embassy in Pretoria. Although I had already been transferred from NI to Constitutional Development, I had the responsibility of seeing that the KGB was kept informed about the intricacies of the negotiations in South Africa.
After 1994, the relationship between the ANC government and those in power in Moscow remained, at best, very cool, and is still by no means known for its warmth and supportiveness. Proposed visits by Mandela to Moscow were postponed a number of times, and Moscow is still not a destination high on the list of international cities that ANC leaders visit on their endless overseas journeys. Under President Zuma, relations have improved, however.
1 For further details, see Niël Barnard, Secret Revolution: Memoirs of a Spy Boss, especially pp. 88–94.
Chapter 8
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