The ANC, as has been noted countless times, is another animal altogether, at once a broad church, a liberation movement and a way of life for millions of South Africans. It has been in certain families for generations, passed down from one generation to the next like a family heirloom. Such an organisation inevitably becomes hidebound to tradition, viewing any innovation with suspicion. In its seventy-seven years of existence at the moment when the talks between Mandela and apartheid presidents reached their acme in 1989, the issue of negotiations had never been detailed in its policy. But in exile, the ANC had had to make a realistic appraisal of the situation and the balance of forces. The relentless assault by the South African military machine against Frontline States, an alliance of southern African countries united in opposing apartheid from 1960 to early 1990, for harbouring the ANC, changed the geopolitical character of the region.

More crucial was the ANC’s forced removal from various strategic zones, the most important being Mozambique after President Samora Machel signed the non-aggression pact with South Africa, the Nkomati Accord, on 16 March 1984. This meant that the ANC had to pursue its armed struggle without the benefit of bases in neighbouring states. This put pressure on the leadership to start thinking about what to do with the thousands of displaced cadres in Zambia and Tanzania. In that same year, a mutiny that broke out in the MK camps in Angola shook the leadership, especially as its raison d’être was impatience on the part of MK soldiers who wanted to return home to fight the enemy, instead of being embroiled in the domestic conflict between Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola (‘The People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola’) (MPLA) troops and the União Nacional para a Independência Total de Angola (National Union for the Total Independence of Angola) (UNITA)) bandits, who were backed by South Africa.* Similar pressure had forced the ANC to assign the Luthuli Detachment of MK into the Wankie and Sipolilo campaigns in what was then Rhodesia from 1967.* In the camps, in most areas where there was a significant community of exiles, people sang songs invoking a pantheon of heroes and martyrs, including the names of Nelson Mandela or Oliver Tambo. They sang to dedicate themselves to the struggle and of how they were going to march on Pretoria. Sometimes the revolutionary songs were about the perfidy of agents of the South African regime, some of them one-time comrades who had crossed to the other side. But the most reviled figures, looming large in the collective imagination of the fervent singers, were the succession of apartheid leaders, especially Botha and De Klerk.†

Even before Mandela had actual contact with Botha and De Klerk, rumours of the talks and Mandela’s imminent release had been doing the rounds. In early July 1989, a group of exiled ANC writers on their way to meet with Afrikaner writers and academics at the Victoria Falls stumbled on a whole battery of red-eyed South African and international journalists and TV crews camped outside the Pamodzi Hotel in Lusaka. Acting on what was obviously gross misinformation, the media were keeping vigil outside the airport and at the gates of the ANC headquarters on Chachacha Road downtown, on the off-chance that they would get a scoop if Nelson Mandela were released into the custody of the ANC in Zambia as they had been told. More disturbing, however, were the charges from some youthful firebrands at home and in exile that ‘the old man had sold out’. There was even talk of threats on Mandela’s life.

Notwithstanding this, however, the ANC has consistently possessed an unerring political instinct, seeking, through the years, to find a solution to its problems. Even the men and women under arms, in camps or operating in the underground inside the country, were guided by political principles. There were members of the NEC, the highest decision-making body between conferences, who were hugely uncomfortable with the possibility of a rapprochement with Pretoria. But there was Oliver Tambo, the president, whose credo was decision-making by consensus, who insisted that each aspect of a difficult problem be discussed and analysed, no matter how long it took, until an agreement was reached.

Inevitably, any liberation movement comes to a crossroads where crucial decisions that have a bearing on people’s lives have to be made. OR, as Tambo was affectionately called, made them. Untiring and scrupulous to a fault, he consulted leaders in his own party as well as ensuring that leaders of the Frontline States were briefed on the developments.

Ultimately, it was quite clear to all that talking with the enemy was an idea whose time had come. To strengthen this, representatives of various trade unions and political and civic organisations flew into Lusaka to confer with the ANC and to start mapping out strategies for dealing with the unfolding scenario. The arrival in Lusaka of the grand old men – Walter Sisulu, Govan Mbeki (who had been released two years earlier), Wilton Mkwayi, Raymond Mhlaba, Elias Motsoaledi and Ahmed Kathrada – and their interaction with the membership, made everything real. It also acted as an escape valve for the pent-up emotions of MK comrades, mainly members of Special Operations working underground, who had grievances about the heightened casualty rate among MK members infiltrating inside the country. It was Walter Sisulu who told the ANC members congregated in Mulungushi Hall, Lusaka, that they should get ready to go home.20

 

CHAPTER TWO

Negotiating Democracy

On 11 February 1990 it was at last time for Nelson Mandela to go home. A sizeable percentage of the world community watched live that afternoon as Mandela stepped out of the gates of Victor Verster Prison.

Almost two years earlier, on 11 June 1988, an estimated television audience of 600 million people from sixty-seven countries had watched a concert broadcast, a popular-music tribute to Mandela’s seventieth birthday at Wembley Stadium in London. Described by the BBC presenter Robin Denselow, in 1989, as the ‘biggest and most spectacular pop-political event of all time’, it was organised by the British Anti-Apartheid Movement (AAM) under the guidance of its president, Archbishop Trevor Huddleston.1 The concert once again proved how present Mandela could be by his very absence.

But now, here he was, a living embodiment of the failure of prison and of the apartheid regime, walking into the Western Cape sunshine, now and then saluting the crowds, smiling.

Being part of the new, emergent South Africa meant that Mandela had to enter into the bustle and hustle – and confusion – of the country and the people he meant to lead. Mandela’s journey from the prison gates to Cape Town’s Grand Parade, where thousands of supporters stood waiting to hear him speak, was marked by detours and trepidation, auguries, perhaps, of the twists and turns the country was fated to take on its journey towards democracy. There was a little drama when Mandela’s driver, intimidated by the throngs lining the road close to the City Hall, first drove to the nearby suburb of Rondebosch, where the convoy waited in a quiet street. There, Mandela saw a woman with her two babies and he asked to hold them.