If I thought it would serve any purpose to reduce violence I would go to Lusaka tomorrow, whatever the Government may say or feel. [Interjections.] For 12 years I have talked to this Government, urging them to get rid of apartheid in order to reduce violence, and there is no reason why I should not talk to others who are also caught up in the cycle of violence. I hope I have clarified my position concerning violence.

In trying to put an alternative plan to the Government, it is necessary for me to point out that I have not sucked this alternative out of my thumb. Last year I traversed the whole political spectrum; I spoke to members of the CP and to members of the Government. I met with the Cabinet Council. I enjoyed the privilege of having a number of interviews with the State President. I had numerous discussions with the hon the Minister of Constitutional Development and Planning. I spoke to members of the UDF, and, yes—I spoke to members of the ANC. I tried to ascertain a possible area of compromise for everybody in South Africa. I tried to establish whether there is a possibility of negotiation. Therefore, when I make these suggestions, I am not simply saying this because it is what I should like to see, but because I think that that is an area where we can try to search for compromise, and where we can get the politics of negotiation off the ground. The State President and the hon the Minister of Constitutional Development and Planning know, as does the head of the National Intelligence Service, that I have said these things to them. I have debated these things with the Cabinet Council, and I have explained my position to them. It is for this reason that I say that, if we want to get the politics of negotiation off the ground, we have to accept that there are three clearly distinct phases in that process.

The first phase will be the dismantling of apartheid. I am glad that the State President calls it an outdated concept. Now we have to make it an outdated practice as well. [Interjections.] We must dismantle it. Later in my speech I shall return to the concept of dismantling apartheid.

In the second place, once we have dismantled apartheid, we have to create a climate conducive to negotiation. Let me say immediately that most of the suggestions made by the State President about internal reform fall within the area of creating such a conducive climate, and I welcome that. Anybody in his right mind will welcome the abolition of influx control and restoring property and citizenship rights. That is creating the right climate. I should like to make an important point in this regard, which is also a result of my discussions, namely that it is futile to try to create a climate conducive to negotiation as long as apartheid has not been dismantled. It is not going to work. It is as simple as all that. The hon the Minister of Constitutional Development and Planning knows what I am talking about. One cannot create the right climate as long as the structure of apartheid remains intact.

Only after a climate conducive to negotiation has been created, one reaches the third phase, namely that of entering into negotiation with those leaders who can operate under those circumstances.

Those are the three crucial stages in the politics of negotiation. One cannot enter into negotiation and neither can one create a climate conducive to negotiation as long as apartheid has not been dismantled. It cannot be done. That means that dismantling apartheid is a priority, and nobody but this Government can do that. They put apartheid on the Statute Books—they have to remove it. We cannot dismantle apartheid, neither can the UDF, the ANC or the Black Sash—only this Government can dismantle apartheid.

What does it mean to dismantle apartheid? It is fascinating that when one goes overseas one hears people saying that one must tell the State President to get rid of apartheid. When one asks them what they mean, six out of 10 times those people do not really know what they mean. They simply want to remove the concept from the agenda.

However, I return to the point of departure I used last year, namely that apartheid depends on laws. The essence of apartheid is the denial of freedom of choice on the basis of race or ethnicity—that is the essence of apartheid, which is reflected in laws such as the Population Registration Act, the Group Areas Act and the Reservation of Separate Amenities Act. Last year we got rid of section 16 of the Immorality Act and of the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act. However, the very fact that we restored freedom of choice as far as those Acts were concerned, highlighted the absence of freedom of choice in all the other areas. That is the essence of apartheid. We have to get rid of laws and statutes that compel people to form part of groups on a racial and ethnic basis against their will. It is as simple as that. That is the first step.

Secondly, the Government must declare that under those circumstances of freedom of choice they will have removed what the ANC and others cite as the cause for their commitment to violence and the armed struggle. Therefore they would then be able to operate legally and peacefully in South Africa together with other organizations and movements. The Government must also declare that all political prisoners will be released to do the same.

Who is also pleading for this? I can promise the Government that it is not the communist wing of the ANC. They do not want to be legalized. However, Chief Buthelezi says that the Government must unban those people so that he can compete with them in the domestic political market. I quote:

We need to do that ourselves. We need to know the who’s who of politics in this country. That is why this second step is so essential. This morning in The Cape Times Percy Qoboza, who by no means is a radical, says:

To legalize those organizations is not to legalize violence. I want to make that point quite clear. To legalize them is actually to let them move away from violence. If they do become involved in violence all the machinery of the State is available in any case to stop the violence.

Thirdly, after this has been done, the Government must announce a package of reform plans to do away as best as possible with the de facto inequalities in housing, education and welfare. They must do that instead of doing so now in a piecemeal fashion and getting no credit for it. What is happening now is that the Government is introducing these piecemeal reforms in the absence of dismantling apartheid and allowing freedom of choice. The Government is always walking backwards in this situation under pressure. It is the law of diminishing options which is the dilemma of reform. Only once one has done that can one go on towards equalizing the situation.

Fourthly, the Government must allow for a period of time for political organizations to consolidate their support and stabilize the communities. We cannot stabilize the communities with security forces. It cannot be done. Those communities will have to stabilize themselves and the Government will have to create the conditions under which they can do so.

Fifthly, the Government must make it clear that under these circumstances lawlessness and subversive action will be dealt with firmly and without hesitation. That can obviously be done under those circumstances because the Government has created the circumstances in which they can operate.

Sixthly, the Government must appoint a multiracial monitoring board of appeal to which people can bring their grievances and suggestions on problems they are experiencing as a result of the changes. Yes, there are going to be painful adjustments. It is going to be difficult to go through a process of reform but the Government can anticipate that by appointing the kind of body that the State President has referred to. Then it can fulfill a function and people can come forward and participate in it.

Seventhly, the Government must then appoint a negotiating forum to which they can invite the recognized political and community leaders to discuss how best a new constitution for South Africa can be brought about. Then only can negotiation really get off the ground.

There are of course risks and uncertainties involved in these suggestions. However, one thing is sure and that is that if the Government continues acting the way they are acting now, there will be no uncertainties—conflict, siege and escalating violence is inevitable. On the other hand the advantages of following this path are considerable. We must consider the following: The Government seizes the initiative where only it can act, removing legislation which is cited as the cause of violence. Secondly, the ANC will be faced with an entirely new challenge—to move from being a charismatic movement in exile to a political organization with practical programmes and principles in a domestic situation. That is a severe challenge. It is easy to be a charismatic movement in exile. It is far more difficult to come into the domestic situation.

Thirdly, the international interest groups who wish to assist in South Africa’s transition without destroying its infrastructure will be strengthened. That is the kind of long-term confidence-building act they are looking for.

Fourthly, the problem of who are real or fake political leaders would have been resolved and the Government would be in no uncertainty about whom to negotiate with. That is the way one solves that problem; otherwise one is always going to have the difficulty of who the real leader is, who the community leader is, who the charismatic leader is, and who the symbolic leader is, and so one goes round and around unable to find people to talk to.

Fifthly, the Government would be doing this from a position of strength without its powerbase from a security point of view having been eroded. It can do so now, and from a position of strength.

Mr Speaker, I conclude by saying that I have drawn a distinction between the errors of the past and the promises of the future in motivating my motion. As far as the errors of the past are concerned, the following questions have to be answered during this debate: firstly, what role does Parliament play in the governing of this country? At present it is kept in ignorance, ignored or even misinformed on key issues affecting our country.

Secondly, to whom is the military and executive arm of the Government accountable? It would appear that they can do as they please on regional and domestic policy.

Thirdly, what political steps is the Government prepared to take to restore our economy? Its politics continues to destroy our economy and quality of life.

As far as the promises of the future are concerned, however, the Government must answer the following questions unequivocally with either a “yes” or a “no”. Is this Government prepared to restore freedom of choice on a non-racial and non-ethnic basis for all South Africans? In other words, will the Government remove all laws—and I want to put it very concretely—which compel persons on racial and ethnic grounds to live in a certain area, go to a certain school or serve on a certain constitutional body for group purposes as determined by the Government? [Interjections.] That, Mr Speaker, is the nub of the question, because this is decided on by one group and imposed upon another group. [Interjections.] The Government decides where a Black person may live and then says he has “own affairs”. The Government decides where a Coloured may live, and then says the coloured has “own affairs”. Will the Government restore freedom of choice to allow people to decide for themselves on that basis?

Secondly, is the Government, after restoring freedom of choice—not before, but after—prepared to legalize the ANC and release political prisoners so that they can participate freely and peacefully in the domestic political situation? If they do not want to, that is their choice; but they must be given that choice.

Thirdly, is the Government prepared to negotiate with all those leaders elected under conditions of freedom of choice in order to find acceptable constitutional alternatives for South Africa?

*Mr Speaker, as far as I am concerned, these are crucial questions when we come to the possibility of internal reform. I have formulated and posed these questions on the basis of my personal experience, in my own attempt to obtain clarity on the possibility of politics of negotiation in South Africa. I am speaking sincerely when I say to the State President and the Government that I cannot see how we can launch a process of negotiation if we cannot answer “yes” to these questions. I cannot see how we can do that. I am not saying this in order to question the sincerity and motivation of the Government, but in terms of an objective analysis of the situation; and I can give the assurance that I am not alone when I do so.

The State President said that he had placed South Africa on a new road. That is true; the State President has indeed placed South Africa on a new road. [Interjections.] However, he has placed South Africa on a road which moves away from the old South Africa. The debate now centres around this question: Where is this road to a new South Africa taking us? Where is that South Africa heading? [Interjections.] I must in all honesty say that I read and reread the speech of the hon the State President and it is not clear to me where we are going. There is one cardinal area of uncertainty: Is the Government relying on compulsory group membership on a racial or ethnic basis for its future constitutional dispensation or not? If it is, our attempt is in vain. If it is not, there is hope for us. That is why it is the responsibility of the Government to clear up these problems for us in this debate by telling us what the concepts of “power-sharing”, “freedom” and the “rule of law” mean—considered in the context of that question—for at present those concepts are being contradicted by the reality in which all of us find ourselves caught up.

Not only must we get away from that reality, but we must also put something in its place; something which not only makes sense to us as Whites, something which not only makes sense to the Sunday Times or the Financial Mail or whoever, but which also makes sense to those people who are supposed to derive benefit from the change.

We can become warmly enthusiastic and tell one another how good and wonderful the speech is, but if we do not hear from the Black people that they wish to participate in the process, we may as well forget about it.

It is against that background that I have posed these questions and put forward these suggestions. That is why I moved the motion which is printed in my name on the Order Paper.

Mr Speaker, on behalf of the Government and the members of this side of the House I should like to express my heart-felt sympathy to the next-of-kin of all South Africans who were victims of acts of terrorism and violence. I am referring to the families of Black and Brown people who died under the most gruesome of circumstances; those of policemen who, in the performance of their duties, were murdered by barbarians; and the families of those who died as a result of landmine, limpet-mine and handgrenade explosions on our borders and in our cities. Our thoughts are with them all, and our prayers go with them in their time of suffering.

It is strange that those who complain of international terrorism exclude the ANC and SWAPO from their condemnation of terrorist organizations. In my view, terrorism of whatever kind, and from whatever quarter, ought to be abhorrent to all civilized people. Joint international action ought to be taken, as is the case, for example, with piracy. South Africa ought to be part of that campaign undertaken by the international community.

Today we are reconfirming our endeavours for peace in Southern Africa, but this also necessitates the whole-hearted co-operation of all our neighbouring states. On Friday the State President lodged a plea for the establishment of a security secretariat to deal with threats of overall peace and stability. I think this is a very reasonable proposal, but if this practical offer does not bear fruit, and acts of terrorism continue to be perpetrated against us and against our people, South Africa will not hesitate to protect our country and all its people to the best of its ability, wherever this may be necessary and regardless of criticism from abroad or people whining on the local front about our destabilizing Southern Africa.

†I should like to repeat what I have just said. The State President has pleaded for the establishment of a security secretariat in Southern Africa. If deeds of terror continue then South Africa will take all the necessary defensive measures required of it to protect its people and its boundaries. We shall follow the example of Israel, which successfully ensures its own survival.

I now wish to address the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition. I should like to begin by saying: “Welcome home!” He must be just about the most well-travelled Leader of the Opposition that South Africa has ever had. I feel tempted to ask him, like any anxious hostess: “Are you likely to be staying for long?” The worldwide jet travel agenda of the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition makes that of my colleague, the hon the Minister of Foreign Affairs look a trifle thin. Off he went to Lusaka to see Tambo! Perhaps I should ask him if he saw Joe Slovo as well, in Lusaka or anywhere else.

No.

I wonder why he did not see him!

How did his discussion with Prime Minister Hawke of Australia go? He then went to Maputo to see Samora Machel, and today we have heard that he also went to Washington to see Mr Solarz. You name a current critic of South Africa, and the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition has had discussions with him. I want to warn him that by one’s friends so shall one be known. [Interjections.] Furthermore, they seem to have filled him full of disinformation. I feel that he spent too much time for his own good in their company.

However, when he came back to South Africa he did have time to publish his autobiography. It was with great interest that I read extracts of this in the Sunday Times. He talks of taking people’s word today and I find that of particular interest in the light of an illuminating little passage in his memoirs concerning the hon member for Bryanston. In 1974, during an evening when the wine flowed freely, the hon member for Bryanston and some of his friends persuaded the hon Leader of the Official Opposition to sign a United Party membership card and furthermore to be a United Party candidate in the forthcoming election.

However, before the night was out and the hon member for Bryanston was a trifle cross-eyed—I think that is what he said, but it could have been “glassy-eyed”—the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition slipped the signed membership card into his pocket and took it home with him. He tore the card up in the clear, cold light of dawn the following morning. In the meantime the hon member for Bryanston, his conspiratorial friend, was searching high and low for the missing card, thinking that it had been mislaid in his home. Such then was the honour among the intriguers of that particular time! May I ask the hon Leader of the Official Opposition today if he still takes signed membership cards home with him after meetings with his friends? [Interjections.]

Last week the Sunday Times wrote that the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition would make his Rubicon Speech today. However, his speech of today reminded me not of a leader crossing a river but of a leader rowing in a boat through very stormy seas with on the one side Scylla—that is to say the UDF, the ANC, Cosatu and Nusas—and on the other side Charybdis in the form of the hon member for Yeoville. [Interjections.] My bet until today would have been that the hon member for Yeoville would have triumphed or that Charybdis would have won. However, after hearing the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition’s total surrender today to the forces of the left, I must say that I was wrong.

The last year was a critical one for South Africa. It was the clear duty of the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition to be here at home, trying to find solutions to our problems and attempting to calm the feelings and emotions among our people, instead of lending his ears to those who are hostile to us in the Republic. He himself said today that the Government needs to harness all the talent in the country. Where was the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition when all the talent in the country should have been harnessed last year?

What a contrast in style there is between the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition and the former leader, Sir De Villiers Graaff. [Interjections.] The country could rely on Sir de Villiers to support the Government on matters of internal security and outside intervention in our domestic affairs. Whatever the shortcomings of Sir De Villiers Graaff were—he had a very difficult task keeping people together in the same party with philosophies that differed basically—he never parleyed with terrorists and he never let South Africa down! [Interjections.]

The present hon Leader of the Official Opposition has much to explain to this House. When he was not overseas he was founding and funding the national convention movement to the fanfare of the trumpets of the press in South Africa. However, after a few weeks he and his party withdrew from it because, as he said in his statement, the presence of the PFP was offensive to others in the movement. [Interjections.] I must say that that is a very interesting way of reasoning.

May I take it a stage further? The PFP was against the tricameral dispensation, in other words the three Houses of Parliament. I personally and many others find their presence in this House thoroughly offensive, but they still retain their seats and their perks as members of Parliament!

It seems that the ANC wants to have nothing to do with the national convention movement, and neither does Nusas, the UDF nor any one of parliamentary parties as far as I know. Recently it was reported in the press that the ANC wanted to establish a grand alliance of all anti-apartheid forces in South Africa. Although the ANC apparently subsequently denied this, the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition rushed in immediately it was announced and said he would be quite prepared to be a partner in the grand alliance, and even to serve under the ANC leadership.

But the National Party is now an anti-apartheid group too, not so? [Interjections.]

In the light of the attitude shown here in the House today by the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition, Mr Speaker, I am not surprised.

Sir, he says he abhors violence in general. I want to ask him the following question: If such an alliance should be established among the anti-apartheid forces, will the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition then make it a condition of his own personal participation that the ANC renounces violence? Interjections.] Sir, where does the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition stand in relation to the ANC? After listening to him today, I ask whether he stands with the hon member for Pinelands, who says the ANC should be unbanned, should be recognized and should be negotiated with … [Interjections.] Yes, Sir, you can hear all the hear-hears from some of the hon members in that party. Or does the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition support his erstwhile friend and conspirator, the hon member for Bryanston, who seems to hold somewhat different views on the ANC, if I heard him correctly on television quite recently? [Interjections.]

Sir, I have to say again that after listening to the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition today, I must admit that I am afraid the hon member for Bryanston has lost and the hon member for Pinelands has won. [Interjections.]

Perhaps, Sir, I should not devote too much of my time to the hon members of the Official Opposition, since so many people say that it is already an irrelevant factor in South Africa’s politics. [Interjections.] Besides, Sir, it appears as though many of the hon members of the Official Opposition have already decided that the UDF is a better vehicle for their own radical aspirations than the PFP. [Interjections.]

Be that as it may, Sir, I should nevertheless like to add, for the edification of the frequently absent hon Leader of the Official Opposition, a reminder of the old adage that when the cat is away the mice will play. He should know that his predecessor as leader of that party, the hon member for Sea Point, recently came to hold a meeting in my constituency. There he reported on the joint PFP meeting with Mr Oliver Tambo and he waxed positively lyrical about the ANC leadership. He had talked, he said, nostalgically of “home” and of the places they knew, and also of “the boys on the border.” “But, of course,” added the hon member for Sea Point, it seemed, with misty eyes, to members of the audience, “I had to remind myself that their boys were on the opposite side of the border to ours.” [Interjections.]

Others from the ranks of his party membership are active in the anti-conscription campaign. They openly flirt with the UDF and they also talk openly with members of the ANC.

Sir, on Friday the State President made a great speech. He gave to all of us his credo of South Africa—a credo to which all reasonable South Africans will subscribe. He is leading South Africa to a new future, in which all South Africans will have a share in mutual peace, stability and prosperity. His speech clearly indicates the evolutionary steps which we must take to achieve consensus on an agreed future for all of us in the Republic. The immediate negative reaction on the part of some people—such as the hon the leader of the Official Opposition, Bishop Tutu, Alan Boesak, Bishop Hurley, Dr Beyers Naudé and, if I may say, the rest of the gang, was to be expected. Sir, I wonder if those hon gentlemen of the cloth have ever sent Bibles to the ANC and to Swapo in their terrorist bases. When they meet them, as they so frequently do, do they ever talk with them about Christianity? [Interjections.]

The overwhelming majority of reasonable South Africans support the State President to the hilt. We cannot wish away our difficulties. We cannot conjure away our multicultural society. We simply have to come to terms with realities. We have to offer something different, something better, to our people than is being offered them by the radical elements. Wherever those radical elements have succeeded in usurping power their countries have come to a standstill. Elsewhere in Africa there is plenty of evidence to support this thesis. Outdated attitudes here in South Africa will have to change. We cannot eliminate poverty by means of the vote, but we can at least ensure peace and stability, if all South Africans are given the opportunity to look after those things that affect them intimately, and accept joint responsibility for those things that affect all of us. “Now is the time for all South Africans to join together to negotiate the structures that we want,” the State President said. South Africans who reject this offer of a new future will, I maintain without any hesitation whatsoever never be forgiven by those who come after us.

It is not the aim of those of us in the NP to try to satisfy the ANC, the UDF and other radicals. Their demands amount to nothing more nor less than total surrender. None of them will ever be satisfied with any form of constitutional development or change. All that they want is power. They want a White administration to be replaced by a Black administration of ANC henchmen. They want the reins of government in their hands. They want the Defence Force and the Police Force for their own. They want to nationalize industries that others have built up in South Africa, and they want to steal from others what they covet for themselves. They also want handouts from the West and weapons from the communists. Of course, Sir, they also want Mercedes Benzes, if there are not sufficient Rolls Royces to go around, while their people die of hunger and disease. This is what happens when a terrorist clique takes power in Africa.

In his Opening Speech and in his advertized programme of action in the main Sunday newspapers, the State President clearly cut the ground from under the feet of the radical forces. He has even thrown the liberal media into some form of disarray. At last perhaps, the scales may be falling from the eyes of those who have for so long refused to see and to hear what the State President’s programme of action was all about. In his speeches in Parliament last year, and his speeches at each of the party congresses, subsequently, as well as in his speech to the Foreign Correspondents’ Association at the end of October, he carefully spelled out for those with eyes to see and ears to hear what he envisaged and what he so clearly enunciated last Friday in this House. However, all of these were submerged by the parrot-cries of the Official Opposition and their Press: “Release Mandela”, “Withdraw the police and the troops”, “End the state of emergency” and “Do away with apartheid”—all of this within the past 12 months. However, there are none so deaf as those who will not hear and none so blind as those who will not see.

During the past year, profound change has taken place in our country, whereas human rights, freedom and welfare have been eroded throughout the rest of the continent of Africa or otherwise have disappeared completely into the maw of an insatiable Black socialism. However, the more we reform, the more we are so often castigated. The further we move away from what the world calls apartheid, the more intense the international crusade against us. Apartheid may have been legislatively created by the NP, but the world renowned Gen Smuts claimed on one occasion that apartheid, racial discrimination and unequal rights were part of the historical culture of South Africa. Before him, Gen Louis Botha stated that it would be a great mistake to suggest that the “Native question”, as he put it, could be solved on the basis of equality for both races, Black and White. In Parliament here in 1948 Gen Smuts said that equal rights had never been the policy of his party. He said that his policy had been European paramountcy in this country. Today the State President is able to say that we have outgrown the outdated colonial system of paternalism which, in retrospect, were the policies of Gen Smuts and Gen Botha. I want to tell the hon member for Houghton that this was so even in the time when she was a subscribing member of the Official Opposition.

Yes, Helen was a big United Party supporter. [Interjections.]

That form of paternalism is outdated and so also, says the State President, is the outmoded concept of apartheid. So effective have been the Government’s efforts, since the time when the State President was Prime Minister, to eliminate many of the unnecessary, wasteful and hurtful features of discrimination, that South Africa today—to all objective observers—is totally different to the South Africa we knew in the fifties, sixties and seventies.

Nevertheless, while our country has changed dramatically, there are certain facts of South African life which are unchangeable. While the peoples of South Africa form one nation, as the State President said, that South African nation comprises many minorities.

Secondly, South Africa is a multi-cultural society. This of necessity implies that all the different cultural communities should participate in the democratic process in the country. They will share power but they will also accept responsibilities; and the one is no less important than the other. South Africa’s multi-cultural character also makes the protection of minority rights essential, so that no one group will numerically dominate another.

In our situation there are no simple solutions. There are certainly no tailor-made examples—even in multi-racial societies, let alone multi-cultural societies—for us to follow; not in America, not in Britain and now, it seems, not even in France. Nevertheless, we on this side of the House are determined to face the challenges before us. We sincerely believe in co-operative co-existence for all South Africans. The present tricameral Parliament has proved a success … [Interjections.] … a success in regard to how consensus can be reached among reasonable people who are seeking to find solutions to their common problems and who are prepared to accept responsibility for managing their own affairs.

Some say that we do too little too late. I say Sir, that South Africa’s progress has been hampered by the riots and disorder of 1984 and 1985 through the efforts of radicals and outsiders. South Africa would have advanced far further along the path that the State President has charted for us, had there not been this disruption. That serves as proof of what I said earlier, namely that those people do not want a constitutional solution for South Africa; they want revolution.

An historic word “Rubicon” was used by the State President in Durban to denote our embarking upon a far-reaching scheme of reform. It subsequently became a journalistic and diplomatic cliché with which to criticize him and the South African Government. However, the State President’s Address on Friday last has become a Rubicon for his critics. I want to ask whether they will have the imagination, the courage and the elementary goodwill towards their own country—and towards South Africa in the case of foreigners—to agree with the leading article in the Sunday Times. I quote from yesterday’s edition of the Sunday Times:

[Interjections.]

*Or, Mr Chairman, as President Mphephu put it so nicely, only cynically naive individuals or those who are politically dishonest would dismiss it as being cosmetic.

†I believe there are sufficient people of goodwill in South Africa and that we have enough friends overseas to ensure that given a fair chance, South Africa’s head of State will, by consensus, find a solution to the problems of co-operative co-existence in our multicultural country. This will make South Africa an example to the rest of the world of how peoples at different stages of development and of different historical and cultural backgrounds, can share the country in peace and harmony. The State President has given us the tools; now give us the time to do the job which we alone can do. [Interjections.]

Mr Speaker, I move as an amendment:

1. (1) it is now, without a mandate from the White electorate, announcing and implementing power-sharing in respect of Blacks as well, which is fatal to White self-determination and peace among the peoples of Southern Africa;
2. (2) it has failed to maintain law and order and to ensure the safety of the inhabitants of South Africa; and
3. (3) it has failed to combat inflation, to restore the economy of the country and to check the further impoverishment of the citizens of the country.”.

The hon the Minister, who has just resumed his seat, referred to various matters, and I shall react to some of these during the course of my speech.

He referred among other things to the mechanism for the defence of Southern Africa. My terse comment on this is that it will mean of course that the states involved will, if my inference is correct, for example Zimbabwe, President Kaunda of Zambia, and so on, some of which are in the communist camp, be included in such a defence mechanism of Southern Africa, and that this will of course entail enormous problems, particularly when one says that the secretariat can be located in any of the capitals.

In addition to that I want to say that if one dares to venture into such a set-up, it can never mean that South Africa relinquishes the right to be militarily prepared to the maximum extent and in the highest measure, ready to deal with any onslaught on South Africa. If South Africa encounters any adversity in such company, it must be capable of defending its interests in the military sphere.

On Friday the State President, as he had previously done, referred to Mandela. He devoted a considerable portion of his speech to him. I should like to react to that briefly. In the first place it struck me that although the State President spoke about violence, the combating of violence and the preservation of law and order, he did not, as far as the release of Mandela was concerned, repeat that he expected Mandela to renounce violence. I spoke to foreigners about this, and some of them said: “This statement of the State President was stunning.”

To that I should like to add the following: If we talk about the release of Mandela for humanitarian reasons, I want to say that according to my best information there is no question of any ill-treatment of Nelson Mandela. I have been informed that he is being treated well, that he may choose which hospital he wishes to go to and that he exercised such a choice. He may choose who his doctor should be, and he exercised such a choice as well.

We are dealing here with a person who was convicted of high treason, with a person who calls himself or who called himself a communist, a person who is a revolutionary and who said: “We Communist Party members are the most advanced revolutionaries in modem history”, and who is now in prison. In that respect the State President is correct: He is in prison and it is to the advantage of those behind him, for now he is a martyr. He wishes to remain there unless the ANC is legalized. He stated a whole lot of conditions. He said the State President should go further than Verwoerd and Malan and Strijdom. Well, the State President has gone much further, and Mandela ought to be satisfied as far as that point is concerned.

We are dealing here with a person who reaffirmed that he advocated violence, and I must say that as such a person he is being treated very humanely (humaan) where he is at the moment. [Interjections.] I hear an hon member saying “humanitêr”, and he can use that word if he wishes, but the dictionary says “humaan”.

I want to make this statement: One cannot release a person for humanitarian reasons while he says that he will propagate and organise violence when he is released. Let us suppose Nelson Mandela is released. He is released for humanitarian reasons. Let us suppose, furthermore, that he were to organise a rally under the communist flag in Soweto on Sunday, in the same way as a rally was in fact held in Cradock. Let us suppose that Mandela preaches violence at such a rally in Soweto, as he promised he would do. The crowd is incited, and some of those people start committing acts of violence. Will the Government allow him to continue to do that? If it does not allow him to do so and arrests him and imprisons him again, he will be precisely where he is at the moment. The Government must then consider all over again whether it should not release him for humanitarian reasons—in spite of what he has fomented in the country.

I want to make a few observations on Bishop Tutu. I regret that the hon the Minister of Home Affairs is not present here this afternoon; I hope he makes a speedy recovery. In spite of his absence I wish to ascertain what this “turbulent” bishop still has to do before his passport is withdrawn. [Interjections.] Oh, he must still do more! The Citizen correctly observed:

What more must he do to advocate sanctions and boycotts against South Africa? I have enough quotations in this connection.

There is no reason why a government of a country should issue a passport to a person who canvasses support for the ANC abroad. One can say what one likes about the ANC, and argue with the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition about where the main emphasis should fall, in other words whether he represents an external or an internal force. The fact of the matter is that the ANC is the largest Black front organisation of the South African Communist Party. So how much further does he still have to go? I repeat that the government of a country does not owe it to any of its citizens to allow them to go so far—and not to the bishop of a church either. This bishop also said:

†He speaks as if one can separate the organization’s terrorism from its politics. He speaks about attacks on soft targets, like servants slipping something into their employers’ coffee, or buses carrying White children being attacked.

*That is what this man said and what he suggested. He also said:

He also said:

Mr Speaker, I think this person has said enough to justify his at least being confined to South Africa, where he can then occupy himself with evangelism, and in order to prevent him from making revolutionary statements abroad and inciting countries against South Africa.

The hon the Minister of Environment Affairs and Tourism also referred to incidents of terror. I should like to associate myself with the observation which he made, and with the sympathy which he conveyed to the relatives of people who died in the incidents of terror—the murder attacks.

With reference to the landmine incidents in the Northern Transvaal, and the bombs which exploded elsewhere and cost people their lives—I am thinking of Durban, Amanzimtoti, Cape Town, and so on—I want to say that we understand the problems with which the Defence Force has to contend. Secondly, I want to say that I have very great appreciation for what the Defence Force has done. We have appreciation for what has been done in the Northern Transvaal. I am thinking in particular of Water-berg, where one of these incidents occurred. On the same farm on which the De Beers were killed in a landmine explosion, the Defence Force found further landmines and eliminated them.

I believe that one of the Defence Force’s problems is the fact that some farm owners were previously not completely security conscious. It was necessary to draw the attention of those people to the possible dangers. Their co-operation is necessary in order to adopt an overall strategy. I think it is a fact that the farmer on his farm is a very important link in the defence mechanism of South Africa. However, one also finds the phenomenon that the so-called city farmers leave their farms and close the gates. That makes it difficult to carry out security actions in that area. There are economic factors which cause the depopulation of those regions, or which aggravate the situation to a fatal extent.

I also want to mention that in my opinion it must have been embarrasing to the Defence Force that certain media aroused great expectations in regard to dramatic action after these events in the Northern Transvaal, but that nothing dramatic happened. I am not of those who expects that a person should necessarily carry on in a dramatic way. We are not among those people who say that there should of necessity have been a hot-pursuit operation.

Nevertheless there are a few things which are not satisfactory, and now I am referring to meetings which I attended, at which the Defence Force gave explanations and provided information.

Various people were killed in these landmine explosions. I consider this to be a form of murder. It was implied that the Defence Force does not so much follow up incidents, as that it works according to a strategy. We appreciate that strategy. However, if one’s strategy is going to mean that one does not follow up specific forms and acts of terrorism, then we say that it is not enough. One cannot let that suffice. An image was used, and it was said that one should be able to remove the entire ants’ nest, but we are not all that concerned about the ants. I told a Defence Force commander that it was all very well to remove the ants’ nest but perhaps it was located in Lusaka, and you said you did not know where it was. I told him that the ants were biting and devouring our people, that he must trample those ants to death.

I want to make a further observation. [Interjections.] There is a shrugging of shoulders, and the hon members who are now sitting there laughing, can laugh if they like. There was a shrugging of shoulders before a lot of people: “You tell us where the terrorists’s bases are and we shall go and eliminate them.”

One is entitled to ask how one combats crime, but one does not follow up a murder case? Does the commanding officer in the Northern Transvaal not have any knowledge of terrorist bases—I call them murderers’ bases—does he not have any knowledge of them near the borders of the neighbouring states. Does the National Intelligence Service not have any knowledge of such murderers’ bases? If the National Intelligence Service does in fact know where such bases are, why does the commanding officer of the Northern Transvaal imply that he does not know. He suggested that we might know, but he did not. Why is it being suggested that the ordinary citizen may in fact know, but the Defence Force does not? The Defence Force knew precisely where the terrorists were in Gaberone and elsewhere, they were even able to pinpoint the room in which the terrorists were living, and they can even tell you precisely when Kaunda has a drink of water! If that is the case, then we would like to know why they would be unaware of where those bases are.

The CP has expressed itself strongly opposed to persons who wish to take the law into their own hands. But I think I also have the right to ask what is happening in Stutterheim and Hofmeyr, where people feel compelled to carry arms in their handbags when they go about the streets. If it is true that 19 sheep, 55 sheep were simply decapitated on a certain farmer’s farm, and people feel unsafe without feeling the protective umbrella of the security forces, what are those people to do? I am not advocating that they should take the law into their own hands. The body responsible must see to it that there is security.

The Government has the right and the duty to use force to punish malefactors and to preserve law and order. A spirit has began to prevail in South Africa; people are afraid to speak of legitimate force. I am in complete agreement with the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition when the power of the state is abused to infringe upon people’s legitimate freedoms; then it is an abuse of authority. Then one must expect a reaction. But do not create the impression that when the Government takes action, when it acts within its competence to preserve law and order, it should rather play the role of a sunday school or a church council now. That is not its function. Franz Borkenhau correctly stated:

I endorse that. But he added:

The author Harrigan stated correctly:

I want to say, furthermore, that if one allows it to become apparent that one cannot or will not use force to halt or punish violent action, then it is an invitation to aggression.

I should like to come to a few comments with reference to the constitutional implications of some of the statements made by the State President.

I am sorry to say that the speech which is being preferred as political reform, is from our point of view not reform, but political deformation. It is not a reformation; it is a deformation. It is not an unlocking of freedom for all peoples in South Africa; it is the unlocking of freedom in a unitary system for certain groups in South Africa at the expense of the acquired freedom of the Whites in South Africa.

You have an obsession about Whites.

I am glad to have one, because I am proud of being a White man, as Chief Buthelezi may be proud of being a Zulu. [Interjections.] I am proud of being an Afrikaner as well.

A South African.

I am a South African; it is not necessary for me to be anything else but an Afrikaner to be able to be a South African.

However, I am sorry to say that what is being offered as political reform in South Africa is a sell-out of the political future of the Whites in South Africa. [Interjections.] It is a sell-out! The sovereign White Parliament has been replaced by a multiracial Parliament. Nothing has remained of the propaganda made during the referendum 2½ years ago, namely that the character of the House of Assembly should be preserved. Nothing of that has remained, because the House of Assembly has not preserved its character as a “Volksraad”, that is to say as a sovereign Parliament. [Interjections.] Who wishes to deny that the White House of Assembly, the sovereign Parliament of South Africa, has been degraded into a House in a Tricameral Parliament? White self-determination has been diminished to consensus or an input, and is subject to the veto of two other Houses and, if it fails there, to the possible final decision of a multiracial President’s Council. The White government has been replaced by a multiracial coalition government in which non-White Ministers can contradict the State President at will. Even after he has spoken, they can say that they differ with him.

As regards laws protecting communities, as well as the identity of communities, my question to the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition is still this: How does one speak about the self-determination of groups, but one does not suppose that those groups have already been identified? Hon members opposite are probably well acquainted with Huntington, who made the following observation: “We have to decide whether South Africa is a society of individuals, or a society of communities”. He also said that the American recipe of one man, one vote; we are all Americans; it is a melting pot, is not applicable to South Africa. It remains a fact that he said that he was a White and had therefore, in that way, classified himself with a specific group. We talk about realities, and one of the realities is an existing White community, which as a community with a majority vote indicates how it wishes to be governed and who it wishes to include in its community.

There are own fatherlands for Black peoples, but the White fatherland is being turned into everybody’s territory. [Interjections.] One of the hon the Ministers says there has never been a White country. Millions of rands are being spent on the consolidation of Black states, but what remains is still a unitary state for one nation with one citizenship, general franchize and joint decision-making.

But there is no indication whatsoever of how domination of one group over another is going to be eliminated. Black peoples can become independent. That door is still being held open for them, although the carrot of one citizenship and one common state is being dangled prominently in front of them. Black peoples can become independent and have a purely Black state with purely Black citizenship, but the Whites are, through legislation, being compelled into a Unitarian state and into one nationhood with one decision-making body.

This brings me to a few of the specific remarks which the State President made. He referred to the National Statutory Council and elaborated on it in the information document, the propaganda document, which appeared yesterday in the Sunday newspapers. Incidentally, it would be very interesting to know how much money the Government spent on this propaganda document. I do not think I am wrong when I say that it is disgraceful that some of my tax money is being used to wage a political campaign against me. [Interjections.] I do not have a similar opportunity to make propaganda for my party out of Government funds. The State President said that the proposed National Statutory Council was not a forum for talkers. In other words what was called a forum in the opening address in Parliament last year is now being shot down in flames. Now it is not a forum for talkers—it is possible to talk, but not much heed will be paid to it. He said this was the first step on the way to permanent power-sharing. He said:

This raises many, many questions. Besides the fact that this statement is challenging in the face of the Whites’ claim not to be dominated, not be jointly governed by others, I say it is a very provocative statement. Not only is the forum gone; it seems to me as though the Cabinet Committee of which the hon the Minister of Constitutional Development and Planning was also the chairman, has also been eliminated.

The question is: How is this council going to be constituted? The State President is implying that he will now see to it in this council that these Black leaders will have a voice in the Central Government. But surely it is not the central government. This council is going to be constituted out of the Cabinet, the Government and then the representatives of Black states and other communities.

The first question is how it is going to be constituted. Is it going to be constituted proportionally? Are the Zulu people, who number 6,3 million, going to have the same representation as fewer than one million Indians—the Indians are already in Parliament now and other smaller groups in that council? What is the difference between that statutory council, and the Central Government? If one has a say in the Government, then it seems to me they are virtually meeting in the same Chamber!

The question I want to put is this: Where did the State President or the National Party or its coalition partners receive a mandate to make such an announcement? He is going to preside over a statutory body which has a say in the Government, that becomes joint governor in this country. Where did he receive that mandate?

To tell the truth, his own colleague, the hon the Minister of Constitutional Development and Planning, said in 1984—after the referendum, consequently it was after the previous mandate:

[Interjections.] Surely the answer is self-explanatory! The destination of the Black peoples is not situated in the same pattern.

The State President said:

Whose sentiments are we echoing? The HSRC said that apartheid had caused friction. I now have to state with the utmost respect that that is the most arrant nonsense I have ever had to listen to. By definition someone comes along and says that apartheid caused friction. Keep them apart and then there is friction between them. Surely that is the most arrant nonsense one could hope to find among people posing as learned persons and scientists.

To say now that apartheid is obsolete places the NP in one of the greatest credibility crises of its existence. [Interjections.] In Soutpansberg, in Potgietersrus and in every by-election the NP placards proclaimed: “Afsonderlike ontwikkeling is ons beleid.” What was “afsonderlike ontwikkeling” (separate development) if not a new name for apartheid, because apartheid is now in bad odour.

If apartheid is obsolete, what becomes of separate schools, residential areas, voters’ lists, the population register, Houses of Parliament? What about them? Or does this mean that the days of these things are numbered?

The agenda of the State President also touched upon various other matters which are also likely to affect the hon members. “I do not intend to stop there. There are people who say that I should have gone further. I assure them, I shall”. [Interjections.]

I must say that that sounds very brave, but with all due respect, it is reckless. It is reckless. It draws a line through the history, the philosophy, the principles and the policy of the NP. It draws a line through its hon leaders; it draws a line through the important statements of our esteemed State President himself. In the time available to me at a later stage I shall demonstrate this to him, if he does not believe me.

It simply repudiates all Prime Ministers who have advocated apartheid, who have also advocated separate development. There was the warning Dr Verwoerd uttered when he said:

It is now being said that separation causes civil war. Surely this means nothing but that people are imposing their will on the Whites in order to co-govern them, instead of accepting only their own rights to govern themselves within an own area.

The CP’s alternative is clear and has been put to the test. [Interjections.] One can speak to Europeans and they will admit to you that there are basic principles, such as those for which the CP stands, which enjoy universal recognition. By that is meant not only the recognition of ethnicity, but also the recognition that a specific community has the right to self-determination. Self-determination does not mean, as the hon member for Randfontein said, that everyone has an opportunity to make an input. According to a very modem dictionary self-determination means the following:

This is also recognized in the outside world. It is consequently the practice which forms the foundation of sovereign independent states, with an own ethnicity and based on an own geographic basis. That is what the CP stands for.

Mr Speaker, the hon the Leader of the CP referred to advertisements which appeared in newspapers over the weekend and he asked who was paying for them. There is no doubt that the Government, like any other Government in the world, has the right and the duty to put its standpoint and point of departure clearly to the people in the country it is governing. That is precisely what this campaign is seeking to achieve and the Bureau for Information is paying for it, because the campaign is being conducted by them.

Before I discuss the essence of the CP policy, I want to refer to certain matters touched on by the hon the Leader of the CP.

Mr Speaker, may I put a question to the hon the Deputy Minister?

No, the hon member may not put a question now; he may resume his seat. [Interjections.]

The hon the Leader of the CP asked how the national statutory council was going to be constituted. He said that it was clearly apparent from the State President’s speech that this matter would be the subject of negotiation. But in view of the fact that there is going to be negotiation regarding this matter, it is unnecessary to publish blueprints in this regard beforehand.

The hon the Leader of the CP referred to the matter of a mandate. But during the past few years the Government has committed itself to negotiating with the Black people on the country’s constitutional future. I shall return to this aspect later in my speech when I shall say a few words about the policy of the CP.

The hon the Leader of the CP also referred to Mr Mandela. As far as this matter is concerned, it must be made very clear that it is the standpoint of the Government, in the first place, that Mr Mandela would be released on condition that he would be prepared to renounce violence. In addition the Government must, indeed, bear in mind the implications of the fact that Mr Mandela is still in prison after so many years. The question has also arisen whether he could not be released on humanitarian grounds if other people could also be released on humanitarian grounds. In this connection we are thinking of Captain Wynand du Toit. I note that the hon the Leader of the CP said nothing about this matter.

One matter must be clearly understood: If a person in Mr Mandela’s position were to be released, and he enjoyed freedom of movement in South Africa, he would be subject to the laws of the Republic of South Africa. Consequently, if he were to commit acts of violence, the ordinary legal processes would undoubtedly apply to him.

The hon the Leader of the CP referred to Bishop Tutu and demanded that the Bishop’s passport be withdrawn. This is a decision which the relevant hon Minister must make and I will probably have to decide on this in due course. There is no doubt that the fact that Bishop Tutu went abroad greatly benefited the internal politics of South Africa. Certainly the allegations Bishop Tutu made while abroad damaged his reputation among a wide spectrum of people in South Africa because he proved himself to be a person who contradicts himself, a person whose word one cannot accept when he says that he is opposed to violence. The benefit we derived from this should not be underestimated.

When the CP proclaims its policy it always adopts a few standpoints which serve as points of departure for the propagation of its policy. It seems to me, that the first of these is that the CP is always inclined to think that all Black people—I also read this in one of their tabloids which appeared recently—cannot be trusted.

That is not true!

There is one distinction which the CP does not draw.

We do not trust you.

They do not distinguish between the revolutionaries, the people advocating revolution in South Africa, the ANC which is committed to a revolution and a violent, revolutionary take-over of the Government, and those Black people who are moderate and are prepared to negotiate with the Government for a better dispensation which will satisfy the rightful interests of all South Africa’s citizens.

Today the hon the Leader and the hon members of the CP did not take cognizance of the fact that we are indeed on the threshold of a new, exciting era. [Interjections.] The Government has committed itself to a policy which, in the first place, can be implemented in practice and, in the second place, is morally justifiable. From the CP, on the other hand, we get the propagating of certain illusions, a policy which cannot be implemented in practice. Today we must consider to what extent it is possible to implement the CP’s policy. If that policy cannot be implemented in practice, it is in reality not a policy. [Interjections.]

Now the hon the leader of the CP says that there are examples of the successful implementation of this policy. There are examples of this in South Africa, the Transkei, Bophuthatswana, Venda and Ciskei. There are also examples in other parts of the world where there are separate states and where separate governments exist.

The one aspect we must bear clearly in mind today and the question which the CP will have to reply to at some stage or other, is whether the CP accepts that the implementation of any constitutional policy affecting the Black people will have to be accompanied by the consensus of the majority of the Black people of South Africa.

Are you now speaking on your own behalf too?

I am speaking on my behalf, on behalf of the NP and also on behalf of the CP, because this is the important question they must ask.

Mr Chairman, may I put a question to the hon the Deputy Minister?

No, Sir, I do not want to reply to questions from the hon member.

When the CP proclaims the policy of the independence of the Coloureds in a Coloured State, of the Indians in an Indian State and of the various Black peoples in their own states, this implies that they must be able to reach consensus on that point with those various peoples. My question is whether the CP accepts that this must take place before they can implement their policy? We all know that this must take place. We all know that one cannot implement a constitutional policy if one does not have the support of the people with whom one must co-operate. We know that the realities of South Africa are that one cannot make progress constitutionally if one does not take the people with one.

In the first place, as far as the Coloureds and the Indians are concerned, there is no one with whom the CP can talk about the establishment of a Coloured state and an Indian state. The mere fact that they are proclaiming to the voters of South Africa that this is possible, is a deception of the voters of our country. [Interjections.] After all, there can be no doubt about that. Because that policy can only be implemented with the co-operation of the majority of those population groups, and those population groups will not give their support to the CP, there can, after all, be no doubt that they do not have a policy with regard to the Coloureds and the Indians.

Now we come to the Black people. In this connection over the years the Government has always adhered to the policy that all Black people must become citizens of their independent states. In recent years negotiations have been held in this connection with all six the national states which are not independent but are self-governing. It became very clear that it was not possible to persuade those people to accept independence with the relinquishing of South African citizenship. [Interjections.]

One reality we have to accept today is that the Black people of South Africa are citizens of this country, in the same way that you, Mr Chairman, and I are citizens of this country. They are fellow citizens of South Africa.

The people of Lesotho too?

The hon member for Rissik asks: “The people of Lesotho too?” I think that is the most ridiculous question one can ask, but he is entitled to be “stupid”; he has been that way very frequently in the past. [Interjections.]

We must accept this reality, and if one wants to deprive those people of their citizenship one must have their permission. If one cannot negotiate for that agreement, concurrence or consensus, one cannot implement that policy. In the case of Transkei, Bophuthatswana and Venda this was possible, as was also the case with Ciskei. But we have reached the stage in South Africa where this agreement is not possible. [Interjections.] The question now arises: Is it possible for that party to negotiate on independence?

Of course, yes.

The hon member for Rissik knows he is talking nonsense. The hon the Leader of the CP cannot even reach an agreement with Jaap Marais; how can he reach a agreement with any Black leader in South Africa? [Interjections.] One of the realities of South Africa is that the CP has a non-policy. They have a policy which cannot be implemented in any possible way, because they cannot get the necessary support for it in South Africa. [Interjections.]

The hon the Leader of the CP says that this is a White fatherland. In their official documents the CP says that the Black people already have their own fatherlands. Their policy is a policy of partition. [Interjections.] Outside those national states—the father-lands of the Black people—there is the rest of South Africa; and their is not a single magisterial district in the rest of South Africa where the Whites enjoy a majority.

They have it in Pretoria.

Oh please!

These, Sir, are the realities of South Africa. Now the hon members want to put forward a policy of partition. Does this mean that they want to move these Black people back to their homelands? Does this also mean that they want to lay claim to all the areas in South Africa, other than those areas which are national states today, on the basis of the 1936 Act? [Interjections.] The problem with the policy of the hon members of the CP is that it is impossible to implement. [Interjections.]

In this connection there is a very important political aspect which deserves the attention of all of us who want to see peace in South Africa. I have said that the Black people in South Africa are divided into the revolutionaries and the moderates, and we must choose sides between the revolutionaries and the moderates.

You are on the side of the revolutionaries.

We have sided with the moderates, and if the hon member for Lichtenburg says that we have sided with the revolutionaries, he knows that he is telling an untruth in this House.

There is no doubt that there is a political struggle under way among the ranks of the Blacks. There is no doubt that there is no possibility to negotiate with the ANC, and with people who have the same dedication as the ANC, with regard to a constitutional dispensation. The mistake the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition is making is that it is not on record that at every opportunity he has had and from every platform he has condemned the ANC’s involvement, its “commitment” and its dedication to violence and revolution in South Africa. [Interjections.] The hon the Leader of the Official Opposition said that he was opposed to all forms of violence, but today in this House he neglected to say that he rejected the ANC’s dedication to an endorsement of revolution in South Africa. When he spoke to Tambo, did he criticize him about this?

Yes.

It does not look as if it was very effective.

I want to return to the struggle in the Black ranks. All of us who want to see a peaceful future for this country, must undoubtedly co-operate with the moderate leaders in South Africa. These moderate leaders will not even discuss the relinquishing of South African rights of citizenship.

If the CP wants to give their policy credibility, they must tell us whether they deem it possible even to negotiate with the moderate Black people of South Africa in 1986 or at a later date provided that they must sign away their rights of citizenship. The realities of South Africa are that this is not possible. We must face up to such realities and adapt accordingly. Because the CP’s policy cannot be implemented in the light of the realities, the result is that they are following a dangerous path as far as the Black people are concerned.

If that party were to come into power, we must ask ourselves the question: Who is going to become stronger in South Africa? The moderate Black people or the revolutionaries; in other words the ANC? There can be no doubt about that. There is not a single thing the CP can offer the moderate Black leader of South Africa on which he can build to enhance his credibility among his own people. Because this impasse, which the Black man cannot get past, is built into the CP’s policy, there is no doubt that the revolutionary powers will become stronger if that party were to govern the country.

Give him freedom in his own area.

You are a quitter.

The hon member for Jeppe said that we must give the Black man freedom in his own area. I am sorry to say this, but the hon member is making a big mistake. The Black people must first accept this freedom, and there will have to be an agreement that he accepts this so-called freedom provided that he signs away his citizenship. The CP will never reach such an agreement with the Black people. Their policy is still-born.

Because this is the case, and because they are trying to gain support based on illusions and negative perceptions such as the fears they are arousing in the Whites of South Africa, they are doing the South African Whites a disservice. Let there be no doubt about this: Everything the members of the CP do and say and their total commitment to more separation and more measures with regard to apartheid—a word which is like a red flag to the Black people of South Africa—proves that the revolutionary climate in the country would increase under their government.

I am extremely grateful that the Whites of South Africa undoubtedly accept the realities of this country to a greater extent than those hon members of the CP who are dependent for support on the fears which they arouse and the old illusions and chimeras they are dreaming of. The White voters will reject them and continue to reject them.

Now the important question is: If the hon members of the CP were to get their way, would this strengthen or weaken the position of the Whites in South Africa? If one takes into consideration what is actually happening in South Africa, there is no doubt in my mind that the CP and what it is doing has in fact become a danger to the survival of the White man in South Africa.

The future of this country and its Whites can only be ensured on the basis of negotiation, a constitutional dispensation in which the rights of all minority groups, including the Whites, will be recognized, and the creation of good attitudes and relations in this country to such a great extent that everyone will want to respect the rights of the minority groups. [Interjections.]

The hon member for Kuruman remarked that the NP were quitters. Is the hon member trying to suggest to this House that the only way in which we must act to survive is by means of forceful military or police action? [Interjections.] Is the hon member’s attitude that we can only survive in South Africa by means of forceful military and police action? No, the future of all the people of South Africa will not depend on the military capability of this country, but on the goodwill prevailing between all the population groups. The reason why the revolutionaries in South Africa could not succeed with their wicked plans, was because the mutual goodwill in the country was of such a nature that it was not possible for them to muster the Black masses effectively.

Approximately 400 moderate. Black people have already been murdered by revolutionaries during the past year or so. They were murdered because they resisted these forces of evil. We have a duty to co-operate with the Black people of South Africa in a realistic way in order to ensure a secure future for our children and all the people of South Africa.

Mr Speaker, I do not wish to become involved in the debate between the CP and the NP. I wish to return to the main subject before this House. [Interjections.]

†One can only hope that the CP will one day join the 20th century and get its head out of the sand. There is no point in debating and arguing with its members at this stage of their political development.

Like all South Africans who are deeply concerned about the future of South Africa, I welcome the State President’s declaration of intent and the setting of yardsticks by which to measure future policy. If one is going to measure future policy, one is ipso facto also going to measure existing structures and policies by those same yardsticks.

Forgive me for saying that there is a welcome ring of familiarity for the NRP in much of what the State President said—even in some of the terminology. I myself proposed what I called “a Council of State”. It had exactly the same structure, except that at that time Coloureds and Indians were not represented in Parliament and were included in my proposal. This was as far back as 1979. Many of the yardsticks could be taken almost word for word from our “Aims and Principles” and our manifestos.

The situation in which South Africa finds itself, however, is far too serious to play petty politics on that level. I am not going to go back into the past and look for the causes or the blame. I am not going to say “I told you so”, repeat recriminations about the past or seek the blame for the causes of these problems. I want to look at the solutions which we desperately need.

I believe that the State President’s opening address can be a first step in really getting onto the road towards finding those solutions. We have to remember, of course, that 1985 also started with hope and expectations but that the baby met with disastrous starvation through suckling it on the dry dugs of an outmoded ideology. [Interjections.] Yes, Sir, some hon members will probably not know what this means. Those who do not know can go and look it up in a dictionary. [Interjections.] It has taken another year for the Government to wean itself from those dry dugs. I hope—and I believe everybody hopes—that after that disastrous year of hesitation and double-talk and fear of the right wing and of semi-paralysis, after a full year of blundering … [Interjections.] Yes, even when the Government acted correctly it appeared intent on wrecking everything as a result of its hopeless marketing. It does appear, though, that in that particular field the Government has learnt a lesson.

Let me, however, pause for a moment and reflect on the proposed new council that has been announced. I believe there can only be one Parliament, and that what we have to avoid is the creation of bodies which are extra-parliamentary power bases competing with Parliament, or bodies outside the parliamentary structure in the guise of Parliament. I am delighted to learn that this is going to be a statutory body, and I believe it must be clearly linked with Government, with the administration, in order for it to act as a medium which will bring Blacks into Parliament itself. In South Africa we cannot create Black structures which will act in competition with the legislature for the other group in the country. I believe that the way in which the State President set out his intent and his proposals gives us cause this year for much firmer hope that these will not simply be empty words. The emphasis was different. It was stated in very clear language and with a lack of qualification, something to which we have become so used already. This time it has not been the usual gobbledy-gook to which we have become so accustomed, stated in the strange language known as Nationalese, at which hon members on the Government side have become such masters, applying their art of making words mean whatever they want them to mean.

There are of course still some gaps. The hon the Leader of the Official Opposition put his finger on some of them. I am thinking here of aspects such as population classification and group areas. To quote a phrase from the Government’s own advertisement, however, I believe that “the fact is” that those two laws—the Population Registration Act and the Group Areas Act—will, once discrimination disappears, once there is no longer any advantage to be derived from belonging to a group other than one’s natural group, and when it no longer makes any difference what group one belongs to, will be of no further consequence whatsoever. Then, I believe, we will naturally and automatically revert to a straightforward system of registration of births within communities. Then there will of course be no further purpose in so-called “trying for White” or attempting to become part of a different community.

Similarly, when that happens, there will no longer be any need for the Group Areas Act because it will be replaced by a natural system of local option, the option we have pleaded for over the years. [Interjections.] Yes, I know hon members of the PFP reject local option. They believe that everybody must be forced into an integrated structure. We believe there must be an option, a choice. [Interjections.] This is the basic difference between our two parties. [Interjections.] I am not arguing that the basic difference is not there. They believe that every area in South Africa must be open to all while we believe that communities should have a choice in regard to whom they admit into their community and into their residential areas. This includes the Blacks, the Chinese and anybody else who wants to live there if that community accepts them. We say that that community should have that right. However, the Official Opposition says that the community should have no right at all in this regard. I say, therefore, that both of these laws will disappear of their own accord because, as the other discriminatory measures disappear, they will become superfluous. Therefore I am not concerned that their abolition is not the first step in this process. I say this because one cannot destroy everything and leave a vacuum. As soon as a vacuum is created, something fills it. One has first to produce the alternatives before one creates a vacuum. We do not want to see a vacuum created by destroying laws or administrative procedures which are in operation until we have something with which to replace them. What has to take the place of these two laws is a natural, normal form of birth registry plus acceptance by community choice in determining its own affairs. I believe that this offers a new opportunity to find solutions which we did not have prior to Friday last with the setting of certain clear guidelines.

However, all of this will be stillborn unless it is accompanied by a philosophical approach on the part of the Government which will give it life and make it work quickly and effectively. Unless the Government does not simply say “apartheid is outmoded” but accepts the philosophy that is needed to make the new deal work, it will fail. In this respect we will try our best to make a contribution because the philosophy that is necessary is one we helped to pioneer.

The Government will not like what I say but it must remember that its credibility today is at rock bottom both internally and to a large extent externally. The Government is going to need friends outside of its own blue card members. It is going to need friends to help to give credibility to the steps it is going to take. Where the Government acts correctly we will be prepared to give it that assistance.

I also want to appeal to the Black leaders in South Africa today not to split hairs or to judge on the grounds of what happened in the past because, if they do so, they will reject these new proposals. I appeal to them to give these proposals the opportunity to be a new starting point. We supported the referendum and the Constitution as a new starting point. Let us look at these proposals this year as a new starting point as well. I hope therefore that Black leadership in the townships and elsewhere will try to make these proposals work, not for any other reason but for the sake of South Africa as a whole and all its peoples.

I should also like to dwell for a moment on the critical issue of the violence and unrest in the townships. The primary targets and victims of that violence have been the Black leaders. They have become the targets of the revolutionaries and radicals who are exploiting the natural vulnerability and volatility of frustrated youths who, in the nature of young people, are easy to inflame. All of us were young once—some longer ago than others—and we know that young people are easy to inflame. That vulnerability is primarily exploited not against the Government and the authorities but against their own Black leadership and their local authorities.

I want to say that we must guard against being taken in by Bishop Tutu, the UDF and the ANC, all of whom are demanding that the forces of law and order be pulled out of the townships. We dare not expose law-abiding citizens to violence without attempting to afford them some protection.

However the real answer to the problem does not lie in our police. In this regard, although I do not have time to address the issue fully, I just want to tell the hon the Minister of Defence that I am not happy with the way troops are being used in a police capacity. I want to discuss this with him later. Having said that, I must say that I do not believe that either the police or the army, even if used properly in their appropriate responsibilities, represent the ultimate solution. The answer lies in township law enforcement units comprising people from the townships themselves, who will be properly trained and uniformed and officered under the authority of the township councils. I am not talking about vigilantes or uncontrolled militia on the vengeance trail, but about proper law and order forces who know the local inhabitants and who, because they live in the townships and are able to patrol constantly, will be able to prevent violence before it arises.

I know the Government has accepted this principle, but they have been toying with it. Only 70 to 90 such men have been trained thus far. We could put those people through a crash course and produce a force equal to the situation within a matter of months. However, they have been toying with the situation and I would urge the hon the Minister of Law and Order to get on with that task because I think that is where the answer lies.

The other prerequisite for legitimacy of the national council is going to be a legitimate political power base for Black leaders. Homeland leaders have such a power base. What we must do, is assist in the establishment of proper Black political parties in the townships and urban areas which moderate Blacks can join or which they can support. After free elections the leaders will emerge, who will then speak as the authentic leaders of the townships.

I want to address an appeal to those people who probably with very good intentions, want to talk to the ANC, Mandela and other radicals: Do not create status or importance for the ANC. Rather help by adding status to those bodies which represent responsible Black South African opinion.

I have here an ANC newsletter that was issued a month or two ago. With reference to the visits by South African businessmen and the question as to whether the discussions changed anything, the answer in this newsletter is “a big No.” I quote:

We are not going to attain a peace settlement in that atmosphere; an atmosphere of total rejection. However, if that energy were put to work in helping responsible leaders in the townships to create political parties to fight elections and establish administrations in order that they might provide improved amenities for their people—much needed electric lighting, sports fields, creches and new schools, etc.—then those Black leaders will speak for the Black people.

What we want and need in South Africa is not national convention alliances or movements or alliances of opposition groups and parties. Sir, do you think the HNP and the CP are going to come to an agreement with the ANC and the UDF? That is a crazy idea. What we want is an alliance or a coalition government of moderates across colour and party lines in South Africa. It is no use trying to bring together the extremes of both sides and suggesting that we should look for peace. The future will rest with our creating a centre of moderates in this country. This centre should neither be rigidly bound to the government party nor forced into a straight-jacket. It should accommodate people who believe in a peaceful, moderate and negotiated future for S.A. That is what I believe we should set out to do in the coming year. We should not waste our time running up to Lusaka and looking for a dream world where one simply waves a wand and all the problems are over.

Mr Chairman, we listened with great interest to what the hon member for Durban Point had to say here today, as we always have in the past because I think he is a man of reasonable vision. He is a man who has certainly gone a long way in politics in South Africa and therefore what he has to say is of importance to us. [Interjections.] However, the hon member still suffers from the same dilemma that he has been suffering from over all these years. Although the hon member agrees in principle with the steps that have been taken by the Government, he still clings to a process of hair-splitting in order to deflect from the tragedy of that particular party. I believe that is tragic when one considers—in the words of the hon member himself—that the time has come for all moderate and pragmatic South Africans to stand together and to work together for a better future in South Africa. The operative phrase is “work together”. I think the hon member and the hon members of the NRP will agree that the political spectrum in South Africa is rapidly crystallizing, across the colour line, into three very distinct groups. The room to manoeuvre for other parties with slight variances from the main parties is very limited indeed. In fact, I believe that those parties which wish to differentiate themselves from these three main groupings will find themselves without support from the populace because it is impossible for the population out there to distinguish between hair-splitting and genuine differences of principle between parties.

Mr Chairman, may I ask the hon the Deputy Minister a question?

The hon member can ask me a question shortly, Sir. I just want to deal with the main points which he made.

The hon member said right at the beginning of his speech that as recent as 1979 he himself had espoused the principles contained in the speech of the State President at the opening of Parliament this year. The hon member supported what the State President said and he stated very clearly indeed that that was the direction in which South Africa had to move. There is no doubt about that at all. He said that moderates of all shades and colour should come together to fight against the opposing forces which stand for revolution and conflict in South Africa. The hon member went on to demonstrate the different aspects of life in South Africa, which he used to point out this conflict potential.

One example which the hon member used was to say that one could not leave a vacuum. One could not destroy something today leaving a vacuum, and then move forward on a very sound basis. That is precisely what this Government has kept in mind in South Africa. We are advocates of evolutionary change, as are that hon member and his party. We agree 100% that one cannot destroy the fabric of a society or of a political structure without having an alternative structure which is acceptable to the majority of the people who must participate in that structure.

What were you negotiating with the ANC?

That brings me to the three main groupings which have crystallized and come into sharper focus in South Africa. This cuts right across the colour line, Mr Speaker, irrespective of whether one is a Black South African, a Coloured, an Indian or a White South African. One stands either for a unitary system in South Africa of one man, one vote and capitulates, as the Official Opposition has done, the PFP—and it does not matter whether one calls it a federal system or whether one denies that it is a unitary system; if it is one man, one vote based on a common voters’ roll then it must inevitably lead to group domination one by the other—or, on the other hand, one finds oneself in the company of the HNP and the CP who believe at all costs that one must have separation of the groups in South Africa. When we say all costs, Mr Speaker, we mean that there will be population groups in this country who will pay the ultimate price in violence and confrontation when they attempt to implement their policy. There is no way of putting CP policy into practice in South Africa except by means of force.

Then one comes to the plan of the NP and the Government of South Africa which is a form of government based on consensus without destroying legitimate group and individual rights. [Interjections.] If ever there was a human right in this world, it is the right to associate with those of one’s free choice.

Order! Will the hon the Deputy Minister take a question?

Not at the moment, Mr Chairman. The hon member can wait until the end of my speech and then he can ask me any question he likes. This Government believes in evolutionary change which must be brought about through the process of negotiation. [Interjections.] We believe in this Government that whatever new constitution is brought about must be brought about as the result of negotiation with the leadership of all population groups. [Interjections.] Also the Whites, yes. That is why we had a referendum in 1983. The State President has said on more than one occasion that any radical change in policy by this government will be tested by way of a referendum or election. The hon member knows that the policy of this government has always been to negotiate with and to listen to other population groups. [Interjections.] The national statutory council is a forum in which we shall listen to the legitimate Black leaders of South Africa as to what their aspirations are. [Interjections.] They will come forward. I want to agree with the hon member for Durban Point when he says we must bring in the Black moderates. That is precisely what we shall do.

I want to give the hon members of the CP the undertaking and to echo what the State President said that any significant change in policy by this government will be given to the electorate to test first. However, that does not preclude us from participating in negotiations with members of other population groups. We are doing so at the moment. [Interjections.] I think any party which believes we can move forward with evolutionary change in South Africa without consultation with leaders of other population groups will find themselves in a dead-end street.

I want to say to the hon member for Durban Point that we share his concern about violence in the townships. It is of paramount importance to this side of the House that law and order should be maintained at all costs. We believe that our track record in the past year and the performance of the hon the Minister of Defence and the hon the Minister of Law and Order has clearly indicated that the primary consideration of this government is to maintain law and order and to protect the inhabitants of the townships against the lawless elements of the ANC and the UDF. I want to assure the hon member—perhaps he listened to the hon the Minister of Law and Order recently—that we are going to expand the Police Force significantly to serve the needs of those people. The hon member is also right when he says that we must develop township police forces to serve the municipalities. If the hon member will take the trouble to go and listen and speak to the hon the Minister of Law and Order he will see this is already being done to a very large extent throughout South Africa.

There are only 70 men who have been trained.

The chances are that we shall increase the number of the Police Force significantly in the new year. If the hon member will take the trouble to go and look at the recruitment figures he will see that when the Minister announced that we were looking for new recruits there were more Black applicants to become policemen in the South African Police force this year and last year than ever before. Obviously the Black population themselves are concerned about maintaining law and order in the townships, and there we agree with the hon member.

The point I wish to make is that this Government is extremely concerned about protecting the civil liberties of every single South African irrespective of race, colour or creed. We will not succumb to the violence of the lawlessness in the townships. We believe that the majority of South Africans, particularly the Blacks, subscribe to that.

The hon member for Durban Point asked me a question across the floor earlier. He wanted to know when we had spoken to the ANC. I want to give the hon member the assurance that we do not speak to the ANC.

You said you were on the verge of a breakthrough.

The hon member now wants to interpret news reports the way he want to see them, instead of what the news actually is. [Interjections.] I cannot help it if that hon member does not have the ability to absorb and interpret news reports the way it should be done.

I want to dispute the statement made by the hon member for Durban Point that this party does not enjoy the popular support of the people of South Africa today. I want to contest that. I shall not refer to the Port Natal elections; the hon member knows what the results were there. This party romped home with a massive majority and I shall not talk about that hon member’s party support in that area because there is very little to talk about. [Interjections.] If the hon member took the trouble to go and read a recent survey done by the HSRC he could see that 65% of the White electorate support the State President and his new initiative in South Africa. Those results are barely six weeks old. [Interjections.] How much more proof does one need to show that this Government has the support of the majority of the Whites in South Africa and, I believe, a very significant sector of the Blacks? [Interjections.] When that process of negotiation has been completed, hon members will agree that the path of evolutionary reform chosen by this party is the only path with any hope for long-term success in providing peace and prosperity in South Africa.

And credibility?

We have to test credibility against something, and I want to ask the hon member for Mooi River how he tests credibility. Does he test it against the popular vote, the support of people, the facts of life? [Interjections.] I want to tell the hon member for Durban Point again, when he says the policy of the NRP is to bring Blacks into Parliament, that Parliament as we know it today is not the only constitutional form available to this country to allow people of all groups to participate in the decision-making process. I think the hon member will agree with that. His own party has said that they encourage in terms of their aims and principles Coloureds and Indians to participate in the various Chambers of Parliament. In fact, however, unless there has been a change in that party’s policy since I left it, they want an Erica Theron-type commission to establish the needs of the Blacks in South Africa before deciding what structure they should participate in. I want to ask the hon member if their policy has changed in that respect. [Interjections.] I ask the hon members: has their policy changed in that respect?

It is still the same old policy that won you your flat in Durban North.

Thank you very much indeed. The people of Durban North recognize the right policy when they see it. They have followed me in my support of these policies. I read recently in the Press that a head committee meeting was held by the NRP in order to change its policy to accommodate the Buthelezi Commission in kwaZulu/Natal. I want to ask the hon member directly if that is so or not. [Interjections.] Is it so, or is it not? It requires a simple answer, a simple “yes” or “no”.

You are getting more naïve by the day.

Well, either their policy has changed or it has not. I look forward to hearing from those hon members whether that is so or not. [Interjections.]

Order! I cannot allow a dialogue to be conducted across the floor.

I want to make a specific appeal to the hon members of the NRP still sitting in this House, all five of them, to follow their supporters and to support this Government in its endeavours to find and create a prosperous and peaceful South Africa for all South Africa’s citizens. [Interjections.] The time has run out for those hon members, and I believe, if they wish to retain a position of leadership, they must lead their people from the front and not from the back.

Let me come to the question of constitutional change in South Africa. I want to point out something that this Government has consistently said. This also serves to answer the hon member for Durban Point. The Government is not prepared to enter into discussions with any organization or leader that espouses violence for the simple reason that the moment one does that one condones the violence.

One cannot condemn the violence such as the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition has done on the one hand and yet on the other hand want to go and discuss matters with them. One first has to reach agreement on the fundamental principle that violence cannot be used as a means of bringing about change in this country.

That is one’s first task. Once one gets past that point then one can start talking to those people. I want to say to the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition and his party that it does not require discussions with the members of the ANC in Lusaka to convince them not to advocate violence. It does not require a visit to the ANC in Lusaka to convince them to stand away from violence. [Interjections.] I know the hon member for Bryanston agrees with me I want to ask the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition whether when he returned from Lusaka he was under the impression that the ANC was going to change its stance about violence. Of course not because they are totally committed to violence, because the majority of the leaders in a supreme body controlling the ANC are members of the SACP. The Communist Party’s ethics, its philosophy is one of advocating the destruction of the fabric of our South African society in order to take over with violence. They will not move away from that irrespective of what the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition says. What that leader did—and the public of South Africa will hold him responsible for this—is that he gave credibility to that organization. He undermined the position of South Africa in the fight against violence in South Africa.

I said to the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition some years ago that at first one will associate with people who advocate violence, then one will have to negotiate with them, then one will condone violence and inextricably one will find oneself participating in that violence eventually. I want to warn the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition that he is moving rapidly along those lines. In fact, we see already that the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition and the PFP have reached the stage where they are prepared to say that they will serve under the ANC—an unqualified statement. That is what the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition says. He will serve under the ANC. He was asked the question and replied in public. He did not qualify it either. He did not say that he would serve under the ANC if they eschewed violence. With no qualification he indicated his readiness to do it. Therefore it is very clear that the PFP is ready to capitulate to the forces of violence in South Africa. They are not there to protect the interests of all South Africans.

I want to say to those members of that party who are moderates and who are pragmatists, who believe that one will find a solution through negotiation and not through violence, that the time has come for them to reconsider their party allegiance.

It is very clear that the national convention is stillborn. One cannot get support for a national convention, not even from Black groups in South Africa. The convention alliance is clear proof that the direction in which that party wishes to lead South Africa is a stillborn direction unless one is prepared to capitulate to the forces of violence and anarchy in this country.

It is that party which consistently calls for the military forces to be removed from the townships so that they be handed over to the criminal elements in the form of the UDF, the ANC and Azapo who are intimidating the majority of those Blacks in order that they will not participate in a negotiating process. Again it is clear evidence of the manner in which they support, aid and abet the forces of violence in South Africa.

Who is killing whom? Blacks are killing Blacks in the townships. The hon the Deputy Minister of Information told us earlier that the majority of the deaths and violence in the townships is a case of Black on Black. They are attempting to intimidate those people so that they do not participate in a negotiating process with moderates in South Africa.

Mr Speaker, on a point of order. I had to wait because I was trying to find out clearly what the hon Deputy Minister meant. Three sentences ago he stated that members on this side aided and abetted the forces of violence.

Order! The hon Deputy Minister must withdraw that.

Mr Speaker, I withdraw it. May I say that what that party advocates is the withdrawal of the military forces from the townships of South Africa, the withdrawal of which would aid and abet the criminal elements of the ANC and the UDF which constitute the forces of violence. However, I withdraw it as you request, Sir, because I did not say that members of that party specifically aided and abetted violence. The policy that is espoused by that party in advocating that the military forces must be withdrawn aids and abets those forces.

If one examines the utterances of members of the Official Opposition one can show time and time again that they have an unrealistic view of the forces and the dynamics of politics in a plural society such as that of South Africa. That surprises me because the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition is a sociologist of repute. He has written many books. Yet he consistently denies the existence of groups and group rights, and that in a plural society one cannot share power in a unitary system, not even on a federal basis. One can only do that by means of mechanisms different to a unitary system. The hon the Leader of the Official Opposition will agree with that if he thinks about it very carefully.

What is the ultimate solution going to be for us in South Africa? We are going to have to find political structures supported by the majority of the citizens of the Republic of South Africa who subscribe to the policy of group rights maximizing individual rights within the group. [Interjections.] That is what the State President said. One can negotiate with other groups to find a new political structure in which all can participate without sacrificing one’s group identity. In a multicultural society such as we have in South Africa, that is the only way in which we can move forward. There are more moderate Black South Africans than there are radicals. There are more White moderates in South Africa than radicals, and there are more Coloured and Indian moderates than radicals in South Africa. They can have confidence in the fact that this Government, following the direction we are going in, will succeed in bringing about peace and prosperity for all moderates in South African. That is the only direction we can follow.

We cannot aim at instant solutions, clichés or popularity. We have to take into consideration the fundamentals which are so important in bringing about lasting peace in South Africa. There is not a single member in this Chamber who will get up and say that this Government has ever been expedient in changing the situation in South Africa merely to gain popularity. [Interjections.] When the decision-makers face the hostility of the world, they have to know they have to be true to their principles and not just make decisions for the sake of popularity. [Interjections.] Of course one cannot do that! One cannot do it! One has to take into consideration the realities of the interests of all South Africans and not only espouse that which the media or other popularity groups want to see done. If one examines the track record of this country under the NP Government, there are very few people who can get up and honestly say that South Africa today, in 1986, is worse off than it was 10, 15 or 20 years ago. [Interjections.]

The chorus of the ill-informed should look at the average standard of living in South Africa as compared with that of 10 years ago. They should look at the literacy rate, the number of pupils in school…

Mr Speaker, may I ask the hon Deputy Minister a question?

That hon member may make his speech in the Budget debate, Sir.

People should look at the number of Black pupils at school, the number of houses built for Blacks, the number of Whites at university, the number of motor-cars on the road, and all the statistics that really count. If they do that, they will see that this country is better off today than it has ever been. [Interjections.]

Look at the number of bankruptcies! [Interjections.]

Order! The hon member for Bezuidenhout must contain himself.

The hon member for Umhlanga says we should look at the riots and the burning down of property in the townships. [Interjections.] That is precisely that kind of generalization which is spread overseas which blackens the name of South Africa. [Interjections.]

What is the truth, however? The State of emergency has been declared in 36 out of 215 magisterial districts in South Africa. That means that less than 13% of the magisterial districts in South Africa are under a state of emergency. Then the hon member says South Africa is worse off now than we were 10 years ago because of this rioting and the burnings in the townships. [Interjections.] If the hon member for Umhlanga examines the facts, he will see that the progress and evolutionary change in the political field of South Africa gives one more hope and is more successful than even he has thought. In 1983 when he thought that the referendum was going to be successful and he and the NRP voted “yes” for it, he endorsed that the direction taken by the NP is the only direction for political reform in South Africa. It is the only direction, and 77% of the population agreed with them.

One can have equal confidence in this government that, as it did in 1977 and in 1978 and in 1983, it will move along the path of evolutionary reform which will bring about peace and prosperity to the majority of South Africans because the NP is dedicated to it. Our track record proves it. I want to say to the hon members of the NRP that time has run out for them and that their supporters are already supporting the NP.

Mr Speaker, I listened with interest to the speech by the hon the Deputy Minister, but I think it is time we looked at what is going on in the ranks of the White people and in particular the Afrikaners. The result in Sasolburg and the other by-elections means only one thing and this is that among the Whites and particularly among the Afrikaners there is an increasing tide building up against the Government and its new policies. The electorate rejects them earnestly and forcefully.

The day after the Sasolburg result, Beeld summed things up nicely on its front page with these words: “HNP skok in Sasol”. This reflected the reaction within the NP itself. It was a shock for them. They did not know that the tide within the ranks of the Afrikaners had already turned so strongly against them. There were various issues that led to the result. For example, the Government has decided to allow Indians to settle in the Free State now, in spite of the long tradition and the character of the Free State that it is the one province where Indians do not live.

I cannot go into all the other issues. What surprised the HNP itself was the way the electorate in Sasolburg reacted, because for the first time there was a mixed marriage in their ranks. This House must not doubt for a moment that Sasolburg is a modern community. The Afrikaners of Sasolburg are fundamentally the same as their forefathers. They do not differ from their forefathers in principle, in viewpoint, or in their aims and aspirations and ideals for South Africa and particularly for their own people. They are modern but fundamentally the same. They asked us questions at the meetings. Here the Government has decided to repeal the legislation on mixed marriages, but where are the Van den Bergs to live? Where are their children to go to school? On which voters’ list are their children to be registered? [Interjections.] This couple has two children and it will not be long before they are able to vote. Are they then to be listed on the mother’s voters’ list or on the father’s? The Government provided no answers at all to these questions during the campaign. It repealed the Act, but made absolutely no plans about what to do with the mixed marriages and families.

I have now expressed my opinion on the result of the by-election in Sasolburg. There has never been a by-election in South Africa in which the two opponents were in such agreement regarding the significance of the result. My opponent in Sasolburg, the hon member Dr Odendaal, himself wrote in a letter to Beeld that in his opinion the result was nevertheless a reflection of the Sasolburg electorate’s reluctance to walk the road of reform with the Government. It could not have been stated better. What is more, the Government must agree with him wholeheartedly otherwise he would not be back in this House so soon. [Interjections.] However, the Afrikaans electorate is not rejecting only specific policies; it is rejecting, too, the whole new way of thinking that lies at the root of the NP’s actions today.

In this connection I should like to associate myself with the explanation already given here by the hon member for Waterberg, namely that we Afrikaners, as well as a growing number of English speakers and speakers of other languages, do not regard ourselves as part and parcel of an all-inclusive South African nation consisting of X number of minorities. We are definitely not a minority of any nation! [Interjections.] Through the decades and centuries the Afrikaner has chiselled out for himself an own nationhood in this country—through conflict, through wars, through the Great Trek, through strikes, through election campaigns. We are Afrikaners who have been hacked out of this earth and we are not prepared—not now nor in the future—to become part and parcel of any other all-inclusive nation. We do not want to remain in the “British Empire” and we shall certainly not become absorbed into this mixed, grey, motley conglomerate nation that the NP is creating for its ideals today. [Interjections.]

Therefore, Sir, the voters of Sasolburg, who are representative of the voters of the Vaal Triangle—and I am therefore very glad that the hon members from the other side of the river are also here today, because the Sasolburg voters are the same as theirs; the language of Sasolburg is the language of Vanderbijlpark and of Vereeniging; they are the same class of people—are rejecting the view I have already mentioned. They support the traditional, ancient view of the Afrikaner that here in South Africa, there are and will remain, many peoples. [Interjections.] They support the idea that it is a disservice to every other people, including the Black peoples and the Coloureds, to want to force them into one conglomerate nation, as is being advocated by the Government today.

Consequently the voters of Sasolburg also support the policy that stems from this basic view, namely the policy of the separation of races, or apartheid as it is also often called. I want to stress that this is not simply being done arbitrarily. It is happening because deep-seated differences—ineradicable differences!—exist between the races and the peoples.

The American anthropologist, Carleton Coon, has said that the White race is quite possibly 200 000 years older than the Black race. [Interjections.] One must accept that this, inter alia—I am mentioning only one fact—gives an indication of how deep the differences are between the races. The differences between the peoples are ineradicable. The Afrikaner people, the White people of South Africa, is a clearly identifiable people with its own nature, tradition, character, ideals and principles, as well as its own history from which nothing and no one, not least this Government, will separate it. [Interjections.]

Integration is a monstrosity; it is a very ugly thing because it wants to change this fine diversity of peoples into a grey, homogeneous mass. We support the principle of diversity. We like a Zulu people that remains a Zulu people. We like a Coloured people that says: “We want to have an own character and identity in South Africa.” [Interjections.] According to the HSRC report, those Coloureds who are the Government’s colleagues have only 25% of the Coloured vote. The HSRC has already proved in a survey that 25% of the Coloureds subscribe to the principle and the policy of separation. It is with those Coloured people that we shall be associated when the time is ripe.

The reform process is headed for a Black communist dictatorship, as has happened everywhere else in Africa. I cannot understand how the hon members can talk far and wide and can run around overseas while they simply have to look around in Africa. In the past few decades there has been hardly a single state in which a White regime has not been turned into a Black communist dictatorship. This is exactly what is going to happen in South Africa if this reform process is not checked. There is nothing permanent between Malan, Strydom and Verwoerd’s ideal of separation and, on the other hand, a Black communist dictatorship. If, from a policy of racial separation as the NP initially stood for, you first begin to place your foot on the slippery slope of reform, you will slide on your behind right into Black majority rule. In this world there is nothing permanent between these two concepts.

There are deep-seated differences between races and peoples, which lead to conflicts of interests. We in the Herstigte Nasionale Party feel that it is wise to accept that the differences run so deep and so wide that they will inevitably lead to such conflicts. From that basic point of departure we have to determine our policy. The aspirations that are being rejected and disparaged by the NP today have not failed; they have been betrayed by the NP. If only Dr Verwoerd had lived longer. If only he had not been murdered! His whole pattern and his vision for South Africa were succeeding admirably. He therefore had to be removed from the scene by the left-wing forces, and he was murdered. He had to be got out of the way so that this new process of reform could be put into operation.

The NP has dealt itself a death blow by declaring apartheid dead after 20 years. There is, however, something that it does not know. The NP says that apartheid is dead and obsolete. Pay attention now to what General Smuts said in the Cape Town city hall during the second half of 1947. He said: “Segregation has fallen on evil days.” Less than a year later he was defeated at the polls. If someone says this or says that apartheid is obsolete, the bells toll loudly for him.

We must not forget that one of the main reasons for General Smuts’s defeat was that he had a second lieutenant by the name of Jan Hofmeyr, just as the present State President has a lieutenant by the name of Chris Heunis, the hon the Minister of Constitutional Development and Planning. Today the hon the Minister plays exactly the same role in the ranks of the Afrikaners that Jan Hofmeyr played on the eve of 1948.

I challenge the Government and the State President. [Interjections.] In Port Elizabeth, when he had the NP congress before him, he more or less said that he would lay down his life for group areas. That congress gave him the greatest round of applause of the whole series of NP congresses. If he says that apartheid is obsolete, how on earth can he still support the Group Areas Act and separate schools? That this is an essential issue is proved by the fact that the Kragbron electorate voted in favour of the HNP, in other words the right wing, by a substantial majority. The importance of this is revealed by just one mixed marriage and the question on that subject that I asked a school principal at a meeting. “What is going to happen,” I asked, “if the people come to live here?” He answered: “As long as I am the principal, no children of mixed descent will attend this school.” My reply to him was: “I appreciate your standpoint, but you and your standpoint have no chance if the Government instructs you to accept them.”

If the Government has declared apartheid to be obsolete it must now announce, if it is politically honest, that the Group Areas Act, separate schools, and the Population Registration Act are going to be repealed. If it does not do this, it does not even have the courage to stand by the principles of a Malan, a Strijdom and a Verwoerd. Under pressure, the NP will not even have the courage to stand by its present reform policy. In the long run it does not have the courage to stand by any set of principles.

The leaders of our people saw this attack on us coming a long way off; for that reason help was given early in the seventies to what was then Rhodesia. As early as April 1974, Mr John Vorster said that what was taking place in Angola and Mozambique was merely a prelude to what was still to take place in South Africa. Only a few months later, however, on 10 October 1974, he suddenly did an about face when he made his notorious détente speech. This was the beginning of the end of Rhodesia. [Interjections.] Mr Ian Smith said recently:

The tragedy is that what Mr Vorster did to the White people of what was then Rhodesia, this Government is now doing to the White people of South Africa. It is fundamentally the same thing. The Government is pressurizing them into a situation in which they have to relinquish their principles and ideals and accept racial integration and racial mixing.

Take for example the case of the hon the Minister of Education and Development Aid. In 1978—if I remember correctly, it was shortly after the State President was elected to his previous post—the hon the Minister said: “We must not rule out the possibility of one man, one vote in South Africa.” Furthermore, the hon member for Benoni said the other day that if it were up to him, there would already be two or three Black ministers in the Cabinet this session. However, the cherry on the top is the hon member for Randburg. During the by-election in Sasolburg, he said in an interview with the Toronto Star:

[Interjections.]

These men are lighting the way for the State President’s policy. I do not know what the PFP is worried about; they can get up and go home and take trips abroad because the NP is doing their work for them. They just have to wait a while. These men are lighting the way and they express in advance the thoughts the State President is already thinking.

I did not know this but in two or three months’ time the NP will be on the ANC’s list of anti-apartheid groups with which to hold talks. It will be just a little while before this happens; it will not be long now.

There is a second tragedy that I shall now have to leave because my time is running out. There is only one course for South Africa: one must follow the policy of the separation of races. For South Africa there is only this one course, principle and ideal. It will not create a perfect world, but it will bring far more tranquility, peace, order and prosperity to South Africa than is the case today. In the days of a Malan, a Strijdom and a Verwoerd, things where better under the rule of these men than under the rule of this rotten Government. I therefore say that we should return to and adhere firmly to that policy. Although the NP has renounced those principles, the White people of South Africa have not done so. That is why I am standing here today.

You took a long time to get here!

Yes, that is true, but the best things in life come slowly and great things have small beginnings. Great oaks have often grown from an acorn so small that at first it could not be seen.

I conclude by saying that with this Government’s policy, South Africa has been plunged into the greatest crisis in its existence. There will be a recovery but this will happen only when there is a racially pure national government in power in South Africa.

Mr Speaker, … [Interjections.]

Order!

Mr Speaker, I take pleasure in welcoming the hon member for Sasolburg to this House. I shall deal with my reasons in due course. One of the reasons he is sitting here today, of course, is a mixed marriage. However he will have to realize that he will have to live in sin with the Conservative Party for some time. Eventually he will have to enter into a mixed marriage with them.

And you were the hon “runnerup”! [Interjections.]

Yes, Mr Speaker, it is not only the hon member for Jeppe who is nervous, it seems to me as if the hon member for Sasolburg has also been somewhat unnerved by my return to this House. [Interjections.] I accept that he is nervous. However we shall face up to one another again in future debates in this House. Nevertheless I stand by my contention that the mixed marriage between the CP and the HNP will eventually have to take place. [Interjections.] Well, we can only hope that the progeny of that marriage will not cause South Africa too much harm.

The hon member also went on to speak about the leftist forces that succeeded in removing Dr Verwoerd from the scene. I should like to know from the hon member for Sasolburg whether he includes Mr John Vorster in the ranks of those leftist forces. Does he include him, too, in those leftist forces that removed Dr Verwoerd from the scene? [Interjections.] Why, then, does he not also mention the name of the late Mr Vorster as one of the great leaders of South Africa? Do he and his comrades in the right-wing radical concoction differ so drastically with one another that he still condemns and censures Mr Vorster? How then does he ever expect to get along with the Coloureds with whom he will be co-operating in future, if he and the hon members of the CP cannot even come to an agreement with one another in regard to this aspect? [Interjections.]

Mr Speaker, the cowards of Africa believe in the easy solutions. The cowards of Africa usually prefer the military to the political solution. The cowards of Africa usually prefer the gun barrel to common sense. The cowards of Africa prefer the battlefield to the conference table. A defence force, Mr Speaker, is not there to find a country’s constitutional solutions. A defence force is there to protect the integrity of a country. There are Whites in South Africa that also believe in easy solutions, that also believe in violence as a solution to the problems of South Africa. After all, has the hon member for Sasolburg not said this on more than one occasion? Has he not said more than once: “Then we shoot them”? Will he have the courage to do so today? After all, his leader has said this from a public platform. Will the hon member also display the courage to repeat that same statement in this House?

There are Whites, Mr Speaker, who believe in violence and in revolution as the only method of achieving a solution. I am grateful that the right-wing militant party of South Africa now also enjoys representation in this House. It is just possible that this will create a safety valve which will make it possible for the moderates in this country to carry out constitutional reform in a fashion that will not be accompanied by violence. The democratic process in which the hon member for Sasolburg can now also participate can therefore afford us that opportunity of eventually carrying out this process of reform without violence on the part of the Whites being necessary. Of course, we must not think that these are only hollow words. I believe we all know Whites who are prepared to apply this so-called easy solution. The NP government will always choose the solution of political reform.

It is a difficult path to follow. Nor is it an easy solution. There is no gainsaying that, of course. However, we bear a responsibility to the country and its people to take that path. Moreover, with a leader like our State President we certainly intend to take that path.

Then, too, Mr Speaker, it is also true that we in South Africa have outgrown apartheid. The proof of that is sitting here. The tatters of apartheid are present in this House today. The right-wing militant party, as we heard again this afternoon, absolutely radiates racism. Racism radiates from it. It is that same right-wing militant party that believes that we must chase the Blacks into the sea; that that is the solution for us—chase all the Blacks into the sea! Allow me to mention that they do not use the word “Blacks”; certainly not.

Then, too, there are the other tatters of apartheid that are represented here, viz the radical right-wing party present here which forms the whited sepulcher, which still represents the sugar-coated form of apartheid. [Interjections.] The members of that party are people who make an absolute of ethnicity or the multicultural nature of South Africa’s population composition. They also make an absolute of nationalism and maintain that only the rights of the Whites in South Africa should be looked after.

We believe that one cannot protect the rights of Whites unless one also makes quite sure that all other population groups in our country also have rights. They must have rights enabling them to make decisions, chiefly in regard to their own affairs, but also giving them a joint say, a joint right of decision-making, in regard to matters affecting everyone in South Africa.

Nor can one ignore the multicultural nature of South Africa’s population, as the PFP tries to do. They do so deliberately. According to them one may not speak about ethnicity. Nor may one speak about the ethnic diversity in South Africa, because that is supposedly a swearword.

We on this side of the House firmly believe that whatever constitutional dispensation may come into being in South Africa in the future, it will have to reflect the multicultural nature of this country. We do not believe that that is apartheid; we believe that that is a matter of taking the realities in our country into account.

That is the road that we in the NP shall take. Nor shall we falter on this road. It may well be that when we proceed along this road of reform we shall have to pay a price for doing so, that we shall probably have to encounter more than one case such as that of Sasolburg on this course that we are following. We must not take fright and stop what we are doing as a result of the outcome of the election in Sasolburg.

Indeed, our State President has indicated that the NP, in contrast to the cowards of Africa, has the courage not necessarily to seek the easy solutions. On the contrary, we shall have to seek the solutions by way of common sense, in consultation with the other population groups that share this country with us. We do have the leaders to enable us ultimately to carry out this process of constitutional development. We therefore believe that it will succeed.

Mr Speaker, they say that one cannot choose one’s family but one can choose one’s friends. Likewise, Whips can choose their speakers and this entire House will wonder according to which criteria the NP chose its speakers today. [Interjections.]

Let me say something about the State President’s Address at the opening of Parliament. That address unleashed a veritable avalanche of debate, speculation and expectation. Most of the reaction to it has been favourable. Some of it has been cautious and there has been the inevitable negative response from the sceptics and the cynics.

Those who have responded favourably—now listen carefully—have expressed the very fervent wish that the Government should now move quickly and effectively to put its announced reform intentions into practice. They are just as fervently praying that the Government will not once again, as it has so often done in the past, undermine its own efforts by hesitation, equivocation, clumsiness or poor public relations.

Just today, a large number of Coloured members of Parliament entered the parliamentary members’ dining room and, despite what the State President said on Friday about apartheid being outdated, this Government refused to serve lunch to a number of Coloured members of Parliament. What more disgraceful act, seen against the spirit of the State President’s speech, and what more damaging act could have been committed in view of the impression that the State President is attempting to create in South Africa and in the outside world. I believe that this Government must think again when it comes to such petty, disgraceful and harmful acts as far as South Africa is concerned. [Interjections.]

The sceptics are expressing many doubts, some of which are valid, in regard, inter alia, to the failure of the State President to address the vexed question of group areas. Other doubts relate to the continued application of the state of emergency, the uncertainty in regard to the Government’s attitude to forced removals and the fact that a reaffirmation to move away from all discrimination based on race, creed or colour was not made. The cynics will continue to be cynical until such time as the Government proves by its deeds that its rhetorical undertakings are sincere and that they are really taken seriously. It was perhaps inevitable that the revolutionary groups on the far left would display no interest in the announced reforms and that, on the contrary, they would declare them to be of no consequence. These groups are committed to the violent overthrow of the existing order in South Africa and the replacement of this order with a socialist, one-party dictatorship in which all freedoms for which we are now striving will cease to exist.

However, I believe that all mature, sensible and responsible South Africans—irrespective of their political affiliations or of their race or ethnic groups—who wish to see a new South Africa based on justice and equal opportunity for all its citizens, who long for peace and stability and who wish to co-operate in the achievement of growth and prosperity for all, can take heart at the content of the State President’s speech. They can believe that we have indeed reached a significant turning point in our history. This will be a turning point away from the negative, destructive and counter-productive politics of confrontation of the past—I hope—and, towards the positive politics of negotiation and co-operation which will lead us step by step towards constructive development, peace and progress.

All this depends largely on the reaction of the Government to the speech made by the State President. I should like to urge all South Africans, as well as all observers of our political scene who are sincerely interested in the development of the politics of our country, to study the State President’s speech and the statements that he made during the course of 1985 very carefully and very objectively. It is very important that we should all understand clearly what he has said. We must understand what it really means and what developments we can expect in the future. In order to avoid disappointment and frustration because of unfulfilled expectations, it is particularly important that people should not read things into the speech that were not said. Already from the response on television the other night certain people have made incorrect deductions from the State President’s speech. It is equally important that many people should not close their ears to the significant things that were in fact said. In particular, the members of the NP and even more so the members of the Cabinet should read the State President’s speech and the statements which he made during 1985 again and again in order to grasp precisely what he said and to establish precisely what it means in terms of the need to bring about significant and far-reaching reforms in legislation and Government action. Each and every Cabinet Minister should take a very careful look at all the legislation, regulations and Government actions in his particular cupboard. They will find many bits and pieces of the apartheid skeleton rattling around in their respective cupboards. However sentimental the hon members of the Cabinet may feel about these mementos to an inglorious past, now is the time to consign them to the incinerator. While they are busy studying the speech and the statements of the State President it would be advisable for them to make an equally thorough study of the advertisement that he placed in the weekend newspapers. Some members of the Cabinet may find it advisable to do so after having swallowed a tranquilizer.

I believe very strongly that the time has arrived for all moderate, sensible and responsible South Africans to find common ground with one another in terms of a programme of broad, common principles, so that we can establish a broad front and mobilize our numbers and abilities in order to do two things. Firstly we must attempt to offset the revolutionary efforts of the far left. On the other hand we must urge, pressurize and force the Government to carry out their reforms and, when they carry out their reforms, offer them our services, our talents and our abilities to assist them in bringing about those reforms. I believe that 90% of all South Africans fall into this category.

The State President has pronounced the death-sentence on apartheid. I hope that he will be resolute in not countenancing any last-minute appeals or petitions for mercy or clemency. Even the hon member for Houghton who is not in favour of the death sentence would not hold that view with regard to apartheid. We must avoid a slow, throttling process which is messy and unimpressive. I suggest a firing squad at dawn followed by a quick cremation. In particular, and this is significant, every member of the Cabinet should be a member of that firing squad. Some of them like the hon Minister of Constitutional Development and Planning are very excited to get into the firing squad, I just hope that he does not shoot himself in the foot in the process. Others such as the hon the Minister of Law and Order are very reluctant, and may be wondering whether a water pistol or a rubber bullet may be acceptable. However, this is the point. Every Cabinet Minister must deliver a fatal shot to apartheid from his position in that firing squad. Every one of the Cabinet Ministers sitting in front of us has some aspect of apartheid in his department that must be eliminated as quickly and as effectively as possible because the credibility of the State President’s speech, the credibility of the Government, and the stability and future peace and progress in our country depend on their performance in the elimination and the eradication of what remains of apartheid. We do not want superficial wounds and we shall not tolerate any Cabinet Minister who deliberately misses his target. [Interjections.]

In line with what I have said, I want to talk to the hon the Minister of National Education. He has a fairly large chunk of the apartheid skeleton rattling around in his cupboard. This chunk of the apartheid skeleton is represented by the rigid apartheid structures for the provision of education for the separate race groups in line with the own affairs provisions of the constitution. At the time the constitution was adopted we warned him that this manifestation of apartheid would come back to haunt him again and again, and it is doing so now. The Black, Coloured and Indian communities simply will not believe that separate education can also be equal education.

It is accepted that the Department of National Education and the provisions in the Act which lays down norms and standards for the financing of the running and the capital costs of education for all population groups and norms and standards for syllabi, examination and certification of qualifications within the framework of a set of principles set out in the National Policy for General Education Affairs Act that will contribute to achieving to a certain extent what we are trying to arrive at.

It is also accepted that it is technically possible to have schools of the same standard, equipped in the same way with teachers with the same qualifications, and that technically it is possible to bring about equal education. Education in such racially segregated schools can be claimed to be technically equal. However, it remains discriminatory because it denies the right, the privilege, the opportunity and the advantage to children from different racial backgrounds, who live in the same society, to meet and communicate during their formative years at school in order to develop understanding, empathy and the ability to co-operate with one another, all values and experience which are vitally important for people who have to live together, play together and work together in the pursuit of common goals throughout the rest of their lives. Therefore, separate education may be equal, technically, but it remains discriminatory. Why should my children be denied the fundamental right they have if they wish to go to school with Coloured, Indian and Black children whom they must have an opportunity to get to know because they have to live with them?

Mr Chairman, one could meet the first principle set out in the Act of equal opportunities for education but the third principle one cannot meet while one has separate education because that principle says that education shall give positive recognition to the freedom of choice of the individual, of parents and organizations in society. The principles the State President spelled out, both in his speech and in his statements in 1985—the principles of no discrimination based on race and colour, the principles of equal citizenship, the principle that apartheid is outdated and must be scrapped—also embody the principles of freedom of choice and freedom of association for the individual. If one accepts that the State President meant what he said, and if one accepts the third principle in the Act which now determines general policy for education in South Africa, it is clear that the Government are committed to the principle of freedom of choice. If they are committed to the principle of freedom of choice in education, they are effectively committed to the principle of opening our schools and other educational institutions to all race groups.

I realize that it is unrealistic to expect the Government to do so. It would be traumatic for the Government to open all schools immediately or in the very near future. It is a hot potato which the Government seem unable to handle. However, I must emphasize that their commitment to the principles enunciated, if strictly interpreted, means just that. We in the PFP—whilst we are determined consistently, tenaciously and continuously to bring to the attention of the Government all matters which are in conflict with their enunciated intentions and to pressurize them to give effect to the announced reforms—also seek to assist the Government in a positive and constructive way to find ways and means for achieving this without bringing about disruption or conflict, or possibly injuring the reform process. In this spirit I accept that the Government are not prepared to accept the PFP’s policy although after my speech they may be prepared to accept it—it is still possible in terms of the Government’s policies and principles, and in terms of the things which they have enunciated, have to find a way out of this dilemma, this deadlock, this conflict. However this means that the Government must be prepared to establish a department of open education and allow all schools in South Africa, by way of a decision by their parent bodies, to remove themselves from the control of the existing education departments and to place themselves under the control of an open department of education, which means that those schools can be opened. This would give effect to the principles of freedom of choice and freedom of association and would go a long way towards defusing the highly emotional aspects relating to our present system of segregated education.

Let me once again emphasize that it would not meet what we in the PFP would wish for South Africa. We would wish for the opening of all schools to all children, but we accept that the Government cannot do that because they do not yet have the courage or the insight to be able to take that step. [Interjections.] Nevertheless, within the restrictions and confines of existing policies and principles, the Government can still achieve the effect of open schools to a very large extent by allowing schools, children and parents the freedom of choice.

Principle VI which deals with the fact that the provision of formal education shall be the responsibility of the State, provided that the individual, the parents and organized society shall have a shared responsibility, choice and voice in this matter, and Principle VIII according to which provision shall be made for the establishment of State subsidization of private education within the system of education provision, allow a further dimension to the above suggestion, namely that parents can be granted far better participation in the establishment, policy determination and management of schools. This would both satisfy the desire of communities to have a larger say in the education of their children and reduce the financial and administrative burden of the State. Equally such a scheme could include all existing private schools and provide for the establishment of large numbers of additional schools funded and administered by the private sector. Since such schools would all be open, it would mean that a large number of White, Black, Coloured and Indian children would now have the opportunity of attending the same schools. By providing for adequate State subsidization such schools would be accessible to children from all communities and socio-economic levels of society.

The hon the Minister and I both know that there is a problem in terms of the perceptions of the other groups in South Africa. There is a dilemma in terms of the restrictions of own affairs education on the one hand and on the other hand the need to meet the meaning and spirit of the principles enunciated by the State President and set out in the principles on which the education Act is based. There is a problem and the Government will not be able to solve that problem to the satisfaction of the other communities unless they are prepared to provide opportunities for people, who so wish, to attend open schools, and not to be restricted to attending racially segregated schools which exist at the moment. One cannot do it by allowing for instance the White Department of Education and Culture to be the controlling body for open schools, or the Black, Coloured or Indian department.

People’s emotional requirements will only be met once they are satisfied that the system under which they are studying and the schools which they are attending—and everything else attached to it—is an open system, in other words a non-racial system. That is the deeply felt and experienced emotional need which large numbers of people in other communities are experiencing today.

I believe that if the Government are prepared to give consideration to this suggestion, they will indeed find a way out of this dilemma. I believe that they will have opened the way to a natural, evolutionary development towards freedom in education in the future for all the children of all the communities in our country.

Mr Speaker, the hon member for Bryanston touched on a matter in his way, without keeping the factual situation in mind. Anyone interested in the education of our children will know that South Africa is not only multinational, not only plural, not only poly-ethnic, but that there are various languages and cultures in South Africa and that we must make provision for all these people.

The hon member now comes and says it would make an immensely good impression if there were to be an open department of education now.

In my opinion, what worries the average Black man as well as the people of colour in South Africa, is not so much being in the White schools. What those people want is equal opportunities for them in this country, also in the field of education. In other words, for those people to have the same standard, so that their teachers will have the same standard of training. They want equal opportunities in this respect. I want to say—and I am quite prepared to admit it—that the Whites in South Africa have a great advantage on this level. There is no doubt about it.

The backlog the other groups in South Africa have, will undoubtedly have to be made up. If it requires great efforts from our side to give that opportunity to those people, I say we must do so, within the framework of our abilities. It is not relevant, however, to say that integrated schools are imperative, and that this will resolve the problems in South Africa. If I look at this Government’s achievements during the past few years, I see a fantastic increase in the number of pupils in our Black schools. The cost of that amounts to millions and millions of rands today.

What amazes me about that hon member, the chief spokesman of his party on education matters, is that he has not made use of this opportunity to express a single word of aversion towards those individuals who want to prevent the children from receiving education, who help to burn down schools, to sow confusion and cause problems. That is of great importance. It is beyond my comprehension that someone who claims that his education and his opportunities are inferior in comparison with those of the Whites, can allow anyone to spoil his meagre educational opportunities and his further education in South Africa.

That hon member and his party must not use education as an example of what can still be rectified. They should rather encourage the people to use the opportunities given to them. That will help South Africa and breed a healthy attitude. Today, however, there is a large number of Whites, with the hon member for Sasolburg as an example …

Do you agree with him?

No, I do not agree with him. There are also the hon members of the CP, whose party is fed as a result of the revolutionary kind of events in South Africa. The burning down of schools adds to that party’s growth. The hon member for Bryanston does not say a word about that, however, for he will not dare to make an attack on those people. The PFP’s whole objective is to prove that the Government’s policy is failing on the basis of the increase in unrest and problems in South Africa. They do not say a word, however, about the people who cause the problems in South Africa.

Where does the unrest come from?

The hon member for Rissik is asking me where the unrest comes from. He knows where the unrest comes from. It is caused by those people who advocate a policy of one man, one vote, and want to ensure that the Whites in this country surrender. These are people who bring about revolutionary change in South Africa, instead of orderly change in the whole of South Africa.

Mr Speaker, may I ask the hon member a question?

No, Mr Speaker.

I want to point out to the hon member for Bryanston that schools are community bound. It is simply not practically possible to accommodate people of all races in any school. In addition a step of this nature would be educationally unsound and wrong in South Africa’s present condition.

Why?

For the simple reason that even problems in connection with the medium of instruction will be experienced. Hon members saw an example of these problems recently. The hon member for Houghton exploited the problems at Moutse in particular recently, but one of the reasons for the anxiety of those people, is that if they are incorporated in KwaNdebele, they are uncertain about the language in which their children will be instructed. The hon member for Bryanston rises here, however, and tells us we must open the schools! He is of the opinion that it will be a particularly fine gesture. Private schools already provide the opportunity for that if people prefer the other groups to be there as well; if they can afford it.

There is one thing we can do in South Africa. Despite the fact that we have our own schools, we can bring home to the young scholars the realisation that we shall have to exist together here in South Africa. The fact that we Whites have our own languages and cultures of which we can be proud, does not mean the other people will be deprived of this. It means that we can cultivate a spirit of comprehension and a healthy attitude amongst all the population groups in South Africa despite the fact that we have our own schools. I do not think there is one member in this House, or in fact in the other Houses, who was not educated in such a school. [Interjections.]

Order! The hon member is speaking. The hon member may proceed. Order! The remark applies to the Leader of the House as well. The hon member may proceed.

That lot over there are provoking me!

We are here, and here there is a spirit of comprehension. The fact that we were educated in our own schools has not necessarily made us intolerant people. To create the impression that allowing everyone access to the schools would be the panacea to accomplish good relations, is the height of ludicrousness in my opinion. I say again it is not only impractical but also educationally unsound and wrong to think one can open the schools in South Africa and create a better South Africa in that way. Anyone who has kept an eye on politics in South Africa for the last 20 years or longer will see that what the State President said in his opening speech last Friday was only a culmination of the course of change, which was begun by even a Dr Verwoerd in 1959. [Interjections.]

I listened to the hon member for Sasolburg. Why did he leave the NP in 1970? He left because of the late Mr Vorster’s outward-looking policy and because of his policy in respect of sport. [Interjections.] He left because Mr Vorster was already prepared to make a change. When Dr Verwoerd rose in this House in 1959 and propounded his policy of separate freedoms in South Africa, he had already taken the first step, not only to give moral content to the policy of separate development, but also to say that discrimination amongst people and groups would be removed in the end. One cannot give people the opportunity to become prime ministers, one cannot give people the opportunity to become ministers, one cannot give them a separate freedom and then think one can persist in a policy of discrimination.

You are not quoting the half of it.

But I am. The impression created earlier, was that the policy of a separate freedom would not place the Black man as a person and also the Black peoples on the road we are taking as the bearers of the Western civilization.

What has happened now? [Interjections.] Through the years it has become very clear that the facts of the South African situation have caught up with all of us. While we thought we could bring about complete separation, South Africa had to develop economically; and while we developed economically, we had to contend with the situation in which the Black man was occupying an increasingly permanent position in our White areas. That is a fact! There is no getting away from it. [Interjections.]

If one admits and accepts that separate development and separate freedom would contain that element, viz the removal of discrimination, that we would have a form of vertical differentiation in South Africa, and that eventually that would be the situation in South Africa, it is axiomatic, it is natural, that South Africa—viz all the people in this country—would have to plan together. One cannot prevent us from talking together and standing for politics of negotiation together or avoid this happening.

With Mandela too?

The hon members on that side who are constantly making interjections which have nothing to do with the matter, must understand that we have to solve the problems of South Africa.

Order! There is a difference between an interjection and a running commentary, and I want to ask the hon members to cease their constant interruption of the hon member. The hon member may proceed.

As I said, because one has to talk and negotiate together, the book of apartheid as we have known and understood it in South Africa has finally been closed on the side of the Government. [Interjections.] It was closed for the simple reason that South Africa did not have a new situation to contend with, but only a factual situation which it has to deal with; and how does one deal with it, how does one practise politics of negotiation unless one creates an opportunity for the people first? We have created those opportunities already. Now a National Statutory Council is being created too. Everything that hon members wants, everything every political party in South Africa wants, can be discussed around this table.

You want it, we have it.

Not one option is closed to South Africa.

That is a lie; he is not telling the truth. Apartheid is a “closed book” now.

Yes, that apartheid which meant that hon member could decide for others what their future would be. [Interjections.] That is what that hon member wants. He wants to decide for the Coloureds. He wants to decide for the Blacks. We say, no.

I want to decide for the Whites.

Even if that hon member himself wants own areas in South Africa in future, it is an affair he will have to negotiate with these people.

And if they do not want it?

Order! The hon member for Lichtenburg must please curb his running commentary. The hon member may proceed.

Mr Chairman, I must just say the hon member, whom I have always regarded as a sensible member, is only proving by his interjections that I thought too highly of him. [Interjections.]

To those hon members who say that we are now on a slippery slope, I want to say we are not. We must also keep in mind, Sir, that we are dealing with people who want to destroy the existing order in South Africa and replace it by an order with which you and I and the rest of the moderates in South Africa will never agree. That is why I say the State President’s speech not only gives new impetus to what is right and correct in South Africa, but will also crack down on the revolutionaries. I know that the polarisation in South Africa can still obtain momentum, but the radicals, who want to rectify everything using violence, will have a limited influence. Not so long ago we Whites gave each other bloody noses about politics and especially about the rights of other people. Now there are those amongst the other groups who give one another bloody noses about the question of whether they should co-operate with the Whites or not. That is what it is all about.

I am not someone who thinks that such polarisation is necessarily wrong. In the end it will be in the best interests of South Africa because it will separate the wheat from the chaff. It will move the extremists to one side. We cannot govern the country with people who have a hot-headed approach to the question of race relations in South Africa. The influence of those people in the country must be restricted to the minimum. Polarisation amongst them is therefore acceptable. It will trouble me if polarisation comes into being amongst right-minded, sensible, moderate Whites and amongst a similar group amongst people of colour. The fact that the Tutus and Boesaks go to one side, and the HNP and the CP to another, is in South Africa’s own interest. It will bring about an understanding between reasonable and sensible people in South Africa which will be necessary to us if we want to follow a policy through which we will find one another and can co-operate with one another towards building up a better South Africa.

I am not someone who objects to nationalism or to anyone who is proud of being an Afrikaner; I am very proud of that myself. Neither am I opposed to anyone’s being proud of being a Black man. I shall be very much more proud in future, however, if I see that that Black man or that Afrikaner is also prepared to create a spirit of true South Africanism in this country which goes further than his own group’s culture and language and that which he regards as his own. We must bring about a situation in South Africa in which, when our sportsmen play their sport, we do not think in terms of Black, Coloured or White. We should be prepared to support a sportsman, irrespective of his colour, because he is a good South African.

Above and beyond the steps announced in the State President’s message, many people noticed the attitude that radiates from it. We want a South Africa of various languages, cultures and colours which co-operate all the time to make our country a better one. In my opinion that is the test, viz whether the NP will move in such a way that I as a White lose nothing, for I do not want to lose anything. What I should like to see, is that other people gain more and I can feel greater pride. I want to be able to go out and tell the people not to level constant criticism at South Africa. We know we have faults, but we are doing our best to create a reasonable and fair position for each group in South Africa. To me, the test is whether or not we can do that.

I am afraid the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition will not achieve this. He has made the wrong choice. He could have made the right choice by choosing the side of the reasonable and fair people. Yet he speaks the same language, has the same sentiments and levels the same unfair criticism as the Tutus and the Boesaks. These are the people who say the struggle will not be resolved around the conference table, but by the ordinary people. Who wants the street politics of the masses in South Africa? That is not what we want. We want a structure in South Africa which can produce leaders who can speak to each other in the standing committees. This must not take place in a spirit of paternalism. We do not want to suppress, but to help one another and see if we can create a decent country.

We are not failing in that. If we are not failing in that sphere, why should we fail in a national statutory council? I do not think there is one reasonable member in this House who believes that these things are not necessary.

The hon members of the CP say, however, it merely means that the Whites are now going to hand everything over. They say it is the course of integration and the end. [Interjections.]

The late Dr Verwoerd spoke about a confederation and a commonwealth of nations as a possible political end for South Africa. Did that not imply that we would speak about communal affairs and see eye to eye with one another in this country? That is the whole point. The point is not whether one agreed with the man’s eventual machine or structure, but whether one agreed with the necessity of negotiation in order to see eye to eye with one another. There is not one hon member of the CP who will not say it is imperative for the future of South Africa for that to happen.

I therefore think their motion of no confidence is inappropriate and wrong in the present circumstances. Whatever they do, the NP is still committed to the course of reform. The voter is not going to reject the NP. From time to time there will be an event such as the Sasolburg by-election, but progress will continue. [Interjections.] I do not know what the hon CP members are proud of, for they did not cause the HNP to win the Sasolburg seat. [Interjections.] Should they obtain considerable support, the support would still be of such a nature that the NP will be able to continue its course.

In addition, the general public of South Africa will ensure that we have the support of the Blacks, Coloureds and Asiatics. If we have the support of those people, our enemies are welcome to make a noise outside South Africa’s borders, to manufacture as many bombs and plant as many landmines as they wish, but South Africa will never succumb because Whites, Blacks and Coloureds will defend the country together. I therefore support the NP and have no confidence in the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition or in the CP.

Mr Chairman, please allow me to refer briefly to the speech of the hon member for De Kuilen. This afternoon he tried to make himself out to be an expert on the philosophies of the late Dr Verwoerd. I do not want to judge this claim too harshly, but I would nevertheless like to bring it to the attention of the hon member that one of the fundamental principles of the philosophy of Dr Verwoerd amounted to the fact that the only and the best way to avoid political and other forms of discrimination in South Africa lay in granting separate geographic freedoms to each people in this Southern Land. [Interjections.] It certainly does not he in a so-called broadening of the democracy in one single state.

Mr Speaker, if I may make one further remark in this connection, I want to point out that the hon member for De Kuilen tried to reply to the speech of the hon member for Bryanston, and this applies in particular to the demand which the PFP has now made regarding the opening of schools. I gained the impression—and I do not know whether the hon member for De Kuilen received authorization to do so from the Cabinet or the State President—that, as far as schools were concerned, the hon member said:

Yes, indeed! [Interjections.]

One further remark, Sir! Interestingly enough not one single hon member on that side of the House made an attempt today to elaborate on the opening address of the State President or even to elaborate on it any further, except perhaps that the hon member for De Kuilen—and yet again I cannot say whether he received authorization from the Cabinet or the State President to do so—had something to say about the matter of group areas. Indeed I remember that recently at a National Party congress the State President said that as far as group areas were concerned, he was putting his foot down. But this afternoon the hon member for De Kuilen said here that if we wanted to retain our group areas we would have to hold negotiations regarding them. Is the hon member then implying that group areas are now also negotiable? [Interjections.] Mr Chairman, indeed one cannot draw any other inference whatsoever from this! [Interjections.]

You did not listen to what I said! [Interjections.]

The hon member can go and read his own speech in Hansard. [Interjections.]

In his opening address the State President said:

Hear, hear!

Just listen to those hon members shouting “hear, hear!”

They are shouting it rather shyly.

The hon member for Sasolburg referred to the philosophies of the late Dr Verwoerd and the erstwhile National Party. It was consistently our standpoint that we—that was in the old National Party—not only wanted to free areas but that we wanted to free peoples. We also said that we dared not repeat the mistakes of Africa’s colonial past. It was our standpoint that in the solutions we were seeking we dared not divide the peoples of Southern Africa politically.

They no longer remember that! [Interjections.]

In his opening address the State President told us that the colonial era was as “outdated” as apartheid, and in the same speech the State President announced that this same NP Government was now retrogressing and was also undoing its own handiwork of the past, through which people were consolidated politically. [Interjections.]

Since the announcement has now come from the National Party that those Black people who now find themselves ostensibly permanently in South Africa and who lost their citizenship when Transkei, Bophuthatswana, Venda and Ciskei became independent, will now have their South African citizenship restored to them, the question arises in particular what consequences this can have other than a repetition of the old colonial mistake of the past—namely the division of peoples. [Interjections.] This is indeed the case unless—and I should like a reply from the National Party in this regard—they also want to set aside the hard-won freedom and independence of Transkei, Bophuthatswana, Venda and Ciskei, in order to bring those states back into one so-called South Africa. These are questions to which we want the answers. [Interjections.]