Nelson Mandela’s Historic Political Rally

Nelson Mandela’s Historic Political Rally

On 1 April 1990, African National Congress (ANC) Deputy President, Nelson Mandela, addressed a crowd of over 300 000 supporters in Port Elizabeth in what was described as South Africa’s biggest ever political rally. Mandela was returning as a free man, definitely standing above those who had jailed him for so many years.

Even though South Africa still remained a prison for the oppressed masses, his return to the political scene certainly changed the political atmosphere in South Africa and the Southern Africa region. Just as he had spoken and acted with authority behind the grey prison wall, he carried himself and spoke with a great deal of command as a released leader. As a prisoner, he was a symbol of resistance for all the political prisoners, and as a free man, he symbolised the people’s will to continue to fight until victory.

Mandela spoke about his feelings at meeting comrades he had previously worked with and those he had never seen before. He said he was certain that the organisation he served. and the organisation which led the fight to a new South Africa, was in safe hands. For Mandela, the brave warriors of Umkhonto we Sizwe needed to be saluted for their immeasurable contribution to the struggle for peace. “I salute all those who have fallen in battle. You have not died in vain. Martyrs to our cause, your courage enables us to remain unflinchingly committed to our goal of creating a non-racial democracy in a unitary South Africa.”

The South African Communist Party (SACP) was next to receive Mandela attention, as he took the opportunity to pay tribute to the first political party to be banned by the Nationalist government, and yet it fought back by remaining loyal to the alliance between itself and the ANC. Members of the SACP, according to Mandela, had proved to be loyal and disciplined members of the ANC and had neither attempted to control the liberation movement nor abuse their positions throughout the period they were involved in the alliance. “That is why, wherever we are, inside and outside prison, we have defended that alliance to the hilt. We have refused to be used by members of the government and other interests to destroy the alliance which has placed us in this position of being vanguard of the liberation movement in this country.”

Mandela then wen on to outline the discussions he had with the apartheid regime over the last three years he was still in prison, which included the release of political prisoners, as well as the question of a meeting between the ANC and the regime in order to reach a political solution. Referring to his often-quoted description of President F.W. de Klerk as a man of integrity, Mandela maintained that in his discussions with him, it had been the most formidable impression he made of him. Furthermore, some of the men that surrounded De Klerk, were also men of integrity, who had resolved to travel the new direction that he had chosen for his party and the country.

Nevertheless, in the report he submitted to the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the ANC, he had warned that as an organisation, they should not be very much concerned about the virtues of an individual, despite the fact that he was the President. The ANC, he had advised, should be concerned with the policy of the National Party, which was enforcing the most brutal system of racial oppression the country had ever seen. According to Mandela, this was supposed to be the onus that influenced their policy, strategy and tactics in dealing with the National Party.

Mandela then announced to the crowd that he would be meeting apartheid President F.W. de Klerk in order to discuss the intensification of violence throughout the country. The decision by the ANC to meet the De Klerk government was taken after a careful scrutiny of the implications of its unbanning by the Pretoria regime and the release of its leaders. In analysing the newly-created political environment, it was felt that talks could begin about the creation of the right climate for negotiations to take place.

According to the ANC, this decision was in no way signifying an end to the armed or other forms of struggle it had employed throughout the 30 years of its banning. In fact, it was a recognition that through consistent struggles over the years, the people of South Africa had been able to force the racist regime to the realisation that the apartheid system had no future, that there could be no forward movement without the full participation of the ANC in that process. The ANC leadership received complete support from the membership and supporters for its decision to meet the De Klerk regime and a date was set for initial talks which would seek to remove all obstacles standing in the way of a negotiated solution to the South African problem.

Unfortunately, the De Klerk regime, an heir to a system whose survival had always depended on violence, failed to rise to the occasion. Instead, the increased political activity of the people was met with violence by the police, vigilantes and the army in various places. In Sebokeng, more than 17 peaceful demonstrators were killed and police units stood by while Inkatha supporters massacred scores of people in Natal. It was with this sense of duty that the leadership of the ANC decided to suspend the talks with the De Klerk regime. Talks could not go on with a regime whose police force was once again drenching the streets with the blood of innocent and unarmed civilians.

Despite the suspension of the talks, Mandela met privately with De Klerk, with the approval of the ANC leadership, in order to keep up the momentum for negotiations. According to Mandela, the government was in no great rush to begin with negotiations, as they were counting on the euphoria that greeted his release to die down. The intention was to allow time for him to fall on his face and show that the “former prisoner hailed as a saviour was a highly fallible man who had lost touch with the present situation”.

For Mandela, De Klerk was not the “great emancipator”, despite his seemingly progressive actions. De Klerk was “a gradualist, a careful pragmatist. He did not make any of his reforms with the intention of putting himself out of power. He made them for precisely the opposite reason: to ensure power for the Afrikaner in a new dispensation.” De Klerk’s “goal was to create a system of power-sharing based on group rights, which would preserve a modified form of minority power in South Africa. He was decidedly opposed to majority rule … because that would end white domination in a single stroke.” Mandela explained to De Klerk that what he envisaged in his plan of maintaining a “minority veto”, was actually “apartheid in disguise”, a “loser-takes-all” system.

The apartheid regime’s long-term strategy to overcome the strength of the liberation movement was, according to Mandela, “to build an anti-ANC alliance with the Inkatha Freedom Party and to lure the Coloured Afrikaans-speaking voters of the Cape into a new National Party … The government attempted to scare the Coloured population into thinking the ANC was anti-Coloured. They supported Chief Buthelezi’s desire to retain Zulu power and identity in a new South Africa by preaching to him the doctrine of group rights and federalism.”

Sources:
South African History Online (SAHO).
Sechaba Correspondent, “Free Africa Welcomes Mandela’s Return”, Sechaba, April 1990.
Sechaba, “ANC Welcomes Principled Opposition to Apartheid”, Sechaba, May 1990.
Nelson Mandela, “Long Walk to Freedom”, Abacus, 1994.

Castro Khwela
Good evening fellow Compatriots!