Ntsatsi Mantfho wishes she were home.

Watching events unfold in South Africa since Friday, Mantfho said she wants to celebrate with her family.

"I must tell you . . . Friday in the morning, I actually missed South Africa at that point," said Mantfho (graduate-education). She came here in July 1989 as part of SHARE -- the University's Scholarship, Help, Academic Exchanges, Review of Equity Holdings and Education Program.

South African President F.W. de Klerk declared the African National Congress legal Friday and some sources say political prisoner Nelson Mandela could be free within the week.

Lawrence Young, director of the Paul Robeson Cultural Center, called de Klerk's announcements "inevitable" and said South Africans are finally "waking up to their own brutal history and rejecting it."

"I think that at long last, a sense of reality is beginning to set in on the Nationalist Party," he said.

While de Klerk has said he hopes to establish a government maintaining a balance of power between the races, Young said it would be impossible under the one-person, one-vote system demanded by the black majority there.

"Mandela, in any election they have in South Africa that's fair, would be president tomorrow," he said. White South Africans have no reason to fear oppression if blacks are allowed to vote, he added.

"That's the way it ought to be," he said.

Although the South African government has frequently promised to release Mandela without results, Young said he believes de Klerk will follow through on his latest promise.

"I believe that (Mandela) is a lot closer to being released from prison than he's ever been," he said.

Mantfho agreed, pointing out that Mandela is "unlike any other prisoner" and measures must be taken to insure his safety before his release.

"It would be futile if something happened to that man," she said.

Marcellus Schooler, secretary of the University's Amnesty International chapter, questioned de Klerk's commitment to end apartheid as long as residential segregation and race classification at birth continues there.

"As long as you still have those two laws on the books, it hurts people," said Schooler (senior-international politics), speculating that de Klerk's speech was made so other countries will end economic sanctions against South Africa.

"My outlook now is just to wait and watch," he said.