Читать книгу Peaceful Revolution - Нил Барнард - Страница 12

A shaky start

By December 1991, the time had come for the South African peace process to move ahead urgently into the political and constitutional domain. Furthermore, it was imperative that the process be conducted openly, in public – and therefore be transparent – and for it to be a multiparty affair.

On the government’s side, the last days before the first sitting of the Convention for a Democratic South Africa – which became known as Codesa 1 – were a hive of activity.

The Policy Group for Reform conducted endless hours of discussions at the Union Buildings in Pretoria. One of the burning questions was that the ANC had failed to demobilise MK, relinquish control over its arms caches, and meet other solemn undertakings as agreed upon in the DF Malan Accord to curb armed violence. These were clearly delaying tactics by the ANC, with an eye to milking every possible advantage at the negotiation table.

At a meeting of the Policy Group on the evening of 19 December, the day before the opening of Codesa 1, President De Klerk, in a threatening tone, intimated that he was considering calling off the Codesa deliberations unless the ANC delivered on its promises. He was extremely irritated because, as he put it, he had been placed in an impossible situation. A lengthy and intense debate followed. Eventually, common sense prevailed and it was decided that under no circumstances could the government cancel the multiparty conference on the future of South Africa.1

As regards the further reflections and decisions made that evening, the Policy Group, myself included, displayed less insight and wisdom. The president spoke heatedly on the violence question. It was decided that he would tackle the ANC on this publicly the next day at Codesa and that, as a courtesy, Mandela would be informed of this in advance. De Klerk decided he would not deliver this message himself, but that he would use Kobie Coetsee as the messenger.

Coetsee later reported that he was unable to track Mandela down, so he had passed the message to Thabo Mbeki instead, who undertook to inform Mandela. According to Coetsee, Mbeki showed some appreciation of the government’s objections on the matter of the ongoing violence and for the fact that De Klerk was going to take a firm stand on this matter at Codesa.

At the World Trade Centre in Kempton Park on the morning of 20 December, South Africa launched its version of a public constitutional settlement process. The officials from Constitutional Development Services, with other role players, had planned the conference down to the finest detail.

After Chief Justice Corbett had opened the convention, the leaders of all the political parties and the government delivered their opening addresses. As had been agreed, De Klerk, as state president, was the last to address the gathering. He began enthusiastically and announced that the government was prepared to consider a compromise between the ANC’s demand that the new constitution should be drafted by an elected constitutional assembly and the government’s standpoint that the drafting should be done by a multiparty constitutional body. He then proposed a two-phase process to this end and explained what it would entail.

De Klerk wrote later that this was a ‘surprise announcement’, described in the media as a ‘breathtaking change of policy’.2

As agreed in the Policy Group meeting the previous evening, De Klerk then berated the ANC for its non-compliance with the Malan Accord. He criticised the organisation for maintaining a private army while participating in Codesa and concluded by stating that the ANC as an organisation could not be trusted: on one hand, it was still advocating armed struggle, and on the other, it wanted to participate in the peace negotiations. He demanded that the ANC choose between peace through negotiation and a violent power struggle. In his own words, he called for a win–win situation.

According to newspaper reports and De Klerk’s own account, his speech was greeted with loud applause. However, the most important delegate at the convention did not receive it appreciatively. On the contrary.

Mandela’s reaction hit the assembly like an explosion. He was angry and almost lost his admirable self-restraint. In the one derogatory remark after another, the pent-up rage of decades – in his case, 27 years in prison – emerged in fierce, staccato outbursts.

He called De Klerk the head of an ‘illegitimate, discredited, minority regime’ and a man who could not even be trusted to meet the low moral standards that his regime espoused. To cap it all, he was simply ‘not equipped to be head of a government’.3

He may have been furious but, just as in his speech from the dock during the Rivonia Trial in 1964, he spoke with great conviction and acted with a certain presence, as one would expect of the next president of the country – a man who refused to be shunted around by anyone.

De Klerk was visibly angry, humiliated and embarrassed and, according to him, he had to struggle not to lose his temper and to overcome his deep sense of indignation.4 One has to admire the fact that he was able to rise above his ego; in his reaction, he did not resort to a similarly derogatory tirade, which he was certainly entitled to do. Instead, he put the interests of the country above his own to ensure that Codesa 1 did not collapse.

In his reply, he indicated that he had no intention whatsoever of attacking Mandela personally, but he still felt that violence was at variance with Codesa’s ideals. He also told the delegates that he had seen fit to give the ANC prior warning that he would broach the issue on the first day of proceedings.

Despite De Klerk’s protestations, on that day the pendulum of power in the negotiations swung irrevocably. Mandela and his team rapidly became the primus inter pares of the negotiations. The moral high ground shifted to the ANC on the basis of the implication ‘You [the government] are not to be trusted. You are not worthy negotiating partners. You claim to negotiate for peace, but covertly you are still at war with our people.’

Up to then, it had been a case of the government versus terrorists. From 20 December 1991, this was no longer the case.

With the benefit of hindsight, it was extremely foolish of us all on the government’s side to attempt to resolve a highly sensitive matter, which we had not debated privately with the ANC, by making an open threat – never mind by trying to hold an icon such as Mandela accountable.

One does not take on the world’s blue-eyed boy in public on matters that can’t be resolved in private. That it happened at all attests, perhaps, to a power hangover on the part of people who had ruled for too long without an effective opposition. Goodness knows why De Klerk was not advised to pick up the telephone and speak to Mandela about his dissatisfaction. Doing so could have prevented a debacle for which we paid a high price.

The next morning, when tempers had cooled somewhat, Mandela tried to be overly friendly and conciliatory throughout the session. In this respect, he was a typical politician who could not bring himself to make an outright public apology and tried, instead, to make amends with clumsy efforts.

Thus, Codesa 1 – which was supposed to be a celebration and demonstration of the preparedness of all parties to seek peaceful solutions – began disastrously. Nevertheless, the process was not derailed, although events had shown that mutual trust at leadership level – and particularly between the principals – was still sorely lacking. The negotiation process, however, was already stronger than its two pivotal leaders.

Indeed, the unfortunate incident brought home another pleasing realisation: it was no longer possible for an individual to scupper the peace process unilaterally. South Africans’ search for peace was well under way; there was no turning back.

There was still enough goodwill in the air for the nineteen parties present to sign a solemn statement, the Declaration of Intent, on the day before the adjournment for the Christmas season.5 By doing so, the parties committed themselves to all the basic elements of the future South African democratic state.

This solemn undertaking about the broad framework of our democracy had not been difficult to reach. However, for many, its details were destined to cause many troubled days and nights.

At Codesa 1, it was agreed to form five working groups with representation from all participating parties to tackle the core issues of the peace process in an open, participatory and equitable manner. Naturally, the working groups did not find all the answers and solutions. Nevertheless, they were an indispensable public stage where politicians, under the watchful eyes of their supporters and the media, could argue and debate to their hearts’ content, providing an inestimable contribution to make every South African feel as if they were part of the peace – and, indeed, the future.

In the modern world, agreements that are reached secretly in smoke-filled rooms, without making the citizenry feel part of the process, never succeed in their final implementation.

The working groups focused on the following themes: i) the creation of a level political playing field; ii) constitutional principles and a new constitution; iii) a transitional dispensation until such time as the new constitution came into operation; iv) the TBVC states and their democratic rights; and v) the time frames for implementing the Codesa agreements.

With the exception of Working Group 2, the contributions of the working groups provided, at best, a lean harvest. Soapbox orators spouted thousands of embellished words. Intellectual witticisms were uttered. Bile was spewed and aspirant politicians checked surreptitiously to see if the media had taken note of their supposedly clever utterances.

Many of the contributions, especially from the NP politicians, were pitiful. They were unprepared, sought advice from junior officials, and received little guidance from either De Klerk or Meyer. They were simply not equipped for the task.

In Working Group 2, the sparks flew. Tertius Delport and Cyril Ramaphosa clashed head-on about the majority percentage required for amending the Interim Constitution. Delport insisted upon a majority of 75 per cent, seemingly with De Klerk’s backing. Ramaphosa began with two-thirds, but later increased this to 70 per cent.

Later, he added the stipulation that, if the constitutional assembly did not accept a constitution within six months with the required majority (75 or 70 per cent), a referendum should be held in which a simple majority would be sufficient. With the ANC’s by now familiar and well-practised tactic of slowing down progress, it would be child’s play to enforce a referendum.

However, this proved unnecessary. By mid-1993, De Klerk had conceded to Mandela’s insistence on a majority of only 60 per cent. This is what happens when leaders lack strategic sense. De Klerk’s inertia, his reluctance to make a decision when necessary, caught up with him.

In terms of making a historical contribution, the Codesa working groups were rank outsiders. The chief negotiators fought out the core issues of the negotiation process behind closed doors. These were armed conflict, populist mass violence, the future of the civil service, affirmative action, amnesty, the official languages and cultural matters, the provinces and their respective borders, levels of constitutional government and the devolution of power.

In the confidential discussions as well as the bargaining in the working groups, the government’s views often prevailed; in the ‘public negotiations’, this was seldom the case.

During 1991, it became obvious to the Department of Constitutional Development that it urgently needed overall management; planning and co-ordination with the broader public service were required. At the time, I was the state’s most senior director general by a number of years.

Roelf Meyer, minister of constitutional development, sounded me out, asking whether I would be prepared to help with the management of the settlement process. We had known each other since our student days at the University of the Free State and were inducted, coincidentally, on the same evening as members of the Ruiterwag, an Afrikaner cultural organisation.

With Meyer’s offer came a difficult decision, something over which I tossed and turned at night. NI would be in safe hands and I felt sure that the settlement process would determine the fate of South Africans for generations to come. And yet it was with heavy hearts that Engela and I severed our ties with NI.

On 1 February 1992 I became director general (DG) of Constitutional Development, a key department that needed full commitment and careful management. In civil service terms, it was a young department that had already fallen under various ministers, of whom the seasoned Chris Heunis was the most competent. Earlier, he had asked me earnestly whether I would take on the position of DG of the department, but I decided against it; at one stage, there was media speculation that I was to become minister of this department, which led to unpleasant gossip and backbiting.

As for the department’s officialdom, it was a struggle to create and maintain an efficient staff complement. Accomplished officials are not always keen to join a new department of their own accord and it was no easy task to fill the posts, particularly the senior positions. It was a challenge for a new department to open its own berth of responsibilities in the bureaucracy.

Fortunately, we managed to acquire the services of a few former NI members such as Maritz Spaarwater, Daan Opperman, AP Botha, Herman du Toit, Gustav von Bratt and Nel Marais. The department was also able to rely on other stalwarts, among others Andrew Gray, Ando Donkers, Chris du Plessis, Koos van der Merwe, Chris Maritz, Renate Williams, François Beukman and a specialist adviser, Johan Symington. Symington’s wisdom often proved indispensable.

The deputy head, Henk Fourie, and the administrative head, Deon du Plooy, were stalwarts from the proud tradition of the old civil service, and were the backbone of the department.

Nevertheless, the department was but a small group of people who, for the most part, busied themselves with lengthy academic discussions and failed to implement the constitutional settlement process successfully.

1 Willie Esterhuyse, Endgame: Secret Talks and the End of Apartheid, pp. 290–292; Hermann Giliomee, Die laaste Afrikanerleiers (Cape Town: Tafelberg, 2012), p. 355.

2 FW de Klerk, Die laaste trek – ’n nuwe begin (Cape Town: Human & Rousseau, 1999), p. 239. Also available in English: FW de Klerk, The Last Trek – A New Beginning: An Autobiography (London: St Martin’s Press, 1999).

3 Patti Waldmeir, Anatomy of a Miracle (London: Viking, 1997), pp. 191–192.

4 FW de Klerk, Die laaste trek – ’n nuwe begin, pp. 240–242.

5 The two parties who refused to sign were Bophuthatswana, because it was against incorporation into South Africa, and the IFP, whose delegates felt that federalism did not feature strongly enough in the declaration.