Niël Barnard
with Tobie Wiese
PEACEFUL
REVOLUTION
Inside the War Room
at the Negotions
TAFELBERG
To the millions of civil servants who, for more than three centuries, have helped to build South Africa, sometimes resting on their oars, but, for the most part, with commendable determination and energy.
Foreword
As head of the National Intelligence Service during the apartheid years, Niël Barnard was in the unique position not only to observe South Africa’s historic transition with a great deal of background knowledge, but also to influence events themselves. Coming, as it does, from the front lines, this book, which gives an unmasked view of what happened, is a very welcome addition to the scant literature of its kind.
The author does not hesitate to offer his honest opinion about issues or individuals. Barnard may castigate some negotiators for their errors of judgement, inappropriate strategizing and, at times, lack of commitment, but he does not condemn others indiscriminately. He tempers his outspokenness with insight. At times he is also critical of his own role during the negotiations.
This work reveals the extremely high pressure negotiators had to endure and the turbulent context in which they made crucial decisions. It forces the reader to suspend hasty judgements, leading us, instead, to consider outcomes from a broader view. As an outstanding former academic and, later, intelligence chief in a rapidly changing South Africa for more than a decade, Barnard has developed a honed and balanced judgement. This underpins his well-rounded assessment of complex developments.
This book also contains new insights into the thinking in the ranks of other parties such as the African National Congress (ANC) and Inkatha, and shows what it took in the way of ingenious footwork to keep the multiparty negotiations on track. With the benefit of hindsight, the course of history may appear logical and obvious, but, in the thick of historical events, this is rarely the case. This issue also came to the fore, as Barnard points out, at the controversial Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings.
What happened during the negotiations, how the ANC took power, and the often-unspoken assumptions inherent in this process have cast a long shadow over South Africa’s recent history. In a readable style, the author places the dynamics of past events in the spotlight, affording us a better understanding of the present.
Prof. Albert Grundlingh
Department of History
Stellenbosch University
Chapter 1
‘We started it’
It’s nine in the morning on 20 December 1991, in the foyer of the World Trade Centre in Kempton Park. About three hundred representatives of the National Party government and eighteen other political parties have gathered, the eyes of the world fixed upon them, to attempt to launch a peaceful negotiation process in South Africa. Officially, the meeting is called the Convention for a Democratic South Africa (Codesa).
The atmosphere is almost electric, prickling with expectation and a measure of uncertainty. As befitting the head of intelligence, I scrutinise my compatriots’ wild exuberance from the proverbial back benches – with great satisfaction.
Nelson Mandela, already on course to become the country’s first democratic president, arrives to a buzz of appreciation and ill-concealed hero worship. As the politicians jostle one another to approach him, the old man notices me beyond the crowd and walks towards me.
He greets me in his sincere, engaging manner: ‘Doctor, the two of us should never forget that we made this historical meeting possible.’1
‘Thank you, sir,’ I reply, adding, under my breath: ‘But please don’t pay me too much attention. The politicians’ egos won’t be able to cope with an official being acknowledged.’2
He smiles knowingly and slowly walks away. Little did we know how explosive things would become that day.
1 This was a reference to the secret discussions which, together with a handful of officials, I held with Mandela in the Victor Verster prison from May 1988 until Mandela’s release in February 1990. These talks, held during my term as head of the National Intelligence Service, are covered extensively in the book Secret Revolution: Memoirs of a Spy Boss (Cape Town: Tafelberg, 2015).
2 Mandela understood and spoke Afrikaans to a certain extent and we often conversed in Afrikaans. Note that all quotations by Afrikaans speakers have been translated into English in this publication.
Chapter 2
Meeting the enemy
The World Trade Centre, near Johannesburg, was a modest, almost spartan, venue. It had none of the splendour or pomp and circumstance of other venues such as the Palace of Versailles where momentous decisions had been made, but it was comfortable enough and practical for the purpose: close to what was called Jan Smuts Airport at the time, as well as to the bureaucratic heart of officialdom in Pretoria. Furthermore, it was structurally adaptable and there was plenty of accommodation in the vicinity.
Regardless of the prevailing excitement – for the first time in the history of the country, representatives of virtually the full political spectrum were going to map out a new future together – there was also tension in the air: the ANC had not yet demobilised Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), relinquished its control over arms depositories, or met the other solemn undertakings to forswear violence that it had made ten months previously in terms of the DF Malan Accord. This was seen in such a serious light that, the day before, President FW de Klerk had even threatened to withdraw the government from the historic first round of negotiations known as Codesa 1.
The previous evening, a lengthy and intense debate had taken place in a meeting of government’s Policy Group for Reform. Eventually, good sense prevailed; it was decided that it would be ill-advised for the government to cancel the multiparty conference. Since the Groote Schuur Minute the previous year, the political dynamics in the country and the negotiations between the government and the ANC, as well as those between the government and other parties, had already gained such momentum that, even at this early stage, the government could not turn them on and off unilaterally.
Chief Justice Michael Corbett opened the convention, after which the joint chairpersons, judges Petrus Schabort and Ismail Mahomed, conducted proceedings.
Appropriately, the proceedings and the peace process were entrusted to Providence with prayers and words of dedication by leaders drawn from South Africa’s full religious spectrum. For many, it seemed strange to see dominees, ministers, rabbis, pastors, bishops and imams officiating at the same event, giving the blessing of their divinity over the gathering. At the very outset, this sent an unmistakeable message about the diversity of the rainbow nation and the willingness to create space for one another.
Leaders of the political parties then presented their opening addresses, while the almost three hundred delegates listened attentively. The nineteen parties, with the exception of three right-wing parties and three left-wing splinter parties, which were absent, represented the full political spectrum.
The main political parties were all present – except Chief Minister Mangosuthu Buthelezi of the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) and the Zulu monarch, King Goodwill Zwelithini, an early indication of the obstacles that were destined to surface from that quarter.
The Codesa negotiation process did not simply fall out of the sky.
Although these days he receives scant