Introduction

The pre-negotiations that took place during the second half of the 1980s for a post-apartheid order have not been properly examined. Drawing on recently released documents of the Public Records Office in London, the first part of this article covers the efforts of Margaret Thatcher, the British Prime Minister from 1979 to 1990, to promote negotiations between the National Party (NP) government and the leadership of the African National Congress.

She put special emphasis on the release from prison of Nelson Mandela, the symbol of the global anti-apartheid struggle. The second part of article discusses the initial talks with Mandela in prison that were led on the side of the state by Dr. Niel Barnard, head of the National Intelligence service (NIS).

The discussion covered the terms of Mandela’s release and other issues related to the pending negotiations between the government and the ANC. The article concludes with a brief report of the first exchanges between Pres. F.W. de Klerk and Mandela

Eglin’s view of reform

0n 4 May1988 Margaret Thatcher, British Prime Minister from 1979 to 1990, met in London with Colin Eglin, leader of the official opposition in South Africa. After coming to power in 1979 Thatcher strongly resisted demands for increasing sanctions to force the NP government to start negotiations for a non-racial democracy.

She agreed, however, with her opponents on the urgent need for the release from prison of Nelson Mandela, who had been incarcerated since 1964, and also on the importance of negotiations for a democratic system to replace apartheid.

Thatcher started by asking Eglin about the state of political reform in South Africa to which he replied that the key issue in South Africa was no longer apartheid but political power. He also opposed one man one vote in a unitary state, but favoured a federal system coupled with a form of proportional representation in government. He observed that Pres. Botha had begun to tell whites to prepare themselves for some form of power sharing but that he was too old and too rigid to find a solution himself. In consequence reform was stuck in a sort of no man’s land.

Eglin considered F.W. de Klerk the most likely successor of Botha, adding that he met the need for ‘a more pliable negotiator’. Thatcher responded that this made De Klerk ‘sound weak’. She added: ‘The whites would be better served by a strong leader with clear objectives.’[1]

In January 1989 Botha suffered a stroke. Privately the doctors who were consulted thought that he should retire with immediate effect. Botha, however, continued in the office of President but resigned as NP leader. F.W. de Klerk, who was elected in his place as NP leader, became de facto head of government in running the country. On 25 August 1989 Botha’s cabinet forced him to resign. De Klerk was elected as president in September 1989 after a general election was held.

Thatcher’s initiatives

Early in 1989 Thatcher asked R.F. (Pik) Botha, Minister for Foreign Affairs, to meet her secretly in London to discuss what she called the slackening pace of reform in South Africa. This meeting took place on 25 March 1989.

At the outset Thatcher made her view clear that the crucial step for the South African government was to release Mandela’s promptly and without conditions. His release, she said, had become ‘\a kind of touchstone for the West and the down-side risk of not releasing him was ‘enormous’.

Thatcher warned Botha that without Mandela’s release she and Chancellor Helmut Kohl of Germany would find it progressively harder to resist further sanctions against South Africa at a time that the country was struggled with repaying its bearer bonds and rescheduling its debts. She stressed that an improvement of the economic conditions of black South Africans by itself was not enough. All that would do was to feed their resentment of their political exclusion.

Thatcher then revealed a major plan she had up in her sleeve. She had discussed with the West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl the possibility of substantial financial assistance to Southern Africa from Britain and Germany should a new, post-apartheid order be established following Mandela’s release and the black population’s enfranchisement.

She handed to Pik Botha a document entitled ‘A Marshall Plan for Southern Africa’ that she had ready for implementation should a post-apartheid order be established in South Africa. The plan’s name suggested that its model would be large scale assistance by the USA government to Europe in the aftermath of the Second World War that was used to rebuild the devastated continent of Europe. Thatcher’s plan entailed substantial financial and technical assistance to Southern Africa to rebuild the infrastructure and kick- start the economies of the different states.

Thatcher stressed that funds by themselves did not bring about development if there was a lack of technical competence, personal integrity and dedication among those utilizing capital funds. Her plan would build not only on the capital funds, supplied by Europe but also on South Africa’s ‘wealth of technical and scientific knowledge’.

It would entail rebuilding the physical infrastructure of the region, helping to raising productivity through education and training, assisting South African governments in raising human productivity, supporting governments in Southern Africa in their attempts to attract foreign investment and facilitating the importation of Southern African goods into Europe. Thatcher considered her proposal as the best way in which the European community could assist the countries of Southern Africa to develop their resources and promote prosperity.[2]

Pik Botha read the note and commented that he found the proposals to be very ‘reasonable’. He added that South Africa was ‘desperate’ for outside financial help.[3] However, nothing came of these plans. The Berlin Wall fell in November 1989, reducing Western anxieties about Soviet adventurism in Africa. Thatcher lost power a year later before serious negotiations in South Africa had started and her successor did not attach the same priority to resolving the Southern African crisis as Thatcher did.[4]

On 23 June 1989 F.W de Klerk, NP leader and de facto head of government met Thatcher in London. The interview did not start well with Thatcher stating that she found ‘unhelpful’ De Klerk’s view on the need for ‘group rights’ to avoid the tyranny of one group over the other group. She pointed out that this looked as if he was asking black South Africans not to use their powers to oppress others, when white South Africans had done precisely that. It in fact looked as if whites were expecting blacks to behave better than whites did when they ruled over blacks

The report states that De Klerk was ‘rather taken aback’ but that he went on to state that one could not have universal franchise in a unitary state in South Africa. A form of federalism would provide a partial solution but neither Thatcher nor De Klerk were enthusiastic federalists. The only strong support for a federal system was bound to come from whites living in the western part of the country where the NP was likely to win control of the provincial government.

The administration of US President George Bush also tried to promote a settlement. Edward J. Perkins, US ambassador to South Africa, urged the black opposition to apartheid in South Africa to provide some kind of assurance to the Afrikaners and whites in general. He added: ‘They will want to know that after the transition they will not end up defenceless and dispossessed in the land of their birth.’ He added that those who sought rapid and meaningful change in South Africa would do well to confront forthrightly the issue of two competing nationalisms.’[5] In 1989 Pres. Bush supported the demand of De Klerk, now president, for equal opportunities as a cornerstone of the new constitution.[6]

The NP government welcomed the promises of development aid but above all craved tangible support from friendly Western governments for its demand for compulsory power-sharing. But support for the latter demand was not forthcoming. Robin Renwick, British Ambassador in South Africa, spelled out his government’s position: ‘We will support the protection of minority rights, but we will not support a blocking minority … where the whites on their own could block all sorts of legislation.’[7]

The US government supported measures like federalism and the rule of law to curb the power of the executive but did not have much patience with pleas for mandatory power-sharing in order to curb the power of the strongest party. In July 1992 Herman Cohen, US under-secretary of state for Africa, declared that all sides had to recognise the ‘right of the majority to govern’.

No side, Cohen went on, could insist on ‘overly complex arrangements intended to guarantee a share of power to particular groups, which will frustrate effective governance. Minorities have the right to insist safeguards; they cannot expect a veto.’[8] The ANC could not have phrased its key demand better.

A view from National Intelligence

An important meeting took place in May 1988. Pres. Botha asked Dr. Niel Barnard, chief of the National Intelligence Agency, to head a team to meet with Nelson Mandela, the African National Congress leader, who was still in jail after given a life sentence in 1964 on a charge of treason

Barnard taught politics at the University of the Orange Free State and had just turned thirty when Botha out of the blue appointed him as head of the state’s newly created National Intelligence Service. Its brief was to submit to the President on a regular basis comprehensive security assessments of the South African state.

This was an inspired move on the part of Botha. Barnard had a sharp intellect, inquiring mind and the ability to express his views fearlessly and succinctly. He knew the work of some of the best Western scholars on issues relating to state security and stability and could discern which studies illuminated the best ways of addressing the South African conflict.

Barnard soon concluded that that white oligarchy in South Africa had reached its limits. If it continued on its existing course it was bound to discover, as the French did in Algeria, that excluding the majority of the population from the seats of power on a semi-permanent basis was bound to fail and could end in disaster

In South Africa both the shrinking white demographic base and the increasing militancy of blacks were steadily eroding white domination. Barnard believed that the sooner a settlement was found the better it would be for whites and for the country at large. With the scale tipping ever more against it, the white community could not afford to keep on postponing the decision.[9]    

Botha also came to accept that he had to make some move to avoid his party from suffering a steady decline in its support base. The NP government was no longer assured of the support of most whites. The support of the Conservative Party increased from 27 per cent in the 1987 election, when it became the official opposition, to 31 per cent in the 1989 election. In the latter election, which the NP billed as the last all-white election, the NP’s share of the vote had dipped to 48 per cent.

Starting talks with Mandela

The widespread demonstrations against apartheid during the 1980s prompted Pres Botha to explore the possibility of talks with Nelson Mandela, who was now seen in the large parts of the world as the main embodiment of the black liberation struggle.

Pres. Botha approved a meeting of Kobie Coetsee, Minister of Justice with Mandela, He had met Mandela’s wife, Winnie, on a plane bound for Cape Town. They talked about ways of meeting Botha’s demand that the ANC renounce violence before he would meet with Mandela.[10]

In May 1988 Botha also asked Barnard to lead a small team of government officials to conduct exploratory talks with Nelson Mandela. Botha assigned three other senior civil servants to join Barnard in his team: Willie Willemse, commissioner of prisons, Fanie van der Merwe, Director-general of Justice, and Mike Louw, Deputy-head of National Intelligence.

After receiving the instruction to start formal talks with Mandela Barnard commented: ‘Mister President, we must clearly understand what we should prepare ourselves for when we start negotiating with Mandela. It would inevitably culminate in majority rule with Mandela as president.’ Slightly irritated Botha replied: ‘I understand it very well. You don’t have to preach to me.’[11] For good measure he warned Barnard not to be ‘mesmerised’ by Mandela.

Between May 1988 and July 1989, when Botha resigned, Barnard and his small team met Mandela on nearly fifty occasions for talks spending nearly 200 hours in conversation. On 5 July 1989 Botha finally met Mandela in Tuynhuys, the president’s office in Cape Town next to the houses of Parliament.

In March 1989 Mandela submitted a memorandum to provide an underpinning for his views. He also wrote a letter to Botha in which he spelled out the key issue of the relationship between the majority and the minorities.

The key challenge, Mandela wrote, would be to reconcile ‘the [ANC] demand for majority rule in a unitary state and the concern of white South Africa over this demand, as well as the insistence on structural guarantees that majority rule will not mean the domination of the white minority by blacks’ … The most crucial task which will face the government and the ANC will be to reconcile these two positions. Such reconciliation will be achieved only if both parties are willing to compromise.’[12]

But there were limits to what the ANC was prepared to concede in order to stem white fears. In the first meeting between De Klerk and Mandela on 13 December 1989, the former would tell Mandela that the introduction of group rights would ease white concern over majority rule. Mandela replied that the ANC had not fought apartheid for 75 years to accept a disguised form of it.[13]

Proposing power-sharing

Keen to achieve a settlement as soon as possible to boost the economy, the government continued with its efforts to try persuade the ANC that conventional majority rule was ill-suited for addressing the problems of South Africa. De Klerk wrote to Mandela that the mere identification of the majority in a democratic system was insufficient. A greater priority was to ensure all citizens enjoy meaningful participation and fair representation in government institution.

De Klerk’s letter was in effect a call for power-sharing. However, power-sharing in cabinet was not an essential element of democracy. An opposition party could demand to be heard in Parliament but could not demand representation in cabinet unless the majority party decided it needed a partner. With polls indicating that the ANC would get more than half of the votes the scene was set for a system of dominant party rule that prevailed in many other African states.

De Klerk was adamant that the system of power-sharing he proposed was not the same as a white veto. He held up the ground rule of cabinets under white rule. If some ministers strongly opposed a certain measure they had to decide if they could live with it; if not they had to resign. But this was a convention in the Westminster system. If the NP and ANC were to form a coalition government the rules for decision-making by cabinet would have to be negotiated when a new political system was introduced.

De Klerk failed to clear up questions that hung over the mandate the NP had received from the voters in the 1989 election and the 1992 referendum. The white voters was convinced that the party stood for power sharing, not for majority rule. In debates with the ANC leadership De Klerk even made it clear that he could not underwrite a settlement unless this issue was resolved. He hoped to win the ANC over to accepting power sharing for an indefinite period, but seemed to have dropped this as a non-negotiable issue by mid-1992. For De Klerk power sharing was an aspiration, a dearly hoped for outcome, while his constituency thought it was his bottom line.

For most of 1989 Botha was largely absent from the political scene. Mandela kept calling for a meeting with him but Botha refused to see Mandela before he had renounced violence. Mandela in turn refused to foreswear violence unless there was an undertaking that he would be freed unconditionally.

In an interview I conducted with Mandela some years later he simulated a conversation between him and the president in which the latter demanded that he foreswear violence before they enter into a discussion that could lead to negotiations. Mandela said he would reply: ‘Oh no, I am not coming to you cap in hand. I am coming to you as the leader of an organisation. Don’t worry about my policy. Consider us discussing the question of the future of South Africa.’

In the end it was the president who relented. As Mandela observed, ‘We met as equals.’[14]

Botha’s meeting with Mandela

On 5 July 1989 Botha finally met with Mandela. Also present were General Willemse of prisons and Barnard of the NIS.[15] In retirement Botha maintained he had told Mandela that Marxism was one of the forces that had ruined Africa and it would destroy him as well.[16].

In prison Mandela had steeled himself for very tough negotiations that he believed strongly would take place one day. He had heard from other black leaders that Botha did not negotiate with blacks, but merely shouted. In a memorandum he sent to the president before their meeting, he warned that this would make a discussion very difficult’.

Mandela’s fears were unfounded. He later confessed that he went into the meeting ‘a bit frightened’, expecting ‘war’ because of Botha’s reputation as ‘an ANC hater’.

After the meeting he told his audiences that he considered the president to be a ‘first-class gentleman’, who treated him courteously Mandela told me: ‘In our meeting, if you did not know the South African situation, you would not know who the State President was and who the prisoner.’

Very little of substance was discussed, but Mandela made it clear that he was not willing to be freed before Walter Sisulu and others with whom he had spent many years in prison had been released.

The meeting was supposed to be kept quiet, but the president could not contain himself. On a hunting trip shortly afterwards he showed some cabinet members a photo of him, Mandela, Willemse and Barnard, and told them the story of the prison talks. The secret of this momentous event was out.

Niel Barnard was later criticised for his remark that Botha had laid the table for negotiations, leaving it to De Klerk to complete the process. But the fact is that by the end of 1988 Botha had clearly accepted the idea of negotiations with the ANC and he was the only NP leader that could secure general acceptance of this in his cabinet and caucus. But whether he and Mandela would have reached a settlement is difficult to say.

While still in prison Mandela mooted the idea to Barnard of an interim government composed of whites and blacks on a 50-50 basis that would govern the country for five to ten years.[17] However, as Barnard observes: ‘The moment Mandela was free the situation was never the same again.’[18]

Conclusion

Mandela spelled out the basic framework for a negotiated agreement in a single line of a memorandum he sent to the president: the black desire for majority rule had to be reconciled with the demand that majority rule would not mean the subjugation of the white and other minorities.[19] The debate over whether the ANC government truly respects the spirit of this constitution has not yet been resolved. This issue is once again pertinent in the light of the ANC government’s announcement that it plans to disarm civilians and nationalise medical schemes.