Politics of peace hard at work in heart of Soweto: Rivals in the election, the ANC and National Party share a building and a spirit of tolerance, writes John Carlin

DUBE is the Piccadilly Circus of Soweto. There is no neon, no statues, but bustle, a feeling of being in a town centre you do not experience anywhere else in Soweto.

All you see, for miles, are rows of uniformly brown Monopoly houses. But here, at the township's compact heart, you have the supermarkets, the banks, the hairdresser's, the Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet and the offices both of the African National Congress (ANC) and the National Party.

The ANC has been occupying an office on the first floor of a three-storey building for some time. The National Party (NP), apartheid's founder and enforcer, moved into the second floor, directly above the ANC, at the end of last year.

The NP's information officer in Soweto, Vronda Banda, sits in a spare little room with a formica desk, a potted plant and a large photograph on the wall of a smiling, roguish Pik Botha, Foreign Minister since 1977. Beside the photograph is an election poster, 'NP: for your place in the sun.'

It was precisely because the NP was denying black people a place in the sun that Mr Banda fled South Africa in 1976 and joined the ANC military wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe (Spear of the Nation). After training in East Germany, he was sent back to South Africa in the early Eighties. He was arrested and tried for 'high treason' and 'conspiracy to overthrow the government'. Found guilty, he was sent to Robben Island prison in 1983 and pardoned in 1990.

In April last year he joined the NP. Two questions had to be asked. What on earth had possessed him to join the 'Nats'? And, how did he get on with his ANC neighbours?

A short, stocky, energetic man in his mid-thirties, Mr Banda smiled, as if the answer were obvious. Two hundred other Umkhonto members had joined the NP, he said. 'We all felt the same. We felt the NP was the one political party in South Africa consistent in its objectives, more particularly as regards peace and getting South Africa back to normal.'

Consistent? 'Yes. It was a painful process for them and it has given them credibility. But they did change and now we're thinking of the future, not the past. Some of the faces are the same but we don't consider that. We see it as a party . . . for all South Africans irrespective of colour. I left the ANC because I think they're still a bit stuck in the Cold War era, with their Communism and those things. But I have no personal grudge against them.'

President F W de Klerk and the NP hierarchy have complained a great deal that they and, in particular, their black supporters, have been victims of intimidation in the black townships. The evidence supports the complaint. Had Mr Banda had any bad experiences with his ANC neighbours?

'No. We've got very good guys here, some I was with in the ANC. When I opened the office in December the ANC were already here. I gave a guy I knew from exile an invitation to the opening and he came.'

How were relations now? 'Normal. We're friends. We discuss problems together, social problems, like when your child is sick. We have drinks together here or in their office. Let me tell you a story. We had a burglary here recently. They took our TV and our fax machine. To our surprise, the ANC guys helped us to trace the stuff and we got it all back. Because they saw the criminals. The very same day they came with us, we went looking for them and together we caught them immediately.'

The ANC office downstairs was identical to the NP's save for the Mandela posters. Dan Moshugi, a thin, mild- mannered man who joined 'the struggle' aged 16 in 1959, was coy about admitting to a friendship with the NP people. But he acknowledged, with a shrug and a smile, that relations were just fine. 'We exchange courtesies. 'Good morning, good morning'. And we help each other out. Banda knows people in the ANC and if he has problems he knows we will sort them out.'

Mr Moshugi felt no bitterness towards his neighbour. 'We're committed to political tolerance. We need to be seen to be doing that. Every political party has a right to organise and canvas. When de Klerk . . . said 'I went to Soweto and I was welcomed' I think that was to the credit of the ANC. What I tell people is, 'without tol erance how can we say the elections will be free and fair?' . . . This is the first election of its kind and we simply cannot afford to mess it up.'