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Violence – and talk of peace

Today, many seem to think that the South African settlement process was peaceful and orderly. Nothing could be further from the truth. A host of fierce assaults from all quarters besieged the country for the entire period.

According to some estimates, about 14 000 people died in political violence from mid-1990, when the negotiations began, until April 1994. KwaZulu and Natal, in particular, became a battlefield where a bloody conflict raged between IFP and ANC–SACP supporters. According to the South African Institute of Race Relations (SAIRR) statistics, 3 699 people died in this unrest. In 1991, this number decreased somewhat to 2 672. The Human Rights Commission claimed that, in KZN, an average of 101 people died each month in incidents of political violence between July 1990 and June 1993. Furthermore, the political violence and bloodshed spread to the PWV area, where 4 756 people died in this same period.

Attacks on police officers also escalated dramatically. From January 1991 until the end of December 1993, there were 6 369 politically motivated attacks on members of the police force, resulting in 412 deaths. In incidents of political unrest between July 1991 and June 1993, where the police intervened, 518 members of the public died.1 In so-called necklace murders – in which an activist would place a burning tyre around the neck of a person suspected of collaborating with the regime – 469 people died between 1986 and 1992.2 Hostel violence also took its toll, mainly between IFP and ANC supporters. According to ANC sources, between July 1990 and April 1992 there was a total of 261 attacks by hostel dwellers, in which 1 207 residents of various townships were killed.3

Among the negotiators and all those countrywide who sought peace, the realisation had dawned that the situation was unbearable and that the political violence simply had to be brought under control as a matter of urgency. Finally, in September 1991, after months of lengthy deliberations, representatives from almost thirty political parties and organisations, trade unions and non-­profit organisations agreed on a comprehensive and binding National Peace Accord (NPA). Its aim was to restrict public violence and intimidation by means of codes of conduct, procedures and mechanisms so that all South Africans could participate freely in political processes. At the same time, it had to help maintain a stable social order that was minimally disruptive of the negotiations.

In an attempt to create stability and consolidate the peace process, positive measures were launched to combat the worst effects of political violence at local level. Various mechanisms were put in place. The accord included a code of conduct for all political parties to follow in terms of which, among other things, they were obliged to contribute to the creation of a ‘climate of democratic tolerance’. Everyone undertook to condemn political violence publicly and repeatedly.

Furthermore, parties could not intimidate anyone on the basis of their political convictions, threaten or do harm to them and, in general terms, would promote freedom of political expression. Everyone undertook to work with the police to investigate incidents of unrest and apprehend offenders.

Alas, the accord did not restrain all incitement to violence. The ANC leadership was the ringleader in defiantly and flagrantly breaking the ethos and conciliatory spirit of the accord. The negotiation process had reached a point of no return early on, and the ANC could afford to let its revolutionary petticoat show.

On an overseas visit in May 1992, speaking in Helsinki, Mandela claimed that De Klerk was complicit in violence in which ‘more than a thousand people’ in South Africa had died. A few days later, in Geneva, he compared the government’s steps to maintain law and order with the Nazis’ genocide of the Jews in the Second World War.4

This was extremely irresponsible of Mandela who was, no doubt, trying to gain lost prestige among the radicals after the ANC’s concession on the suspension of violence.

Other statements were even more reckless. In Zwide, outside Port Elizabeth, notorious firebrand Harry Gwala declared on 16 June 1992: ‘Codesa or no Codesa, we have come here to take power from the hands of the Fascist Boers. If our freedom depends on blood-shedding, so be it.’5

In terms of the peace accord, it was agreed that the committee formed in compliance with the Prevention of Public Violence and Intimidation Act of 1991 would investigate the background of, and reasons for, the violence. Various ‘instruments of peace’ were also set up at local and regional level to prevent violence and intimidation. The committee’s work was co-ordinated country­wide by the National Peace Secretariat under Judge Antonie Gildenhuys, which began to function on 4 November 1992.

The ANC named heavyweights Tokyo Sexwale and Jayendra Naidoo as its representatives in the secretariat; the NP’s Chris Fismer and Johan Steenkamp simply didn’t have the same clout. Luckily, a senior Constitutional Development official, Deon Rudman (previously of the Department of Justice) also served in the secretariat.

Before long, the question of the ANC’s reliance on MK also raised its head. ANC top brass announced that the peace accord was subordinate to the DF Malan Accord, which meant that MK and its activities were not bound by peace accord restrictions. Mandela supported this obvious ploy, which came down to the fact that the ANC was entitled to keep its private ‘army’ – but that other signatories of the accord were not.

Did Inkatha’s ‘cultural weapons’, such as assegais and knobkieries (handmade clubs), represent a greater threat to peace than MK’s AK-47s and limpet mines? Buthelezi’s utter frustration with the situation was understandable, particularly in the light of the ANC’s argument that it was not a political party but a liberation movement.

The government’s participation in the accord was uninspiring, to put it mildly. While the ANC was, on occasion, represented by heavyweights such as Thabo Mbeki, Aziz and Essop Pahad, and Sydney Mufamadi; Cosatu by Sam Shilowa; and the IFP by Frank Mdlalose, the government’s Hernus Kriel, Johan Scheepers, Renier Schoeman and Jac Rabie were often absent.

On one occasion, Mdlalose expressed his ‘bitter disappointment’ in the government’s apparent apathy and the way in which the ANC took advantage of this. As he put it: ‘These chaps are getting away with murder on a daily basis and the government does not seem interested.’6

To counteract the government and NP’s poor showing, the Civil Servants’ Committee made several suggestions, including that the Policy Group for Negotiation and the Core Group for Negotiation take the lead actively and that the deputy minister of law and order, Johan Scheepers, manage the matter innovatively. But our suggestions fell largely on deaf ears. De Klerk’s refusal to allow ministers to become fully involved in the negotiations also cost the government dearly.

In his chairman’s report on 4 November 1994, Gildenhuys declared that the peace accord had made a meaningful contribution to peace and stability, but that the accord could never guarantee peace in South Africa. The prevalence of political assassinations, taxi violence, violence on trains, hostel anarchy, necklace murders, consumer boycotts and gang violence was simply too extensive and unpredictable. He concluded: ‘Violence that took place covertly in the past is now being perpetrated openly. It is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to put an end to such violence. It would take a change of heart from all political groups involved in the violence.’

The peace accord was a praiseworthy mechanism that met with limited success. This does not detract from the fact that it was an innovative attempt to achieve stability in the country by contractual means and concerted management mechanisms. At the very least, it represented the desire for a negotiated agreement that boisterous radicals could not derail.

1 Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Volume 2, ‘Political Violence in the Era of Negotiations and Transition, 1990–1994’, pp. 583–710.

2 JV van der Merwe, Submission to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, 21 October 1996.

3 Statement made after an emergency meeting of the National Executive Committee of the ANC, 23 June 1992.

4 The Citizen, 23 May 1992 and 25 May 1992.

5 ‘Bloodletting if necessary, says Gwala’, EP Herald, 17 June 1992.

6 Remarks by Frank Mdlalose at a meeting of the National Peace Committee, 26 May 1992.