The End of Apartheid by Robin Renwick Read Free Book Online Page A

release of Mandela.
    I had a further discussion with Buthelezi focused on a message he had sent to PW Botha pointing out the consequences of Mandela’s dying in prison, and saying that his release was the key to unblocking the political situation. It would be impossible to get a real negotiation going while Mandela remained in jail.
    The fighting between Inkatha and the ANC had led to over four hundred deaths around Pietermaritzburg in Natal. The Prime Minister had told Buthelezi that she wanted efforts made to bring the violence to an end. We supported efforts by his deputy, Oscar Dhlomo, to reachan agreement with the UDF about this. In Lusaka, Thabo Mbeki knew that Mandela was in favour of mending fences with Buthelezi. Buthelezi said that he accepted Mbeki’s bona fides and those of Oliver Tambo. But Chris Hani, head of Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), the military wing of the ANC, had said publicly that it was the policy of MK to seek to assassinate members of the Inkatha Central Committee, including Buthelezi. He regarded the ANC’s attempts to overthrow the government by force as futile. But the ANC was not going to melt away and nor was Inkatha.
    The finance minister, Barend du Plessis, had reached the same conclusions about South Africa’s financial situation as Gerhard de Kock. The capital outflow had somehow to be reversed. Du Plessis had the reputation of being more
verlig
than De Klerk, as did several of his colleagues. But the South African government still was under the iron hand of PW Botha, who exercised a reign of terror over the cabinet. He believed in intimidation across the board. At this time, infuriated one evening by the television news, he telephoned the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) to get the news changed in the middle of the programme!
    Margaret Thatcher, meanwhile, had been attending the Commonwealth conference in Vancouver, at which she felt that the Canadian hosts were trying to play to the African gallery. She flatly opposed any sanctions that would cause mass unemployment, telling Robert Mugabe that 80 per cent of Zimbabwe’s trade passed through South Africa and that one million Zimbabweans lived and worked there. At the end of the conference, she was asked by a journalist about a statement by the local representative of the ANC that, if shecontinued to oppose sanctions, British businesses in South Africa would become legitimate targets for attack. Understandably irritated, she replied that this showed what a typical terrorist organisation the ANC was.
    While a determined opponent of apartheid, Thatcher had never been an admirer of the ANC, given that the ‘armed struggle’ had been extended to civilian targets and included the necklacing of ‘collaborators’, and that the organisation was committed to nationalisation of much of the economy. Moreover, she had not failed to notice that, despite the SACP’s lack of any mass support, two thirds of the ANC’s politburo were members of the SACP. Nor did she believe for a moment that they were in a position to ‘seize power’. Nevertheless, she had been persuaded that the ANC had nationwide support and there could be no solution without them.
    On her return to London, I telephoned the Prime Minister’s Private Secretary, Charles Powell, to say that I understood why she had reacted as she had to a stupidly provocative statement by the ANC representative, who had been speaking on his own behalf. But as he well knew, through the programmes we were organising in the townships, we were in touch with much of the internal leadership of the ANC, while a colleague in Lusaka was in daily touch with the ANC leadership there. Downing Street agreed that of course these contacts must continue. This was confirmed also to Lynda Chalker, Minister of State in the Foreign Office, with the proviso that it should be our objective to get the ANC to agree to a suspension of violence.
    At the end of October, I