mounting international pressure and rising internal unrest, Mandela had become a far greater political problem, and also because it meant the government had given up on trying to persuade him to accept release to the Transkei.
By then, Mandela had been incarcerated for more than 20 years. This included a period he describes, in Long Walk to Freedom, as ‘The Dark Years’ during which he and fellow ‘security prisoners’ endured brutal conditions on Robben Island, and a subsequent period he describes as ‘Beginning to Hope’ in which conditions on the Island improved and he and others began to enjoy greater contact with the outside world. This period ended in 1982 when he and four other prominent ‘security prisoners’ – Walter Sisulu, Ahmed Kathrada, Raymond Mhlaba and Andrew Mlangeni – were abruptly moved from Robben Island to Pollsmoor Prison, a maximum security prison on the Cape Peninsula.
In sharp contrast with their conditions on the Island, they were installed in a penthouse on top of the main prison building, comprising a large room with four properly made beds, and separate ablution facilities. (Previously, they had slept on mats on their cell floors.) It was connected to a large outside terrace where they were allowed out during the day. No reason for the move was provided, However, Mandela and his colleagues believed the authorities were attempting to ‘cut off the head of the ANC on the island by removing its leadership’.2
Nevertheless, the food was much better; they were permitted a fairly wide range of newspapers and magazines, and were also given a radio (which, to their regret, only received local stations and not the BBC World Service). Mandela started a vegetable garden on the terrace, in oil drums cut in half that were supplied by the prisons service. In May 1984, he received the first ‘contact’ visit from his wife, Winnie, his daughter Zenani (known as Zeni), and a granddaughter during which he could hug them for the first time in 21 years.
Given their improved connections with the outside world, Mandela and his colleagues were aware that the anti-apartheid struggle was intensifying, that new grassroots political movements – including the United Democratic Front (UDF) – were being formed inside the country, and that the ANC was experiencing a ‘new birth of popularity’. Also, countries across the globe were beginning to impose economic sanctions on South Africa.
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In this context, there were other indications that the process surrounding Mandela had begun to accelerate. On Monday, 21 January, just ten days before Botha’s statement in parliament, a prominent British and European politician, Lord Nicholas Bethell, was allowed to interview Mandela in Pollsmoor Prison. Bethell had a standing interest in human rights issues, and had been petitioning the South African government for permission to visit Mandela for a long time. However, after many months of routine refusals, it had become expedient to allow Bethell to interview Mandela.
A member of the Conservative Party, Bethell was a staunch anti-communist who had campaigned against human rights abuses in the Soviet Union. He was the first foreigner to be allowed to visit Mandela in prison, and the first person allowed to publish an interview with him. Put differently, this was the first time that Mandela’s views would be placed on public record in 22 years.3
Bethell’s account of the interview was published at length in the British Mail on Sunday six days later, on 27 January 1985. It went on to receive global media coverage – notably because it contained what were thought to be the first public comments by Mandela on prospects for negotiations with the NP government, including the conditions under which the ANC would suspend its ‘armed struggle’.
The Coetsee archive contains both typed and handwritten transcripts of their conversation. Revealingly, Bethell told Mandela that he had seen Kobie Coetsee earlier that morning, and would see him again later the same day. This points to the conclusion that Coetsee (and presumably P.W. Botha) had allowed Bethell to interview Mandela and publish the results in order to achieve several interrelated objectives. The first was to gauge Mandela’s current stance on the renunciation of violence; the second, to discredit the ANC by displaying its commitment to ‘terrorism’ to the international community; the third, to convey to Mandela that Western governments, including the British government led by Margaret Thatcher, still disapproved of the ANC’s adoption of the ‘armed struggle’; and the fourth, to add to pressure on Mandela to renounce violence in the process.
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Nine days later, on Wednesday, 30 January, the Minister of Law and Order, Louis le Grange, referred in parliament to speculation that the government was considering releasing Mandela as ‘an old ANC story’. However, Botha made his offer of release the very next day. His motivation was as follows:
Lord Bethell and the Mail on Sunday, which had published his findings on visits to two South African prisons as well as Mandela, had asked the South African government to release Mandela on humanitarian grounds. Two eminent black leaders, President Kaiser Matanzima of Transkei and Chief Minister Mangosuthu Buthelezi of KwaZulu, had also called on him to do so.
In fact, Matanzima had for years appealed to the South African government to have Mandela and a number of other Transkei citizens who were serving prison sentences in South Africa released to the Transkei. Matanzima had indicated that Mandela and some of the other prisoners belonged to his people, that Mandela was related to him, and that he would provide them and their families with suitable houses in order to enable them to resume a normal family life. He also indicated that, should they be released, these people ‘would not act contrary to the provisions of any law’.
The government was willing to give sympathetic consideration to Matanzima’s requests, but it seemed that Mandela and his associates preferred to stay in prison rather than be released in their country of origin. Botha then went on to say:
‘The government is not insensitive to the fact that Mr Mandela and others have spent a very long time in prison – I am personally not insensitive about this – even though they were duly convicted in open court. The government is also willing to consider Mr Mandela’s release in the Republic of South Africa on condition that he gives a commitment that he will not make himself guilty of planning, instigating or committing acts of violence for the furtherance of political objectives, but will conduct himself in such a way that he will not again have to be arrested …
‘As I have indicated, the Government is willing to consider Mr Mandela’s release, but I am sure that Parliament will understand that we cannot do so if Mr Mandela himself says that the moment he leaves prison he will continue with his commitment to violence.
‘It is therefore not the South African Government which now stands in the way of Mr Mandela’s freedom. It is he himself. The choice is his. All that is required of him now is that he should unconditionally reject violence as a political instrument. This is, after all, a norm which is respected in all civilized countries in the world …’4
Helen Suzman asked Botha whether this same offer would also extend to some of the other prisoners who were in jail and had been there for years. He replied: ‘Yes, if they unconditionally accept the provisions I laid down.’ He would not take any further questions.
The government lost no time in getting Botha’s offer to Mandela. One of his surviving prison notebooks contains the following cryptic entry: ‘31 JANUARY 1986: Commanding officer supplies me at 12.15 am with copy of President Botha’s speech. At 3.13 I have 40 minutes consultations with 4 comrades from roof.’
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Three weeks later, Mandela publicly rejected Botha’s offer in a statement read out by his daughter Zindzi at a rally of the United Democratic Front (UDF), held in the Jabulani Stadium in Soweto to celebrate Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s reception of the Nobel Peace Prize. Known as ‘My Father Says’, the statement has achieved historical prominence, and appears on the website of the Nelson Mandela Foundation as well as those of numerous other archives. Extracts appear below:
My father and his comrades at Pollsmoor Prison send their greetings to you, the freedom-loving people of this our tragic land, in the full confidence that you will carry on the struggle for freedom … [They] are grateful to the United Democratic Front who without hesitation made this venue available to them so that they could speak to you today …
My