unitex@rubbs.fidonet.org (unitex) (10/25/89)
SOUTH AFRICA: The ANC Talk Tactic
Harare, October 19, 1989 (AIA) -- In 1985 the ANC decided to
begin a series of talks to confirm alliances with natural
allies in South Africa and develop links with elements of the
apartheid elite.
By all measurements the tactic has been massively successful.
Before 1983 the ANC was considered by many international
observers to be marginal to any final solution. Inside South
Africa the organisation was a pariah among government and
corporate elites and their constituencies.
Now most analysts, South African and international,
conservative and radical, agree that the National Party
cannot manage the apartheid system and that any solution will
involve direct negotiation with the ANC in alliance with
democratic forces.
How did this happen? In this resource article AIA provides a
list of the key players in the talking tactic.
September 13 1985: Top South African businessmen, led by
Anglo American Corporation president Gavin Relly, meet the
ANC for six hours at the private Mfuwe lodge of Zambian
President Kenneth Kaunda. The ANC delegation is led by
President Oliver Tambo.
October 12 1985: A delegation of four Progressive Federal
Party (PFP) MPs led by Dr Frederick van Zyl Slabbert meets
the ANC for eight hours in Lusaka. The ANC says it will not
commit itself to the liberal PFP's idea of a national
convention. However a joint statement by the two groups says
there is an urgent need to dismantle apartheid and establish
a united, non-racial democratic South Africa.
November 4 1985: Cape Times editor Tony Heard publishes an
extensive interview with Tambo conducted in London.
December 14 1985: Rebel Afrikaner dominee Dr Nico Smith and
the Rev Elia Tema of the Nederduitse Gereformeerde Kerk
(NGK) meet ANC representatives in New York. Dr Smith reports
back to his constituency that the ANC definitely sees a
future for whites and that it wants the church to be
"faithful to the ideals of justice and peace".
December 1985: Jay Naidoo, the general secretary of the new
Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) meets with
senior members of the ANC and the South African Congress of
Trade Unions (SACTU) in Harare. The ANC/SACTU delegation
welcomes the formation of COSATU as a progressive step in the
struggle for workers' rights.
December 1985: About 37 South Africans, mostly church leaders
but also nine students from Stellenbosch and Cape Town
universities, meet with ANC in Harare "to promote
reconciliation". The delegation is led by Dutch Reformed
Church minister Dr Ben Kotze. The ANC delegation includes its
secretary general Alfred Nzo and the treasurer general
Thomas Nkobi.
December 25 1985: Senior members of the Soweto Parents'
Crisis Committee meet a high-powered ANC delegation in
Harare to discuss the crisis in black education in South
Africa. The SPCC delegation leaders H H Dlamlenze and Vusi
Khanyile say the ANC was well informed on the black
education crisis in South Africa.
January 21 1986: The Federated Chamber of Industries
announces it has had informal discussions with the ANC after
drafting its business charter of social, economic and
political rights.
January 28 1986: Leaders of the moderate National Convention
Movement (NCM) meet with the ANC in Lusaka. The talks are
amiable but the ANC says it cannot take any stance in
relation to the NCM because aspects of the NCM's manifesto
are unclear.
February 5 1986: The NCM again meets with the ANC. NCM
chairman Jules Browde says the talks were warm but had to be
continued later. He says the ANC would be amenable to
negotiations if the climate was right.
February 1986: Van Zyl Slabbert meets with ANC national
executive committee members in London in an attempt to
discover "the minimum conditions" that could allow non-
parliamentary groups to negotiate with the government on
South Africa's future.
March 1986: The Chief Minister of bantustan KaNgwane Enos
Mabuza leads a delegation of 19 to Lusaka for talks with the
ANC leadership. Mabuza later tells a press conference he was
acting on a mandate from his constituency, the 100,000
member Inyandza movement, which believes that the ANC plays
an important role in the present and future political
scenarios of South Africa. A joint ANC/Inyandza statement
expresses opposition to bantustans, black town councils and
the tricameral parliament. Mabuza says he and others in his
government are aware they might have to resign.
March 1986: A delegation of eminent people from the
Commonwealth, accompanied by Commonwealth secretary-general
Sir Shridath Ramphal, meets ANC leaders, including President
Oliver Tambo, in Lusaka.
March 1986: An eight-member delegation from the white
National Union of South African Students (NUSAS) meets the
ANC for three days in Harare. A joint statement says the
meeting took place "on the basis that there would be no
solution to South Africa's problems without the participation
of the ANC which is recognised by the majority of South
African people as their genuine representative".
March 5 1986: Seven COSATU leaders including general
secretary Jay Naidoo, his deputy Sydney Mafumadi and
National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) general secretary Cyril
Ramaphosa meet a joint delegation from the ANC and the
banned South African Congress of Trade Unions (SACTU) for
two days in Lusaka. The ANC representatives include President
Tambo, Umkhonto we Sizwe political commissar Chris Hani,
publicity chief Thabo Mbeki and senior political department
official Mac Maharaj. The SACTU delegation is led by its
general secretary John Nkadimeng.
The ANC states that it considers the talks as the most
important of the series with organisations working legally
inside South Africa. A joint COSATU/ANC/SACTU statement calls
for an intensification of the campaign for the release of all
political prisoners including Nelson Mandela. Other
campaign issues mentioned are the scrapping of Bantu
education, pass laws and influx control.
April 1986: Archbishop Denis Hurley leads a four-person
delegation from the South African Catholic Bishops'
Conference (SACBC) to Lusaka for talks with the ANC. The
SACBC delegation reports its surprise at hearing the ANC
quoting from the latest Vatican document which justifies
violence as a last resort.
"They know the Catholic Church has a theology of a just war
or a just struggle," Archbishop Hurley comments later, "and
they quoted the new documents to us to back up this view. We
told them quite clearly that we accept their position has a
legitimate place in our theology."
April 26 1986: Newspapers speculate that a secret meeting
took place between Alexandra mayor Sam Buti and the ANC and
that this led to his resignation from the Alexandra Town
Council. Buti confirms the meeting but refuses to give
details.
May 24 1986: Black businessmen from the National African
Federated Chamber of Commerce (Nafcoc) hold two-day talks
with the ANC in Lusaka. Nafcoc's 14-strong delegation is
headed by Sam Motsuenyane of the African Bank while the ANC
delegation includes publicity head Pallo Jordon, former
deputy ANC international department head Ruth Mompati, SACTU
general secretary John Nkadimeng and South African Communist
Party general secretary Joe Slovo.
September 1986: A 12-member delegation of academics from the
Universities of Cape Town (UCT) and the Western Cape (UWC)
including the principals of both universities hold talks with
an ANC delegation in Lusaka led by secretary general Alfred
Nzo.
They discuss the education crisis in black schools, the role
of universities in society, the problems facing black
students and the academic boycott.
November 13 1986: ANC meets a delegation from the SA
Evangelical-Lutheran's Northern Transvaal diocese in Lusaka.
December 16 1986: Minister of Justice Kobie Coetsee says,
"Yes, I have met him (Nelson Mandela) but the nature of our
meeting is confidential".
March 1987: The Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town, the Most
Rev Desmond Tutu, flies to Lusaka for talks with the ANC's
leadership. He asks the ANC to renounce violence and is told
Pretoria will have to renounce violence first. President
Tambo quotes statistics showing that the ANC has caused 80
deaths from 1976 to 1984 while South African security forces
have been responsible for 2,000 deaths since 1984.
April 1987: A five-member Indian student delegation from the
University of Durban Westville meets with the ANC to discuss
fears within the Indian community about majority rule as a
result of the persecution of Indians in Uganda and other
African states.
May 1987: Dr Beyers Naude, general secretary of the South
African Council of Churches (SACC) and 44 other church and
community representatives meet with the ANC in the course of
a five-day World Council of Churches meeting on Southern
Africa.
At the same time the London director of the SA Foundation
attends a meeting of international business executives and
ANC President Tambo.
July 1987: A group of prominent Afrikaner academics,
businessmen and professional South Africans hold talks over
three days with the ANC in Dakar, Senegal. Delegation
leaders are former MP Frederick van Zyl Slabbert, now
director of the Institute for a Democratic Alternative in
South Africa (IDASA) and former ANC Information Director
Thabo Mbeki.
Discussions centre on the structure of a liberated government
for South Africa, the structure of a liberated economy for
South Africa, problems and strategies of transition and the
problem of national unity.
According to media reports the conference is a breakthrough
for the white delegation which realises for the first time
the extent of the ANC's commitment to non-racialism.
September 9 1987: Denis Worrall leads a group of South
Africans including a former Springbok rugby player and a
newspaper editor to Harare for talks with ANC officials.
September 17 1987: Archbishop Desmond Tutu leads a delegation
of 10 religious leaders, including Hindu and Muslim
representatives to meet with the ANC.
December 1987: The ANC meets 300 cultural workers at the
Amsterdam Culture in Another South Africa (CASA) conference
to thrash out common positions on the cultural boycott and
the role of culture in the liberation struggle.
May 3 1988: Delegates from the black consciousness/Africanist
National Council of Trade Unions (NACTU) meet the ANC in
Lusaka and they issue a statement stressing the importance
of trade union unity.
May 26 1988: Wynand Malan's National Democratic Movement
meets the ANC in Frankfurt. He reports that common ground
was reached over the type of South Africa both sides would
like to see, but says there are differences over strategy.
October 19 1988: A National Soccer League (NSL) and South
African Soccer Association (SASA) has two days of talks with
ANC in Lusaka. The NSL and SASA pledge themselves to the
formation of a non-racial soccer body. At the same time the
principal of the University of Natal visits Lusaka to meet
the ANC.
October 19 1988: Leading South African liberal academics, the
ANC and Soviet specialists meet in Bonn for four days.
November 1988: A delegation from the South African Rugby
Board meets the ANC in Harare.
January 1989: South African lawyers meet with the ANC in
Harare to thrash out questions ranging from injustice in
the apartheid courts and the death penalty to law in a post-
apartheid South Africa.
June 1989: A massive delegation of liberal and progressive
whites belonging to the Five Freedoms Forum visits Lusaka
for a conference with the ANC. There is agreement that the
violence of apartheid preceded the armed struggle and that
the ANC uses armed struggle as a political strategy rather
than as an end in itself.
July 1989: A delegation from Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR)
meets with the ANC in Lusaka. Although there is no
consensus on a joint statement, there is agreement between
the two delegations on the need to protect individual rights
and the nature of a Bill of Rights to achieve this purpose.
Also this month, ANC leader Nelson Mandela supposedly "takes
tea" with former President P W Botha in Tuynhuys in Cape
Town; a white liberal Democratic Party delegation led by
Wynand Malan holds talks with ANC in Lusaka; ANC writers
meet their Afrikaans counterparts in Zimbabwe, and UDF and
COSATU leaders meet with the ANC in Lusaka to discuss a
common approach to negotiations.
September 1989: The ANC meets a delegation of Afrikaans
academics and businessmen including the brother of National
Party President F.W. de Klerk in London. The delegation
includes members of the murky Afrikaner Broederbond.
October 1989: ANC meets National Education Crisis Committee
members as well as leaders of the National Medical and Dental
Association of South Africa.
* Origin: AlterNet Better World Communications (1:163/113)
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