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Fifteen hundred crucial days

From Nelson Mandela’s release on 11 February 1990 until his inauguration as president on 10 May 1994, South Africans sat around countless negotiating tables to hammer out a peaceful resolution to the impasse in which they found themselves.

These more than fifteen hundred days marked the beginning of an epoch. Alas, they were also days of selfishness, egotism and blatant opportunism, spawning turncoats and power-seekers.

The negotiations dragged on, day after day, night after night and weekend after weekend. It is an illusion that everything progressed neatly and according to plan. From table to table the participants wrestled on, often without any clear goals. When crises arose, they were tackled and most were addressed. This was only possible thanks to the mutual trust and determination of the core group of negotiators for whom peace had become a passion.

Most of the negotiations took place in the headquarters of Constitutional Development Services, at 240 Walker Street in Pretoria, but others were held throughout the length and breadth of the country – even in a neighbouring country. From D’Nyala in the Bushveld and De Hoop in the southern Cape, to the ivory towers of the Witwatersrand and the government buildings of Pretoria, intense debates were held, most of them with the ANC. At Ulundi and elsewhere in Natal, endless discussions were held with the Inkatha Freedom Party.

Talks with the PAC were held in Gaborone because its members refused to negotiate on South African soil. The right-wingers, appropriately enough, were met at a hunting lodge in the far northern Transvaal on the banks of the Limpopo River, where Thomas Langley had the temerity to insist that the proposed volkstaat (a state exclusively for the Afrikaner volk) be accorded international diplomatic representation.

The old Verwoerd Building at 120 Plein Street in Cape Town was also home to negotiations involving, among others, a number of splinter groups and ‘flentergatpartye’ (ragtag parties), as PW Botha described them. Suddenly, everyone was too important in their own eyes to be excluded from the search for a political solution. The challenge lay in not pushing them aside but, at the same time, making them understand that their bargaining power at the negotiation table was more or less proportional to their support base, which was still untested at that stage.

Come what may, listening to what everyone had to say was the only way to ensure full participation. No sooner said than done.

The ANC’s team

The ANC’s core negotiating team was formidable and represented many shades of opinion. Furthermore, it had the advantage of having a global icon as its principal and leader.

Many a time, Mandela played the negotiation process like a Stradivarius violin. Everyone realised that his approval was the final test, which, in reality, gave him veto rights. When he deemed it necessary, he was stubborn and unyielding. Sometimes, he was almost trite with reproachful passion – for example, on the ‘third force’ and security issues, a matter on which the ANC was solidly behind him.

Why was Cyril Ramaphosa the one chosen to lead the ANC team, and not Thabo Mbeki, who, after all, had done the lion’s share of the preparation? The NI’s sources gave a logical explanation for this, which lay partly in the internal conflict in the ANC – conflict between the decimated United Democratic Front (UDF) wing inside the country and the corrupt external wing. The former had been manhandled by the security forces; the latter’s members were gallivanting overseas in posh hotels. This was the perception, and was not entirely devoid of truth.

The ANC leadership regarded Mbeki as the talented intellectual who might be too soft in his dealings with the government, too malleable. In contrast, Ramaphosa was seen as the battering ram who would put the government’s negotiators in their place. When the pendulum swung in favour of aggressive negotiators, Ramaphosa, with his personality and experience in trade union bargaining, seemed the obvious choice.

It appears that Mbeki accepted his supporting role with grace. He often helped to clear bottlenecks, particularly those involving the right-wing Afrikaners and the tussle to include them in the peace process. Mbeki was sharp, but never malicious. He is a good listener, and was always on hand to seek solutions and help others to solve core dilemmas clearly and decisively. Everyone realised that, in his own right and as a protégé of Oliver Tambo, he was a heavyweight with access to Mandela.

Ramaphosa was equally quick-witted and was always well prepared. During the negotiations, he was a straight talker – a trait worth its weight in gold. Negotiations, as the Germans would say, are about Blut und Boden (blood and soil) issues; Ramaphosa knew this all too well. He is a friendly person, but sometimes conducted himself like a sergeant major on the parade ground. Then, he was bombastic and even arrogant – as he was on the day he snapped at me while I was speaking Afrikaans, saying that all government officials were supposed to be bilingual.

He brought gravitas and many talents to the table. Everyone knew that if Cyril was part of a plan, the chances of success were virtually assured.

The rest of the ANC’s core team comprised equally talented people: Joe Slovo, Mac Maharaj, Valli Moosa and, sometimes, Mathews Phosa. They were well prepared and complemented one another perfectly, like an Olympic relay team handing the baton faultlessly from one team member to the next. Their explicit objective – a democratic dispensation for South Africa – gave the ANC team an indisputable advantage. Intellectual and academic arguments simply cannot hold a candle to the reality of the will of the people at the ballot box. In the back of every negotiator’s head, he or she knew this all too well.

Then there was the ANC’s extended negotiating team, comprising knowledgeable people who were drawn circumstantially into the discussions – when certain topics and bottlenecks arose, for example. They included, among others, Jacob Zuma, Joel Netshitenzhe, Barbara Masekela, Baleka Kgositsile (Mbete), Joe Modise, Zola Skweyiya, Arthur Chaskalson, Siphiwe Nyanda and Aziz Pahad. All were old campaigners, most with outstanding struggle credentials, which meant that they could speak with authority.

It was insightful to contrast the thousands of days that the ANC negotiators had spent on snow-covered parade grounds in East Germany, in lice-infested barracks in Angola and Uganda, and behind bars in South Africa – in constant fear that the defence force’s special forces could swoop in on one’s hiding place in the neighbouring states – with the comfortable armchair existence of the government’s negotiating team.

When the ANC team first embarked on the negotiation process, its members appeared somewhat disorganised. No one could fathom who was wielding the sceptre. Was it Mandela, or the internal wing, or the external Thabo Mbeki wing, or maybe even the SACP or Cosatu? For the most part, even to the eyes of outsiders, there appeared to be tension between the ANC’s internal and external wings. The latter had, by then, returned to the country in great numbers. The overarching goal of liberation united them all, however.

Of crucial significance for the ANC were the supportive masses, a vital building block of ANC negotiation strategy that was shored up by three powerful elements. First, the masses would ensure that the ANC won the democratic election. So, they had to be handled with kid gloves. Their whims, not to mention their years of bottled-up anger, had to be considered continuously. The clarion call was that all negotiation on the peace process had to focus on rescuing the masses from oppression. This permeated virtually every discussion, along with a hefty dose of anti-apartheid bile.

Secondly, the masses were the ANC’s excuse. When the organisation was forced into a corner in a debate, the escape route was to declare that the masses would ‘never agree’ to it. Time and again this proved an effective tactic: a support base of this size could not be ignored.

Thirdly, the masses were there for mass action or violence should the negotiations stall and the ANC not get its way. ‘We will mobilise the masses to put an end to your obstinacy’ was the threat. We could not deny the truth that politicians are there to serve the people. Those who disregard this will always, in the end, pay the price for doing so.

Then, inside South Africa and throughout the world, too, there was a veritable host of sympathisers; they supported the ANC in word and deed and included, among others, the United Nations, the Organisation of African Unity (later the African Union), the European Union (EU), countless international mega-companies and banks, religious bodies, non-government organisations (NGOs), sports governing bodies, universities … all of whom gave advice and money to the ANC to force the evil Pretoria to its knees.

Africa stood solidly behind the ANC, a continental tsunami bent on freeing Africa from the last bastion of white colonial domination. Until this was done, Africa’s liberation would be incomplete. So, every conceivable form of support was garnered: from military bases for MK fighters to diplomatic pressure and endless provocation at international forums. Some of these countries had paid a high economic price for giving their support, but, in brotherly fashion, they stood shoulder to shoulder in the struggle.

Then, there were those whom we in government circles referred to as the ‘fifth-columnists’: people who came from the bosom of the old order, but had decided to leave the fold – some with much fanfare, others quietly – to give their passionate support to the liberation struggle. They believed in justice and wanted to fight against the wrongs of the past in every way possible. In this process, they often became estranged from family and friends. Many led a lonely life in exile, were reviled locally but believed steadfastly in their moral mission, were ideologically brainwashed, and could talk endlessly. The tragedy is that many of them, after a life of selfless sacrifice, were pushed aside by the ANC, especially during the period of Zuma rule.

Still others came from diverse backgrounds, persuasions, ages and racial or ethnic groups. More often than not, they could not be tackled without wearing gloves; they were often talented and wilful people who defied the existing order, especially if it was based (actually or reputedly) on injustice.

In the 1980s, increasing numbers of people from the elite of the old order began to throw their weight behind the ANC: business people, church leaders, academics, sports personalities, artists, journalists, lawyers … many of them donated money to the ANC, and others gave intellectual support. This also gave the ANC a moral anchor.

The government’s team

Dr Gerrit Viljoen was initially the chief negotiator on behalf of the government and the National Party. However, this good-­natured and often brilliant academic had made the transition into the harsh world of politics not with entire success. For example, he could never understand why his colleagues were prepared to stab one another in the back to climb one rung higher on the political ladder.

Sometimes, he lacked sufficient firmness when it was required. For example, he was not man enough to come down hard on Kobie Coetsee, who habitually arrived late at meetings and then wanted to hear everything he had missed from the beginning. Furthermore, he was not careful enough when certain senior officials would take chances and ‘just quickly’ get his signature of approval when he was in a hurry to go somewhere.

On other occasions, his firmness was uncalled for. More than once, he reprimanded officials in a belittling manner, until I issued him with a threatening ultimatum. Officials are not cannon fodder for politicians.

Viljoen’s chairmanship of the Policy Group for Negotiation and the Core Group for Negotiation was of short duration. In May 1992, he resigned due to poor health. His term of office was characterised by a lack of strategic leadership, authoritative decision-making and practical experience.

However, the Core Group presented some excellent strategic arguments on the negotiation process under his leadership, on occasion. Unfortunately, they were not followed through with binding decisions and clear objectives. Key ministers would turn up late for meetings or simply not attend; others would excuse themselves early in the proceedings, with the result that key issues had to be discussed over and over again to give everyone an opportunity to contribute.

The outcome was that the agendas of the Core Group became an illogical and drawn-out business, with the same points being repeated ad nauseam and with no clear direction. Together with secretary Nelius Volschenk, I would sometimes tinker with the agenda in the interest of sharper focus and less repetition, but the government’s planning gained little from our intervention.

President De Klerk appointed Roelf Meyer to succeed Viljoen. Meyer brought specific skills and leadership qualities to the negotiating table. On his appointment as minister of constitutional development, he contributed his talents of heaps of energy, enthusiasm, management insight and engaging human relations. Meyer was easy-going in social circles, a good listener, and well able to grasp the core aspects of challenges and sum them up succinctly for further discussion.

However, for a politician he was not a fluent speaker and regularly struggled, particularly in public and sometimes also in meetings, to express his point of view clearly. As a public speaker, he was unable to convey the government’s negotiation plans successfully. His strong point was smaller discussion groups, in which his personal charm stood him in good stead. He liked to seek compromises; I can recall very few occasions where he took an unyielding stand on a fundamental issue.

There is a difference between being small-mindedly stubborn and taking a firm stand on your considered opinion. Meyer often landed somewhere between these two poles; being ‘lukewarm’ cost him dearly in the eyes of many of his political colleagues who regarded him as spineless and soon began to suspect that he might even be hand in glove with the ANC.

In addition to Meyer, a number of other young agterryers or back-benchers appeared on the scene as newly appointed ministers and deputy ministers. They soon discovered, to their shock, that there was a difference between tending the horses in the background, at a safe remove from the battlefield, and fighting in the heat of battle from the saddle of the foremost horse. More often than not, even the most senior ministers in the De Klerk Cabinet were neither prepared nor equipped to do so.

Meyer and De Klerk appeared to get along well enough, particularly in the early stages of the proceedings. This strengthened Meyer’s position considerably.

Kobie Coetsee will probably be remembered for two things: becoming the first NP politician to meet the imprisoned Nelson Mandela on his visit to the latter in hospital in 1985; and, with his ducking and diving during the negotiations, playing directly into the hands of the ANC. While he was not a member of the government’s active negotiating team, his seniority in Cabinet and his shady manoeuvres on matters of cardinal concern meant that he had a major influence on the course of the negotiation process.

Coetsee’s knack of appropriating important matters for himself meant that, from the outset, there was a tug- of- war between the Department of Constitutional Development and his Department of Justice over which of the two should take primary responsibility for the negotiations on behalf of the government. He argued that people versed in legal matters should handle all ‘judicial processes’; our insistence that the constitution was primarily a constitutional issue and not a ‘legal problem’ was eventually accepted.

Later, when Coetsee was given the additional portfolios of defence and the intelligence services, he became even bolder than before, often setting off on his own course on anything that had even the vaguest legal undertones. Some of us wondered whether the fact that he got away with murder – even from the president – meant that he had an uncomfortable hold on the head of state.

According to British journalist Anthony Sampson, PW Botha said of Coetsee: ‘A peculiar little man. If you ask me what he did in my Cabinet, I don’t know. I always felt, after talking to him about Mandela, that it was a case of confusion that simply grew worse.’1

Inkatha was also a critical role-player in the negotiation process. When it was founded in 1975, this Zulu cultural organisation was known as Inkatha yeNkululeko yeSizwe. It was only in 1990, when it became a political party, that it was renamed the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP).

Chief Buthelezi was a competent leader of the IFP, but his sometimes unpredictable whims and temper did not make him an easy team member. However, his moods should be seen in context; from the very beginning, the ANC wanted to oust him in every conceivable way, soon gaining NP allies as a result.

History shows that the IFP was not always handled fairly and in a dignified manner, and that South Africa paid a heavy price for this for at least a decade in the form of bloody conflict between the ANC and Inkatha. Justifiably, the IFP objected strongly to the implementation of the ‘sufficient consensus’ agreement. This agreement implied that Buthelezi, the government and the ANC would have veto rights on certain crucial matters. But, in practice, the IFP gradually lost its power of veto; this led to intense and bitter debates in September 1992, with the signing of the Record of Understanding.

The role of the Democratic Party (DP) in the negotiations was a valuable one. Indeed, it could have been decisive had the NP government and the arch-liberals of Rondebosch been able to put aside their sometimes childish party-political vendettas from a bygone era and participated, instead, in the negotiations with the understanding that they shared many points of agreement. The DP could have contributed experience and insight to the process, something which the NP did not always have. The DP tried to do this, but, without any firm agreement with the govern­ment, its influence was limited.

The conservative Afrikaners also had to be kept on board. They were not necessarily against the idea of negotiations, but cherished the dream that the outcome would be a little place of their own under the sun. But they were deeply divided and leaderless. Largely because they had strong support in the security forces, they were handled with kid gloves and a measure of understanding during the negotiations.

Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma, no less, spent hours with me negotiating with the right-wingers about a volkstaat, a state set aside exclusively for the Afrikaner people, and the subsequent inclusion of principle 34 in the Transitional (Interim) Constitution. Mbeki was well aware of the Afrikaners’ potential for disrupting the peace process – a perception, strangely enough, not shared by De Klerk and Meyer, who left it largely up to me to negotiate with the right-wingers and who were visibly irritated when informed of my progress, or the lack thereof.

There were also dozens of talks with the multitude of smaller parties. Some were no more than splinter groups, but the country could not afford to deny them inclusion in the process. They ranged from Azapo and the PAC, headed at the time by a fiery and unapproachable Patricia de Lille and the unimpressive Benny Alexander (aka !Khoisan X), to the Afrikaner Volksunie under the leadership of the talented Andries Beyers.

For good measure, we also had to deal with the relics of the previous political dispensation in the form of the homeland leaders. Evidently, they were in general disfavour with their voters, but had something to contribute nonetheless. Needless to say, negotiating with them was less onerous, but, when Meyer found time to speak to them, he was full of the bravado that he lacked when trading blows with ANC heavyweights. (The negotiations with each of these groups are discussed in more detail in Chapter 12.)

1 Cited in Anthony Sampson, Mandela (Johannesburg: Jonathan Ball, 1999), p. 364.