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- <text id=92TT1542>
- <title>
- July 06, 1992: On the Edge of Disaster
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1992
- July 06, 1992 Pills for the Mind
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- THE WEEK, Page 19
- WORLD
- On the Edge of Disaster
- </hdr><body>
- <p>Talks in South Africa break down over the Boipatong bloodbath
- </p>
- <p> The delicate surgery required to remove the cancer of
- apartheid was always deemed highly risky. Last week the
- ambitious operation was put on hold after a bloodbath in the
- black township of Boi patong set off a searing dispute among
- South Africa's various parties, black and white.
- </p>
- <p> A breakdown had been brewing since May. But the
- negotiations, known as the Convention for a Democratic South
- Africa, collapsed altogether when the African National Congress
- withdrew from the talks after the Boipatong massacre. The
- A.N.C. also called for South Africa's team to withdraw from the
- Olympic Games. The Congress accused the government of
- negotiating while fostering violence and charged supporters of
- its rival, the Zulu-dominated Inkatha Freedom Party, with
- carrying out the massacre with the aid of government security
- forces. President F.W. de Klerk denied both allegations. But
- late in the week, a black mine-security guard told a
- government-appointed commission that police from a former
- paramilitary unit had joined in the Boipatong killings.
- </p>
- <p> Despite the deadlock, the A.N.C. expressed a wary readiness
- to rejoin talks, though it remained unclear whether De Klerk
- would meet their demands. The A.N.C., meanwhile, vowed to forge
- ahead with its "mass action" campaign to force De Klerk to hand
- over power to an interim government of national unity.
- </p>
-
- </body></article>
- </text>
-
-