It is a quarter of a century since the end of apartheid in South Africa. But it’s easy to forget how complex, difficult and violent the birth of full democracy really was. This was particularly true in KwaZulu-Natal, where battles between the African National Congress (ANC) and the mainly Zulu Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP)&nbsp;<a href="https://csvr.org.za/docs/policeviolence/justicedenied.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label=" (opens in a new tab)">claimed the lives of as many as 20,000</a>&nbsp;in the decade between 1984 and 1994.



In the three months before the first elections in April 1994 an estimated 1 000 people&nbsp;<a href="https://csvr.org.za/docs/policeviolence/justicedenied.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label=" (opens in a new tab)">were killed</a>. The British and Americans were becoming increasingly concerned. The conflict between Inkatha and the ANC was just one crisis: another was developing with far right white extremists, who were threatening to resort to violence.



The US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) reported that there was an:



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">eight in 10 chance that violence will surge immediately before and during the election, when emotions are at their highest.</blockquote>



The agency also warned of the threat of a right wing coup, although it considered this “unlikely”. (This CIA report is available in hard copy only.)



As the situation grew increasingly tense, Britain’s Prime Minister John Major and the US’s President Bill Clinton became personally involved. Their interventions are shown in documents just released by&nbsp;<a href="http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label=" (opens in a new tab)">the UK National Archives</a>.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/284690/original/file-20190718-116539-n8y2tv.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip" alt=""/><figcaption>The cover page of the CIA document.&nbsp;Author provided</figcaption></figure>



The documents reveal just what a close-run thing the first truly democratic election was, and how much time and effort Britain and the USA spent ensuring that the voting went ahead.



<h4 class="wp-block-heading">Desperate times</h4>



Prime Minister Major took a phone call from Nelson Mandela on 22 February, in which the ANC leader described the situation as “very difficult.” Major briefed Mandela on a meeting between the British ambassador and the Inkatha leader, Mangosuthu Buthelezi. He gave Mandela a full account of the conversation, which he warmly welcomed.



On 24 February there is the first indication of a joint Anglo-American mediation effort to resolve the crisis. This&nbsp;<a href="https://2001-2009.state.gov/r/pa/ho/15736.htm" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label=" (opens in a new tab)">arose</a>&nbsp;during planning for a visit to Washington by Major three days later.



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">Our starting point is that the situation has now deteriorated to the point where it seems very unlikely that left to themselves the South Africans will reach an agreement that will enable to participate in the elections. The consequences are likely to be very serious.</blockquote>



The British suggested that Major and Clinton might “offer their joint help to the transition process”.



The following day – having held discussions with Mandela, Buthelezi and President Frederik de Klerk – the British ambassador in Pretoria, Sir Anthony Reeve, was able to report that all three were prepared to go along with the Anglo-American initiative, although with some reservations. The ambassador concluded:



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">These responses do, I think, give us the green light to consult the Americans in detail on our thinking.</blockquote>



The proposal was discussed between Mandela and Buthelezi at a meeting on March 1 and both leaders agreed to “explore” the possibility of international mediation. Lord Carrington, who had negotiated the end of Rhodesia and its transition to Zimbabwe in 1980, was on a lecture tour of South Africa. He was approached by the ANC’s Thabo Mbeki who asked whether he might act as one of a panel of mediators.



Others suggested were US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and former Tanzanian head of state Julius Nyerere.



There followed intensive discussions between London and Washington, over how such mediation might work; indeed, Carrington and Kissinger travelled to South Africa. In the end a failure to agree on the terms of reference for the mediators, and South African government fears that the elections might be delayed, put paid to the plan.



It has been claimed the crisis – the most immediate was that Buthelezi was threatening to boycott the poll – was resolved by&nbsp;<a rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label=" (opens in a new tab)" href="http://spas.ku.ac.ke/index.php/faculty/faculty-profiles/89-faculty/44-prof-john-okumu" target="_blank">surprising last minute mediation</a>&nbsp;by Kenyan Professor, John Okumu. Other Commonwealth envoys who had excellent contacts with both the ANC leadership and Buthelezi, including the late Ghanaian diplomat Moses Anafu, doubt this, arguing that forces that led Buthelezi into the election were&nbsp;<a href="https://sas-space.sas.ac.uk/6115/7/Moses_Anafu_Transcript_1.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label=" (opens in a new tab)">much bigger</a>.



Indeed, Buthelezi’s brinkmanship had ensured key constitutional concessions. Okumu’s intervention seems then a face-saving device for the IFP leader. A joint statement was agreed between Mandela, Buthelezi and de Klerk on 19 April, which&nbsp;<a href="https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Govern_Political/ANC_18598.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label=" (opens in a new tab)">allowed the election to take place</a>&nbsp;just a week later (April 26-28).



<h4 class="wp-block-heading">Close-run thing</h4>



It had been a close-run thing and South Africa’s first truly democratic election almost came to grief. But there were two more potential obstacles.



In the tense run-up to polling day, a&nbsp;<a rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label=" (opens in a new tab)" href="http://hurisa.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/Goldstone-Booklet.pdf" target="_blank">report</a>&nbsp;on the role of the apartheid state in stoking internal tension and violence was published. The Commission of Inquiry Regarding the Prevention of Public Violence and Intimidation, led by Justice Richard Goldstone had been established in 1991: its report was published on 21 April 1994. 



Judge Goldstone’s investigations revealed that sections of the South African Police had armed Inkatha, and pointed to attempts by senior police officers to&nbsp;<a rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label=" (opens in a new tab)" href="http://sabctrc.saha.org.za/reports/volume2/chapter7/subsection2.htm" target="_blank">subvert the work of his enquiry</a>.



READ MORE | <a href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/woman/2018/12/07/in-pictures-chimamanda-ngozi-adichie-gives-nelson-mandela-public-lecture/">IN PICTURES | Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie gives Nelson Mandela public lecture</a>



The charges were explosive and for a while the judge and his family were clearly at risk from white extremists. With de Klerk’s support and the knowledge of Mandela, Goldstone, his wife and a “key witness” (a former South African police officer) asked whether they might come to Britain. John Major agreed, and they were given temporary asylum and a safe house.



The second obstacle was the South African government’s clandestine chemical and biological weapons programme, known as&nbsp;<a href="http://www.unidir.org/files/publications/pdfs/project-coast-apartheid-s-chemical-and-biological-warfare-programme-296.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label=" (opens in a new tab)">“Project Coast.”</a>The British Foreign Secretary, Douglas Hurd, contacted Washington about the possibility of issuing a formal public protest unless President de Klerk publicly admitted his government’s involvement in the use of these weapons against ANC and Namibian prisoners.



The British had apparently intervened to prevent the&nbsp;<a rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label=" (opens in a new tab)" href="https://www.airuniversity.af.edu/Portals/10/CSDS/Books/therollbackofsoafricachembio2.pdf" target="_blank">proliferation</a>&nbsp;of these weapons to other rogue states or terrorist groups. On April 11 the US and British ambassadors delivered their protest to President de Klerk – which apparently did the trick. 



There was an agreement that all the chemical and biological systems would be destroyed and one of the key South African experts, Wouter Basson, who had travelled to Libya on several occasions, was&nbsp;<a rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label=" (opens in a new tab)" href="https://trialinternational.org/latest-post/wouter-basson/" target="_blank">subsequently prosecuted</a>.



<h4 class="wp-block-heading">Political triumph</h4>



The April 1994 election proved to be a watershed for South Africa. In technical terms, the election was a fiasco, but it was a political triumph, according to the Commonwealth’s leading election official,&nbsp;<a href="https://sas-space.sas.ac.uk/6121/1/Carl_Dundas_Transcript.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label=" (opens in a new tab)">Carl Dundass</a>. Inkatha’s surprising victory in Natal-KwaZulu strongly suggest Natal “horsetrading” involved overturning an actual ANC victory to manage anticipated post-election violence.



Despite all the violence, tension and drama the election ended apartheid and allowed Major to phone Mandela with his congratulations – a highly satisfactory conclusion to an intense period of international diplomacy.



-Sue Onslow; Reader, Institute of Commonwealth Studies, School of Advanced Study



-Martin Plaut; Senior Research Fellow, Horn of Africa and Southern Africa, Institute of Commonwealth Studies, School of Advanced Study



-The Conversation



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Archive Documents Reveal The US And UK’s Role In The Dying Days Of Apartheid

Each year some people have the privilege of doing a political tour of South Africa. From Nkandla, President Jacob Zuma’s home in KwaZulu-Natal, through Johannesburg’s Constitutional Court, Stock Market, Soweto and other attractions to Parliament in the Cape, Hout Bay’s squatter camp and the lovely wine farms.
The tour’s emphasis is on politics and the political people of the country. They meet the players in politics, business, the media, health and education. Fortunately for us, former president Thabo Mbeki agreed to meet us at his Foundation.
Mbeki was in a wonderful mood, sharing his stories, answering our questions, asking a few of his own. Most fascinating for me was his answer when asked to explain why his liberation party moved away from nationalizing mines and banks.
“Well, we went to Cuba in 1986, and you know before our meeting Fidel Castro asked us to bring a copy of the Freedom Charter with us. But he asked it three times, three times!”
“We asked ourselves, we heard you the first time, why ask again?”
“He then told us when we saw him – with the document – that the government Cuban rum is called Cuban Club, and that it is owned by Cuba, it is the best rum, but does not do as well as Bacardi. The owners of Bacardi left Cuba in a hurry but had to leave the vats.”
“Fidel then said, ‘Now you know good rum is made by mixing old rum with new, but Bacardi left in a hurry, taking everything but leaving the old vats. Yet they set up in America and sold a completely new rum. It was not great, it lacked the Bacardi flavor, it was all new and all they had was the name,’ he told us.”
But it was enough.
“‘So,’ said Fidel, ‘we quickly went to France and Europe and registered the names of Cohibas and other cigars, so if those companies also left we would still have their names. ‘Now tell me, ‘ Fidel said, ‘how many mining engineers do you have in the ANC?’”
“We looked at each other and said we did not know if we have any, probably none at that time (1992).”
“Then he said that if we took over Anglo American and nationalized them, we would have to ask them to do the mining, to manage it and run the mines because we could not, and they would then deliberately mine badly, because they would be angry that they had been nationalized. ‘Rather wait a bit,’ Fidel told us, ‘then in 15 years or so you can start taking over as you develop the capacity.’”
“It made sense, so we went back and convinced our people.”
I asked why Mandela, when he first came out of jail, in his first speech in Cape Town, said mines and banks would be nationalized?
“When Mandela was released it was a bad mistake of ours. We had been in talks with government and they had agreed they would give us nine or 10 days’ notice before releasing him, they would call my home with a code name and message, like ‘it is going to rain on Sunday November 1’ and we would have time to prepare.”
“But I was away, with Oliver Tambo in London, so when Zanele (Mbeki’s wife) was called by this strange person with a fairly innocuous message for me she waited a few days and then told the wife of Oliver Tambo to tell me the message. His wife also waited a few days and then said to him ‘Oh, tell Thabo somebody called Zanele to say it is going to rain on Sunday November 1.’”
“I got the message and thought nothing of it. I had forgotten what that meant. Me, I made that mistake… Later I suddenly remembered and realized, it was our code agreed with the South African government, but by then it was the day before his release.”
“We quickly tried to write a speech but failed and those inside South Africa wrote the speech, but they had not yet been told how we had changed our minds on nationalizing the mines and banks despite what it said in the Freedom Charter. So that’s why Mandela said what he said.”
I was aghast. I had written several times to say it was at Davos that the first democratic president had changed policy on nationalization. Mbeki laughed.
“Davos being the place he changed his mind is really just one of many stories&#8230;”

Nationalization Is A  Rum Deal

With six months to go before South Africa’s governing party, the African National Congress (ANC), goes to its elective conference, incumbent president Jacob Zuma looks set to get another term. And with that, a renewed focus on continental politics, for which his critics have chided him.
Zuma’s opponent, Julius Malema, the party’s rebellious youth league president, is not contesting the ANC presidency but is the spokesperson of a disparate group united in wanting the 70-year-old former political prisoner and intelligence operative removed from power. Their campaign though, has been dealt a huge blow.
Malema is facing several disciplinary charges and the party’s internal disciplinary committee has found him guilty on some, meaning that whatever the outcome, the young man looks set for the political rubbish dump. Unless a worthy challenger emerges between now and the December conference and goes on to defeat Zuma, he is set to remain at the helm of the 100-year-old political party and the head of Africa’s most powerful economy.
Among Malema’s most stinging criticisms of Zuma’s reign was that he had failed spectacularly where his predecessor Thabo Mbeki had done extremely well—in pursuing the African agenda. It was a criticism, and a comparison, that hurt Zuma and one that he has since looked eager to correct.
So, on March 20, when Zuma walked into the Sandton studios of pan-African television channel CNBC Africa for a live hour-long interview, with some of the continent’s CEOs and board chairpersons in the audience, he knew he had a mission to accomplish, or as his aides would have probably preferred to put it, he had a myth or two to debunk.
Sitting opposite CNBC Africa’s chief editor Godfrey Mutizwa, and occasionally fielding questions during crossings to CEOs in countries like Nigeria and Kenya, Zuma showed composure for someone who has countenanced perhaps harsher criticism than any post-apartheid president.
While some of the condemnation prior to his election had a lot to do with his indiscretions, which in turn led to sexual assault charges against him, others were in subtle ways questioning whether a man with only a primary-school education, would be able to fill the shoes of his Sussex-educated predecessor and intellectual, Mbeki. Was he best suited to preside over an ambitious country that not only likes to punch above its weight, and which likes to be loved, but is also the most sophisticated African economy?
The more Zuma sold his optimistic disposition of the continent to the CNBC viewers and the studio audience, the more friends he seemed to be making among the attendant captains of industry, many of whom wasted no time in praising him for his “insightful comments” and for “answering questions”.
One of the continent’s biggest “strides”, he said, was the formation of the African Union. “For the first time, we could define ourselves as one, as Africans and not as former British, Belgian, French colonies.”
The AU has been credited with bringing about continental political stability through promoting the culture of democratic elections as well as the principle of non-recognition of people who grab political power through coups d’état.
Zuma shared with his audience how the AU had advanced in getting member states to commit to investor friendliness, infrastructure development, better and responsible management of natural resources, environmental sustainability, education, and had now started talks about the integration of the continent’s five regional economic blocks. Asked to give timelines for the “practical implication” of the integration process, he replied: “It took two world wars before Europe could come together. Africa should be given a chance.”
A welcome sign of confidence in Africa’s future, Zuma added, was the inclusion of South Africa in BRICS, the increasingly influential group of emerging economies: Brazil, Russia, India and China. “Africa is now part of countries that are going to determine (the world’s economic) direction,” he said.
“I don’t see a crisis. I see prosperity in Africa,” he told the audience, and with a great deal of satisfaction, not to mention his trademark coy chuckle that usually signals cynicism. “Other people speak positively about Africa. Sometimes it’s Africans themselves who are negative; who feel Africa is in trouble.”

Tag: Thabo Mbeki

FORBES AFRICA SOCIAL MEDIA

Archive Documents Reveal The US And UK’s Role In The Dying Days Of Apartheid

Nationalization Is A Rum Deal

Presidential Poise Under Pressure