Its Goals Attained, Udf Says It Will Fold

Baltimore Sun

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - The United Democratic Front, whose campaign of mass protests shook South Africa and captured the world's attention in the 1980s, said yesterday it is going out of business.

Coalition leaders said their goals have been achieved now that black political leaders are out of prison, black political organizations have been legalized and the white minority government is holding negotiations toward a new constitution.

``We are proud to announce that the UDF has fulfilled the major purposes for which it was set up,'' said Albertina Sisulu, co-president of the broad coalition, which formed an umbrella for labor, church, human-rights and other organizations opposed to the apartheid system of racial discrimination.

Sisulu also said the coalition would disband by Aug. 20.

She said that the UDF affiliates would devote their energies to building the African National Congress ``into a mighty force for justice, democracy and peace.'' Since the ANC was legalized 13 months ago, the UDF has played a less prominent role in South African politics than it had during the previous seven years.

Popo Molefe, UDF national secretary, said that the group revived the tradition of mass action in South Africa that was snuffed out when the government banned organizations such as the ANC, the Pan Africanist Congress and the South African Communist Party in the 1950s and 1960s.

He said the UDF also ``popularized the leaders of the African National Congress, Nelson Mandela and others. It constantly reminded people that their leaders were in jail. But in addition to that, it presented the national liberation movement, especially the African National Congress, as the alternative to the South African government.''

The UDF was formed in 1983 after the government adopted a constitution that created a segregated Parliament with chambers for whites, Indians and the mixed-race people called ``Coloreds.'' The country's black majority had no representation in the Parliament, which black activists labeled undemocratic and which they sought to undermine through mass protests.