Mandela and De Klerk Win Nobel Peace Prize : South Africa: Black leader and white president are honored for efforts to end apartheid, achieve democracy.

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa —  Black nationalist leader Nelson Mandela and white President Frederik W. de Klerk, former enemies who joined forces to end roughly three centuries of repressive white rule and bring democracy to this strife-torn land, were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday.

The Nobel Committee in Oslo lauded the leaders of South Africa’s two largest political organizations for “their work for the peaceful termination of the apartheid regime, and for laying the foundations for a new democratic South Africa.”

“By looking ahead to South African reconciliation instead of back at the deep wounds of the past, they have shown personal integrity and great political courage,” the committee said.

The prestigious prize comes despite growing bloodshed here, especially in the impoverished black townships, as the white-ruled country anxiously prepares for its first multiracial elections next April 27.

Mandela, who heads the African National Congress, will vote for the first time in that poll--and is expected to be elected the nation’s first black president. De Klerk, who heads the National Party that created the brutal system of legalized segregation known as apartheid, is likely to help run the new government in a still undefined power-sharing arrangement.

De Klerk freed Mandela from prison in February, 1990, after Mandela had served 27 years of a life sentence for conspiring to overthrow the government. De Klerk also legalized the ANC and, together with Mandela and other former opponents, began the difficult transition to black-majority rule.

At least 11,000 people have died in political and ethnic violence since 1990, including more than 3,000 this year, according to the independent Human Rights Commission. About 60 people were reported killed this week alone in townships east of Johannesburg. By some accounts, South Africa is the world’s most violent country.

Mandela, 75, told a packed press conference here that winning the prize is “a deeply humbling experience” and a tribute to those who “over the decades struggled so steadfastly for democracy and peace in the teeth of ruthless and brutal repression.”

He called the award “an expression of the profound confidence the international community has vested in us that we can collectively address the enormous problems our country faces without recourse to violence and coercion.”

The appropriate thanks, he added, is to complete the often tortuous negotiations, involving 26 political groups, to draft a new constitution and organize free elections. “The people of South Africa have waited too long for a government elected by all the people,” Mandela said. “We must not and we dare not fail them.”

In a separate press conference in Cape Town, De Klerk, 57, said he is “honored” by the award, embarrassed by all the attention and grateful for recognition of “what we have already achieved.”

“I felt it was a great moment in the sense we’ve gone to great lengths in this process,” said De Klerk, holding his fidgety 3-year-old grandson on his lap. “We really overturned a whole system, (and) we changed the face of South Africa fundamentally.

“It would have been difficult to imagine such progress four years ago,” when he was elected president, he added. The challenge, he said, remains “decades of bitterness, suspicion and fear.”

Mandela and De Klerk have repeatedly clashed over the ongoing violence and the pace of reforms, and Friday was no exception. They had not spoken by late afternoon, and in response to a question, Mandela criticized the president for a controversial raid by South African commandos in Transkei last week that left five black youths dead in their beds.

“Mr. De Klerk himself, insofar as he authorized that raid, must be condemned in the strongest terms,” Mandela said stiffly. De Klerk declined to discuss the raid with reporters but said, “My hands are not dripping with blood.”

The prize capped a month of breathtaking developments here. The white Parliament in September approved the formation of a multiracial council to oversee the run-up to the April elections, which will give blacks their first taste of political power. Mandela appeared at the United Nations the next day to urge the scrapping of economic sanctions, and the U.N. General Assembly later voted to end most punitive measures against the former pariah state.

Mandela returned to his sprawling home in a leafy Johannesburg suburb Friday morning from Paris, after a monthlong trip to the United States and six European countries. The trip was designed to gain international support for the fragile political process and to lure foreign investors to the recession-bound economy.

Norway’s ambassador, Jens Otterbeck, drove up to the house shortly after Mandela was formally notified of the prize in a noon phone call from Oslo. Mandela accepted Otterbeck’s congratulations over tea and cookies. “It was a very joyous moment,” Otterbeck said.

Two other South Africans have previously won the Nobel Peace Prize for battling apartheid. The late black ANC President Albert Luthuli won in 1960, and black Anglican Archbishop Desmond M. Tutu won in 1984. Tutu said Friday that the award is “a wonderful symbol” of the country’s progress.

De Klerk and Mandela join a short list of former adversaries who have shared the prize. In 1973, Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger and North Vietnamese negotiator Le Duc Tho won for their efforts to end the Vietnam War. And in 1978, Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat were awarded the prize for negotiating a peace accord.

In Washington, President Clinton called the award an “inspired choice” and said it “is entirely fitting that, having worked so closely together for progress, they should share the most prestigious international recognition for their success in setting in motion the transition to a new political order in South Africa.”

Despite their high profile overseas, both Mandela and De Klerk are hobbled at home by violent factions and recurring threats of racial war. White extremists from the pro-apartheid Conservative Party and other far-right groups accuse De Klerk of selling out to the black majority, which outnumbers whites five to one. And government security forces have not only failed to stop political violence but, in some cases, also encouraged terrorist attacks in hopes of derailing elections.

Mandela’s moderate leadership has been challenged by disillusioned black youths inside the ANC, as well as by militants in rival black forces like the Pan-Africanist Congress and the Zulu-based Inkatha Freedom Party. The divisions, many fear, have worsened the racial tension and turmoil here.

Both Mandela and De Klerk have tempered their politics considerably over the years.

Mandela, the soft-spoken son of a Xhosa chief, was the first commander of the ANC’s armed wing and led a low-key guerrilla campaign before he was jailed. After his release in 1990, however, he preached racial tolerance, renounced his former support for communism and worked to transform the ANC from an armed liberation group into a mainstream political party prepared to take the reins of government.

De Klerk, the scion of a conservative Afrikaner political dynasty, was elected to the whites-only Parliament in 1972. Later, as education minister, he was reviled by anti-apartheid activists for supporting racially segregated schools. After he became president in 1989, however, his first move was to commit himself to peace through negotiations and power-sharing. He later won a whites-only referendum in support of his reforms.

Public reaction to the prize was surprisingly muted here. Demonstrators danced and chanted in Johannesburg streets, but not for the peace prize. Rather, their activities were in support of the death penalty handed down Friday against two white extremists convicted of murdering charismatic black leader Chris Hani last April. And a popular radio talk show drew as many callers for a question on “your favorite smell” as it did those who wanted to talk about the peace prize.

The prize, named after the Swedish inventor of dynamite, Alfred Nobel, brings with it a gold medal, a diploma and a check for $845,000, which Mandela and De Klerk will share. The award will be formally presented Dec. 10 in Oslo.

Last year’s winner was Guatemalan Indian rights activist Rigoberta Menchu.

Nobel’s Class of ’93

The following is a list of the winners of the 1993 Nobel Prizes:

* Peace--Nelson Mandela, Frederik W. de Klerk, South Africa

* Literature--Toni Morrison, United States

* Medicine--Richard J. Roberts, Britain; Phillip A. Sharp, United States

* Physics--Russell A. Hulse, Joseph H. Taylor, United States

* Chemistry--Kary Mullis, United States; Michael Smith, Canada

* Economics--Robert W. Fogel, Douglass C. North, United States