The Fall of Apartheid The Inside Story from Smuts to Mbeki Robert Harvey The Fall of Apartheid Also by Robert Harvey BLUEPRINT 2000 (editor) CLIVE: The Rise and Fall of a British Emperor COCHRANE: The Life and Exploits of a Fighting Captain FIRE DOWN BELOW: A Journey across Latin America LIBERATORS: Latin America’s Struggle for Independence PORTUGAL: Birth of a Democracy THE RETURN OF THE STRONG: The Drift to Global Disorder THE UNDEFEATED: The Rise, Fall and Rise of Greater Japan The Fall of Apartheid The Inside Story from Smuts to Mbeki Robert Harvey © Robert Harvey 2001 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1P 0LP. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2001 by PALGRAVE Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N. Y. 10010 Companies and representatives throughout the world PALGRAVE is the new global academic imprint of St. Martin’s Press LLC Scholarly and Reference Division and Palgrave Publishers Ltd (formerly Macmillan Press Ltd). ISBN 0–333–80247–0 This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Harvey, Robert, 1953– The fall of apartheid : the inside story from Smuts to Mbeki / Robert Harvey. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0–333–80247–0 1. Apartheid—South Africa. 2. South Africa—Politics and government—1989–1994. 3. South Africa—Politics and government—1994– 4. South Africa—Social conditions– –1961–1994. 5. South Africa—Social conditions—1994– I. Title. DT1757 .H37 2000 968.06—dc21 00–065239 10987654321 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 Printed and bound in Great Britain by Antony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham, Wiltshire For Betty and Alan Young This page intentionally left blank Contents Preface ix Acknowledgements xii Introduction xiv Prelude 1 Part I: The Elect 1 A Stranger in Stellenbosch 5 2 A Seed of Hope 15 3 Defeat in War, Victory in Peace 27 4 The Broeders – Stormtroopers of Apartheid 36 5 The Volkstaat 47 6 The Mathematician 56 7 Afrikaner Darkness 64 8 Afrikaner Caudillo 75 9 The Rage 89 Part II: Rainbow Bridge 10 Romancing the Prisoner 105 11 Punch, Counterpunch 117 12 Most Secret Conduit 125 13 The Mandela Imperative 140 14 Hard Bargaining 148 15 Breakthrough 162 16 The Thatcher Opportunity 170 17 The Fall of Botha 179 vii viii Contents 18 Face to Face 188 19 The De Klerk Revolution 196 20 The White Collapse 207 21 The Unravelling 216 22 Endgame 231 Select Bibliography 245 Index 247 Preface By Anthony Sampson The story of South Africa’s peaceful revolution has already become a twentieth-century epic: an exciting tale full of unexpected heroes, but also a crucial study in political science, with important lessons in the art of negotiation and persuasion. It is a story with several plots and contrasted settings: the growing rebellion of blacks inside South Africa, threatening to take it into an irreversible civil war; Nelson Mandela, isolated in jail, secretly discussing with an intelligence team the possibility of talks between the government and the African National Congress; Oliver Tambo and his fellow exiles of the ANC in Lusaka, with their own ideas about dialogue and sanctions, increas- ingly anxious that Mandela might be selling out; the British government, dominated by Margaret Thatcher, attempting to bring pressure on the South African government under P. W. Botha while refusing to recognize the ANC. Behind the main scenes many inde- pendent-minded and courageous individuals were seeking to make contacts to avert the terrifying prospect of a race war. The eventual resolution was the result of many pressures, direct and indirect. But certainly among the most useful and illuminating meeting-places were the confidential gatherings in Britain where Afrikaner intellectu- als and businessmen were able to meet ANC leaders in exile, where the two sides could communicate with each other away from the public eye, with a growing common understanding which provided a precious basis of trust for the formal negotiations which followed. It is this part of the story which this book reveals for the first time in vivid detail, with a remarkable empathy for both sides. Robert Harvey’s account is the more interesting because it avoids the stereo- types of intransigent Boer reactionaries or dogmatic black revolutionaries. He takes care to represent the Afrikaners’ dilemma in the perspective of their unhappy and heroic history, and to portray ANC leaders as sympathetic individuals who faced their own hard- ships and internal problems. The historical flashbacks show without moralizing or caricaturing how the confrontations between Africans and Afrikaners became increasingly dangerous and inevitable; while his accounts of the secret meetings bring the characters to life, talking in their secluded and compact settings, with the intimacy of a play. The outstanding personalities, including the Afrikaner academic ix x Preface Willie Esterhuyse and the ANC negotiator Thabo Mbeki, are shown interacting as credible human beings, as they share the common dread of escalating conflict, and understand each other’s fears and aspira- tions. The sponsorship of the secret talks in Britain was achieved in an unexpected way, worthy of a political thriller. Consolidated Gold Fields was an improbable benefactor; the company once dominated by Cecil Rhodes was seen as one of the most conservative in South Africa, and their centenary had just been commemorated by a company history by the right-wing polemicist Paul Johnson which was contemptuous of the ANC. And Gold Fields was soon to have its own problems in trying to fend off takeover bids, eventually becom- ing part of the Hanson Group. It was all the more remarkable that its chairman, Rudolph Agnew, should have been persuaded by his polit- ical adviser Michael Young to finance the meetings between Afrikaners and the ANC at the company’s own country house, Mells; and that Lord Hanson would continue the commitment (with some other supporters, including British Airways, who provided the air tickets). But the meetings which resulted from Agnew’s decision were the more realistic for having conservative sponsorship; and it was ironic that Afrikaner businessmen found they could do business with the African politicians at a time when Margaret Thatcher still regarded them as outlaws. The achievement of Michael Young, who had initi- ated the process through his contacts with the ANC President, Oliver Tambo, is a reminder of how adventurous individuals can break log- jams when conventional diplomacy has failed, and how realistic business contacts can be more fruitful than negotiations between governments trapped in their ideologies. But this story also has some lessons which go beyond political science, and help to illuminate not just the South African problems, but more general problems of establishing candid communications and trust. We see how goodwill develops as each becomes more open in discussing their problems with their own people; how they achieve a camaraderie both through common setbacks and through break- throughs; and how talks acquire their own atmosphere, assumptions and momentum as they exchange confidences. Thus the ANC group were encouraged by the Afrikaners’ reports that their civil and military leadership were at odds; while the Afrikaners were impressed by Mbeki’s candid explanation of the ANC’s difficulties in restraining their guerrillas from bombing ‘soft targets’. The formal speech-making and defensive attitudes gave way to disarming exchanges about each Preface xi other’s difficulties, and the acceptance of common sense instead of dogma. As Mof Terreblanche put it: ‘Commonsense is the most wonderful thing to reach understanding.’ Today the account of the secret meetings has a special interest for the light it throws on the character of Thabo Mbeki, now President of South Africa, who is still regarded by many observers as an enigmatic figure with a secretive history as an exiled leader. In this book we see how Mbeki led his delegation with extraordinary confidence, with a mixture of flexibility and fixed purpose, gaining the trust of Afrikaners while never forfeiting his position with his own colleagues, and appar- ently confident of his own position. He did not appear to see Mandela as the future leader of the ANC after he left prison, let alone an even- tual President of his country: Mbeki stressed to the Afrikaners that Tambo and Sisulu were both Mandela’s seniors. Reading this book, it is hard to see Mbeki as a natural deputy by nature, subservient to his president, Oliver Tambo, as some critics have depicted him. Certainly he took care to keep in touch with Tambo and his colleagues; but Mbeki during the talks appears as an obvious leader with his own clear plans for navigating the routes to power. How far these secret talks contributed to the peaceful transition in South Africa is a question that must eventually be left to future histo- rians. But undoubtedly they played a part in establishing trust before the settlement was eventually thrashed out.