VIEWS FROM SOUTH AFRICA

December 22, 1998
		The impeachment of President Clinton is not only front page news in the United States, it's a big story around the world. In the first of a series of reports from different correspondents around the globe, Charlayne Hunter-Gault, NPR's chief correspondent in Africa and former NewsHour correspondent, looks at how South African's view the latest news out of Washington.

Full coverage of the impeachment debate and vote. Dec. 19, 1998: Rep. Livingston resigns as Speaker of the House-elect. Dec. 10, 1998: The House Judiciary Committee hears summations from Democratic investigator Abbe Lowell and Republican investigator David Schippers. Browse the NewsHour's coverage of Conversations on Clinton, White House, and the Starr Investigation.     The U.S. House of Representatives The U.S. Senate. National Public Radio Background on the impeachment process from JURIST, the Law Professor Network.	In South Africa, the headline in the Sunday Times screamed: "Bill Goes Down." It ran across the top of the front page, but in a country enamored of not-so- subtle innuendo, the picture immediately under it was of a smiling F. W. De Klerk, the former state president, about to light up a cigarette, while sitting next to his new wife, Elita, who has one figure rising into the air, as if casting an "aye" vote. The caption over the De Klerk's read: "Yes, Sir, and Elita can boogie." De Klerk, of course, recently divorced his wife of many years after publicly admitting that he had had an affair of several years with Elita, who is now his wife, while he was still married and in office.
	Focusing on another president's affair.
	As far as most South Africans are concerned, De Klerk's affair at the time and Clinton's now are their personal business. And while De Klerk's revelations generated a few headlines and comments at the time, except for picture in the Sunday paper, South Africans have moved on. South Africans in general have a healthy (and some say obsessive) interest in sex, and did, in fact, discuss the President's affair as the revelations were being made. It was the subject of jokes and other commentary by disc jockeys and talk show host, at concerts and dinner parties. But the cartoon carried in one newspaper's editorial page the day after the vote showed a Clinton caricature from the waist down, fly unzipped and a long thin scowling ballistic missile emerging , aimed just at nose level of a trembling Saddam Hussein. (Official South Africa condemned the air attacks.) But South Africans in the main cannot understand what they perceive to be the Republican obsession with punishing Clinton., especially given the public's mostly positive reaction to him. Even if he lied about the affair, most seem to believe it has no bearing on his performance as president. "He's been a good president," is the most often heard refrain, from people who live in a country where the rand has been as low as 6 to the dollar and is hovering there still, causing serious lifestyle adjustments for almost all. (no foreign vacations , except the very rich.) One chiropractor said: "I just don't get it. The guy has been a helluva good president. Look at the American economy! What do they want from the guy?" "They're giving him a hard time for something that's just human nature," said one woman, an accountant with adult children. She also said she thought that Ken Starr was "just looking for publicity." A 26-year-old radio reporter said she "sympathizes," with Clinton. Believes he was set up and therefore doesn't feel this process has legitimacy. But there are South Africans who think the president lied and should have to face some censure. "He got caught, so he has to pay," one woman said, adding that she thought Clinton used, and therefore abused, his power to make everyone think he was innocent. But there doesn't seem to be any support for a trial in the Senate. And a 33-year-old training manager said: "What does a person who cheats like that do when he is not in power? If he can not be a reliable witness to his country, how can we trust him to be reliable in other world and political matters? He should have been more prudent. He deserves the impeachment." But most South Africans are so preoccupied with their own issues--the approaching Christmas season when the country virtually shuts down and everybody goes on holiday until about mid-January, the "Arrive Alive" campaign aimed at deterring an extraordinarily high holiday death rate, black representation in rugby (nil), etc., that not even the normally provocative talk and call-in shows have spent any time discussing or debating the impeachment. This lack of interest is underscored by the fact that there have been no editorials or letters to the editor in any of the newspapers, so far. And unlike most issues in this country, attitudes toward the President, the impeachment and the Congress do not divide along racial lines. -- Charlayne Hunter-Gault Special to the Online NewsHour