JOHANNESBURG, South Africa, Feb. 17, 1990 (UPI) - Black leader Nelson Mandela, in his first official meeting with South Africa's diplomatic corps, spelled out his preconditions for negotiations Friday but revealed a ''spirit of reconciliation.''
The two-hour meeting came several hours before the African National Congress announced from Lusaka, its headquarters-in-exile, its decision to hold direct talks with President Frederik de Klerk in South Africa. The 88-year-old ANC also promised to legally re-establish itself within the country.
Mandela, described by one diplomat as dignified, friendly and wise, ended his meeting with the diplomats at the Jan Smuts Airport Hotel by inviting their black drivers in and hugging them.
As he walked through the hotel, black workers cheered and sang ''Nikosi Sikele Afrika,'' (God Bless Africa), the unofficial black national anthem, while escorting him to his car.
''We were rather fascinated by the man, a man with great dignity, a man with great clarity of mind, with compassion, with flexibility'' who seeks reconciliation with white South Africans, said Austrian Ambassador Alexander Christiani.
Mandela reiterated his stand that countries must maintain sanctions against South Africa until negotiations with the ANC have begun in an effort to pressure the white minority government to enact greater racial reforms and agree to a one-man, one-vote on a common roll of eligible voters, participants said.
Mandela also told the diplomats the government must lift the 43-month-old state of emergency and release all prisoners.
About 50 diplomats, including 20 ambassadors and mission chiefs, attended the morning gathering. Among them was U.S. Ambassador William Swing, who declined comment after the meeting.
''We were quite impressed by the man and by his spirit of reconciliation,'' Christiani said of the silver-haired, 71-year-old black nationalist leader. ''He was quite interested on his part in meeting us and he feels that we all can make a contribution.''
''His humanity, humility and reasonableness ... makes one really hopeful for the prospect of a reasonable settlement here,'' said Canadian Ambassador Ron MacLean.''
Mandela told the diplomats he had no bitterness after more than 27 years in prison on sabotage charges and believed he was treated very well, especially by his warders, Christiani said. Mandela praised de Klerk as a ''man of integrity,'' the Austrian ambassador said.
Mandela has met with numerous delegations and journalists in the six days since his release from prison. At the same time, he has attempted to halt an upsurge in intercommunal violence in the Natal province and the Uitenhage area, along the Indian Ocean coast.
Several thousand ANC supporters heard a message from Mandela at a peace rally Friday in the black township of Kwanobuhle outside Uitenhage, urging them to halt violence that has left at least 10 dead. Thousands of workers at the town's two major employers, Volkswagen and Goodyear, have stayed away from their jobs this week because they said they feared leaving their families alone.
Mandela is expected to visit the Uitenhage area, as well as the Natal province, where bitter internecine fighting has left as many as 3,000 dead since violence erupted in the mid-1980s between factions loyal to the ANC and to Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi, president of the Zulu Inkatha movement.
Also Friday the government dropped a collection of Mandela's speeches and articles from a list of banned publications nearly 20 years after it was declared off limits.
In its weekly Gazette, the government announced ''No Easy Walk to Freedom'' was no longer ''undesirable'' and set aside prohibitions on possessing the book. ''No Easy Walk to Freedom'' was first published in 1965 and banned in South Africa in 1971.
