F.W. de Klerk Ground-breaking Announcement on 2 February 1990

On 2 February 1990, apartheid President F.W. de Klerk made a trailblazing announcement to release Nelson Mandela and unban the African National Congress (ANC), the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC), the South African Communist Party (SACP) and other liberation movements. This was received with mixed feelings inside and outside Parliament. Black and White South Africans celebrated the news as they were optimistic that the country was taking a turn for equality.

“It was a breathtaking moment, for in one sweeping action he had virtually normalized the situation in South Africa. Our world had changed overnight. After forty years of persecution and banishment, the ANC was now a legal organization. I and all my comrades could no longer be arrested for being a member of the ANC, for carrying its green, yellow and black banner, for speaking its name. For the first time in almost thirty years, my picture and my words, and those of all my banned comrades, could appear in South African newspapers.” – Nelson Mandela, 1994, “Long Walk to Freedom”.

Exactly, on the same date, the year before, 2 February 1989, P. W. Botha had suffered a mild stroke and, on the same day, announced his intention to resign the National Party presidency while remaining State President. His resignation shocked his colleagues and led to an internal succession process in the party that culminated in the appointment of F. W. de Klerk.

P.W. Botha presided over South Africa when violence and state suppression of resistance movements was at its height. Leading scholars in the field of civil-military relations defined South Africa as a “Praetorian State” because, under his leadership, the Military Establishment and the Security Council became far more involved in the daily running of the state.

In contrast to P.W. Botha, F.W. de Klerk appeared to be favouring a more civilian-led government and was even perceived as having a predisposition to go an extra mile in instituting reforms than his predecessor. Nevertheless, it was believed that de Klerk’s decision to release Mandela and to unban political parties was the result of the following factors:

Firstly, South Africa had been isolated through international trade sanctions to the extent that the South African economy was severely impacted. Secondly, the apartheid South African Defence Force (SADF) had suffered a humiliating experience in the 1988 Battle of Cuito Cuanavale, as South Africa’s aging Air Force was outclassed by sophisticated Soviet-supplied air defence systems and air-strike capabilities fielded by the Cubans and Angolans, and it was unable to uphold the air supremacy it had enjoyed for years – its loss in turn proved to be critical to the outcome of the battle on the ground.

Coupled with the above, the multiple States of Emergency measures enacted by the Apartheid State had consistently failed to combat the ongoing uprisings in the townships, thus rendering the country ungovernable and the political system unworkable. This implied that the apartheid government was no longer in complete control of the country and dual power was evolving, particularly in the townships, where organs of people’s power began to exercise authority in certain spheres. Lastly, South Africa was almost totally isolated from the international community in terms of socio-economic interaction, as well as cultural and sporting events, and this was frustrating to business, alongside the arts and sports loving communities.

This de Klerk milestone was followed by tension-driven negotiations aimed at transferring power from the white minority to the majority of South Africans. Though it brought about democracy, this journey was not totally without obstacles. These ranged from intensification of political violence in some parts of South Africa to aborted unilateral declarations by some groups to break away from South Africa and form their own homelands.

Some scholars have argued that de Klerk narrowly avoided a civil war that would have been disastrous to the country and the region as a whole. The decision taken by de Klerk was not an easy one, as he faced opposition not only from the political opponents, but also from his own party (the National Party).

Nonetheless, although de Klerk’s role in South African history was to facilitate the dismantling of more than three centuries of white supremacy, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) found him guilty of being an accessory to gross violations of human rights; that he had failed to give full disclosure about events that took place during his Presidency; and that in his statement that none of his colleagues had authorised gross human rights abuses was “indefensible”.

According to Nelson Mandela (Long Walk to Freedom), “To us, Mr de Klerk was a cipher. When he became head of the National Party, he seemed to be the quintessential party man, nothing more and nothing less. Nothing in his past seemed to hint at a spirit of reform. As education minister, he had attempted to keep black students out of white universities. But as soon as he took over the National Party, I began to follow him closely. I read all of his speeches, listened to what he said and began to see that he represented a genuine departure from his predecessor. He was an ideologue but a pragmatist, a man who saw change as necessary and inevitable.”

Castro Khwela
Good evening fellow Compatriots!