Thabo Mbeki
The ANC was banned in 1960 and decided to engage in armed struggle in 1961. And yet during the same 1961, the ANC formally wrote to the head of the then triumphant apartheid regime, Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd, proposing a negotiated resolution of the South African conflict.
In a April 20, 1961 letter to the prime minister, Nelson Mandela wrote that a major All-In African Conference convened by the ANC had expressed the earnest opinion that: “(The) dangerous situation (in the country) could be averted only by the calling of a sovereign National Convention representative of all South Africans, to draw up a new non-racial and democratic constitution. Such a convention would discuss our national problems in a sane and sober manner, and would work out solutions which sought to preserve and safeguard the interests of all sections of the population.
“Conference unanimously decided to call upon your government to summon such a convention before 31 May (1961).” As we would expect, the apartheid prime minister did not even so much as acknowledge receipt of the letter. On May 23, 1961 Nelson Mandela had written another letter to the leader of the opposition in the white parliament, Sir de Villiers Graff, in which he said: “We realise that aspects of our proposal (for a National Convention) raise complicated problems. What shall be the basis of representation at the Convention? How shall the representatives be elected? But these are not the issues now at stake. The issue now is a simple one. Are all groups to be consulted before a constitutional change is made? Or only the white minority? A decision on this matter cannot be delayed. Once that decision is taken, then all other matters, of how, when and where, can be discussed, and agreement on them can be reached. On our part the door to such discussion has always been open.”
As it happens, that National Convention was finally held just over 30 years later, on December 20 and 21, 1991, when the Convention for a Democratic South Africa (CODESA) met in Johannesburg, among those present being the delegations of the apartheid National Party and government, and the ANC, the historical enemies that had occupied opposing trenches for many decades.
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But what had happened which brought South Africa to the historic turning point of the convening of CODESA? There are three essential points we would like to make in this regard. One is that our all-round struggle inside the country succeeded to weaken the apartheid regime, forcing it to understand that it was the very perpetuation of the apartheid system which constituted a threat to the security of the population it represented.
The second is that it came to realise that it could not rely on the support of the Western governments and corporations since these could not disrespect the powerful anti-apartheid movements that had developed in their countries. Equally, it came to realise that its international campaign to demonise the ANC and its leaders, such as Nelson Mandela, had failed. It therefore understood that the harder it tried to maintain its posture in this regard, the more it alienated itself from the Western world which it considered an important partner and ally.
The third is that as the economy contracted, accompanied by the drying up of inflows of foreign capital, this reduced the resources it needed to maintain itself in power. For our part we understood that the regime had no choice but to negotiate. We therefore prepared for this eventuality, knowing that this outcome constituted an important victory of our struggle, on which we had to build to achieve our strategic goal of the liberation of all our people from apartheid rule by the most peaceful means possible. In this regard we also sought to minimise the loss of life among the oppressed, who would have been the major victims of any process of intensified repression, on which the regime would inevitably embark if it felt truly cornered, with no escape routes. An important element in the weakening of the regime was the abandonment by significant sections of the upper echelons of Afrikaner and white society of the posture that white minority rule had to be defended at all costs.
Thus, even as the regime continued to oppose all contact with the ANC, members of these upper echelons met directly with us, leading to the emergence of a broad consensus among the leading echelon in the country that apartheid had to go. Since repression had failed to stop the interaction between the ANC and white South Africa, the regime determined that it was in its interest to insert itself as the sole interlocutor with the ANC and therefore the only channel of communication between the liberation movement and the white population as a whole. To achieve this goal, it had no choice but to talk to the ANC.
None of the foregoing meant that we had defeated the apartheid regime, in much the same way that the regime had not defeated the liberation movement. However, it would be wrong to argue that a stalemate had arisen represented by the inability of both sides to continue the offensive, one to defeat the other. There was no such stalemate. The apartheid regime had immense capacity to continue its violent resistance, while the broad liberation movement and the oppressed masses had the will further to intensify the struggle.
