The police have been distrusted in black townships because of their old role of enforcing apartheid and because they are sometimes accused of condoning township violence.

But in the late 1980's, when the Government stopped rigorously enforcing apartheid, thousands began slipping into the white cities, squatting on any vacant patch.

As Mr. Mandela keeps pointing out, he and other blacks still cannot vote and many other structures set up to enforce apartheid remain in place.

Most critics agree that the police force has never entirely recovered from its design as a white-run institution intended to enforce apartheid.

"The army is mainly to enforce apartheid, or to protect the South African interests, which means the interests of the whites."

After 45 years of ruling South Africa and enforcing apartheid, the governing National Party now finds itself in an uneasy alliance with the African National Congress.

Their sole concern is with the rights of (incompetent and abusive) parents and with ensuring that enforcing racial apartheid is a first principle.

The repeal last year of South Africa's bedrock laws enforcing apartheid has left the Government with a quandary bedeviling its armed forces.

For example, it does not recognize Charles Bester, a young white serving six years for refusing to fulfull his military service on the ground that the army enforces apartheid.

The South African scholars were reacting to the then South African government's proposal to enforce racial apartheid in educational institutions.