Negotiations and Intentions to Weaken the ANC

Negotiations and Intentions to Weaken the ANC

On 30 September 1990, leaders of the African National Congress, Nelson Mandela and Chris Hani, held a press conference in Umtata wherein they addressed matters discussed in the National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting on 18 September 1990, and were further articulated on a Radio Freedom broadcast from Addis Ababa on 21 September 1990. The meeting held by the ANC NEC also included representatives from the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) and the United Democratic Front (UDF) leaders.

Primarily, the matter of urgency that was discussed was to review the ANC’s strategic and tactical perspectives in view of the wave of violence that was gripping the country. According to the Radio Freedom announcer, the feeling of the meeting was that while the apartheid government was “evidently committed to political change in South Africa, it is becoming clear that it would prefer the change to occur on terms most favourable to it”.

The broadcaster further went to say that “in pursuance of that objective, the government has adopted a two-track policy which on the one hand accepts the need to negotiate the settlement of our country’s problems when, on the other hand, devising strategies to weaken the ANC and other democratic formations. The government has consequently adopted a laissez-faire attitude to the violence in Natal and in the Transvaal with the hope that it can generate a climate of insecurity, fear and terror and thus make … the majority of our people amenable to an authoritarian regime.”

At the Mandela-Hani press conference in Umtata, Hani said that allegations of a “hidden force” deliberately seeking to derail negotiations were to be discussed at Mandela’s forthcoming special meeting with the apartheid government. According to Hani, they were convinced that such a force existed, though the ANC believed that if the government acted together with the ANC, they could find a solution.

Mandela added that it was interesting that the violence had flared up again a day after apartheid President F.W. de Klerk had returned from the United States. For Mandela, this confirmed that the lull in violence during De Klerk’s absence was created to provide “space” for his visit. The apartheid government sources had made mention of the increase in violence during the month of June 1990, as the furore over the expose of Operation Vula was still high.

Meanwhile the ANC had decided to approach matters differently, as it engaged the Inkatha in an endeavour to ensure that the positions of the two movements were clear regarding violence that was wracking the country. Accordingly, four hours of exploratory talks were held on 19 September 1990, which resulted in a joint communiqué that asserted a “historic” engagement since 1979. An initial meeting that was planned for 2 April 1990 between Nelson Mandela and Chief Mangosuthu Gatsha Buthelezi was called off on the last minute by Mandela because of strong grass-roots resistance from ANC militants, who argued that a meeting would bestow undeserved credibility on Buthelezi, as a personality cult had developed around him.

The meeting was called off as Inkatha supporters decided to go on a rampage on a major scale, assisted by the apartheid police and the military, as well as the KwaZulu Bantustan homeland police, which Buthelezi personally headed. De Klerk had failed to reign over Inkatha supporters, who at that time were involved in violent clashes with residents in KwaThema and Tembisa, resulting in around 371 people being killed.

Following the ANC ceasing the armed struggle, as part of the Pretoria Minute of 6 August 1990, the threat posed by right-wing Afrikaners was real, as most were armed, and they could launch many attacks, as they had done on 13 July 1990, with a bomb attack in Johannesburg that injured 27 black people. Chris Hani was critical of De Klerk for not taking action against the right-wing threat as well as the Military Intelligence’s (MI) Civil Co-operation Bureau (CCB), whose members were assassinating anti-apartheid activists.

The Editorial of the November 1990 issue of Sechaba maintained that “The ANC’s stand has been firm from the beginning – calling for an end to the violence. It has convened a meeting with the bantustan leaders to try and resolve the conflicts that have raged between hostel and township residents. It has had meetings with the leaders of Inkatha, and continues to speak to the South African government on the issue. These are not actions of a war-bent force. They are actions of a responsible organisation that owes it to its members and supporters to facilitate the creation of a new society based on democracy and non-racialism.”

Furthermore, the Editorial added that “From the side of the De Klerk government all we hear at present is the success that been ‘scored’ on the international front. President Bush has been met; Prime Minister Thatcher will be met; there will be official visits to other capitals of Europe. If this government claims not to be cahoots with the anti-negotiations members of the security forces, we wonder why they did not go on to make his trip to the United States a failure. De Klerk himself was forced to admit the existence of a third fore – a faceless group made up of right-wing elements bent on derailing the peace process.”

According to the Editorial, “This (third) force, whose hand has been seen in the Inkatha vs township residents’ conflict and in random shootings and bombings of blacks, would have been expected to go on the rampage against De Klerk’s ‘irreversible peace process’ speech in the United States. It did not. Clearly, then, there are those in the government who control this group and determine its actions. They do this because they have an agenda which they have not shown to the world yet. It may well be a plan to unleash upon the democratic forces the most horrid violence yet seen in the country.”

In conclusion, the Editorial asserted that “The calm, then, can be no calm unless the government shows seriousness about taking the necessary steps to do away with the causes of the violence. And, for our supporters and activists in the country and elsewhere, the struggle must be intensified even more. The visits that De Klerk is making must be used to expose his lack of resolve about creating an irreversible move towards a democratic transformation of our country.” The South African Communist Party (SACP) also supported this position by stating that “The ANC is fully justified in demanding that action be taken to bring the Inkatha warlords and their protectors and abettors in the security services to book, for it is they, not the ANC, who have initiated the violence to promote their political objectives. The lie of ‘black on black violence’ must be nailed once and for all.”

With reference to the right-wing threat, the SACP also supported the ANC’s stance that “De Klerk must take firm action to purge his own administration, police and military of all who show any sympathy with the right wing. The allegation has long been voiced that death squads in South Africa, in Natal as elsewhere, operate with the assistance and connivance, if not under the direction, of the police and military. It is unbelievable and intolerable that a long string of assassinations of progressive activists can have taken place without a single offender being brought to book. The evidence of government involvement in the murder of its opponents which has been placed before the Harms and Hiemstra commissions cannot be ignored.”

Accordingly, the SACP inferred that, “It is in the best interests of all parties seeking a peaceful solution to the problems of South Africa that these right-wing forces should be effectively countered. They fight for the vested interests and privilege of the minority and threaten the welfare and livelihood of the majority of the population. Their resort to illegal force, to assassinations and death squads, to kidnappings and torture must be put down without hesitation. Appeasement can only encourage the right wing to further excesses and adventures.”

Sources:
Editorial, “A Calm Before the Storm”, Sechaba, Sechaba, Vol. 24, No. 11, November 1990.
Editorial Notes, “Negotiations Under Threat”, The African Communist, No. 123, Fourth Quarter 1990.
Editorial Notes, “The Threat from the Right Wing”, The African Communist, No. 123, Fourth Quarter 1990.
Janet Smith and Beauregard Tromp, “Hani: A Life Too Short”, Jonathan Ball, 2009.
Thula Simpson, “Umkhonto we Sizwe: The ANC’s Armed Struggle”, Penguin, 2016.

Castro Khwela
Good day fellow Compatriots!