unitex@rubbs.fidonet.org (unitex) (10/25/89)
South Africa: The Negotiations Battle
Johannesburg, October 19, 1989 (AIA) -- The current
initiatives by the government here are the latest in a long
running game of move and counter move with both sides
seeking to control the ground on which the negotiations
battle will occur.
Although some observers date the onset of a rush to negotiate
from the election of National Party President F.W. de Klerk,
strategies have been unfolding for at least two years. The
October 15 release of eight long-term political prisoners
must be seen in this context. As one analyst put it, "the
chess game remains the same as ever, we have just progressed
momentarily from the slow pace of normal play to a period of
moves governed by a five-minute clock".
On one side there are arrayed the Mass Democratic Movement
(MDM) led by the United Democratic Front (UDF) and the
Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), alongside
the banned African National Congress (ANC). On the other side
is the De Klerk government, pulling along a nervous coalition
of middle class Afrikaners and recent immigrants while being
pushed by a small but very powerful multinational corporate
elite.
Despite the rhetoric neither side believes the other when it
says it will negotiate now for a democratic and free South
Africa.
The regime believes ANC talk is a tactic to engage officials
in an exhausting set of procedures, drawing attention away
from the so-called "four pillars of the struggle": mass
mobilisation, the armed struggle, development of an internal
underground and international isolation of South Africa
through sanctions and diplomatic activity.
Elements within the ANC/MDM alliance distrust De Klerk. They
see the seeming shift from former President Botha's hard
line regime as a ploy to convince Pretoria's conservative
international allies (Britain's Thatcher, America's Bush and
Germany's Kohl) that change is on the way. The aim is to
stave off increasingly effective sanctions, particularly
financial restrictions, while taking the "global high
ground" that will force opposition forces to accept the
terms on which negotiations or even some settlement might
occur. The logic is to get the democratic alliance in the
position of having to say "no" to negotiations, therefore
losing face before a concerned world public.
Both sides are aware of this battle and have been mobilising
the support of local and international groupings.
The ANC, with the approval of the UDF and COSATU, has been
engaged in a two-stage programme to have talks with as many
players as possible and, more recently, to get international
diplomatic approval for its negotiations position.
The "talks tactic" has been deployed since 1985. (see
S891012.SA) The aim has been to achieve unity of purpose
with as many representative organisations as possible from
across the spectrum of South African life while winning over
or neutralising potential adversaries.
Outside analysts say that this four-year old tactic has been
one of the most successful mounted by the movement during
the decade of the '80s. It has confirmed that the ANC is a
central feature of South Africa's future.
More recently there has been a concerted effort to form a
united front on setting the pre-conditions for negotiation.
The basis has been a 1987 ANC document listing the steps
that would create a "climate conducive to negotiations".
Meetings with COSATU and UDF representatives has expanded
the list into what has become known as the pre-conditions
for negotiation. (see S891011.SA)
Feverish diplomatic activity during 1989 has had this united
front on pre-conditions endorsed by the nations making up the
Organisation of African Unity and the Non-Aligned Movement.
On its side, Pretoria government moves towards a negotiation
strategy have gathered pace with each sign of a
disintegrating apartheid economy. At the same time the
repressive state of emergency and attempts to win over
conservative black petty capitalists were not bringing the
vast majority into line.
Through 1988 and 1989 the state hatched a plan to stem the
downward flow of economic conditions by an austerity
programme that called for sale of public corporations, across
the board cuts to certain government departments, and a down-
scaling of destabilisation in Southern Africa keyed to a
settlement of its lost war in Angola.
Key sectors of the National Party, the Afrikaner intellectual
elite and their liberal private sector allies started
softening up their followers for an inevitable unfolding of
a negotiating strategy.
January 1989 saw an editorial in the Afrikaans Beeld
newapaper, which supports the National Party, discussing
negotiations with the ANC. Four months later the same paper
ran a column by its political correspondent outlining the
strategy for controlling the battleground on which a state-
managed negotiations process could be organised.
The July 1989 meeting between P.W. Botha and Nelson Mandela
was a sign that the state's strategy was in play. When De
Klerk became National Party leader he sought alliances
around his negotiation strategy. He met with Chief Gatsha
Buthelezi's Inkhata, which counts many ethnic Zulus as its
members, the conservative National Forum, and with a string
of bantustan leaders.
Without responding to the progressive forces' set of pre-
negotiation stipulations, De Klerk started implementing his
own version of pre-conditions. Democratic observers say
these steps are designed to mimic the ANC/MDM pre-conditions
by keying on the release of political prisoners.
Internationally, the strategy hopes to create the appearance
of rapid change so that Pretoria's conservative allies will
be able to stem the tide of sanctions. A major achievement
has been to get conservative and "middle-of-the-road"
opinion believing the release of Nelson Mandela will confirm
the beginning of the end of apartheid.
Already Britain and the European Community have made
Mandela's release the single factor required for their
participation in a state-managed "compromise solution".
The United States, stalemated by a right-wing presidency and
a liberal congress, has given De Klerk until June 1990 to
show he is dismantling parts of the apartheid apparatus.
Commonwealth states have agreed with South African church
leaders and given Pretoria six months to show intent to
implement serious change.
For De Klerk the timing is crucial. He needs the next six
months to finish negotiating the roll-over of his
government's CDN $14-billion debt to foreign commercial
banks. He is hoping this "breathing space" will reduce the
effectiveness of anti-apartheid campaigns aimed at
influencing bankers to get tough.
The scenario for the near future portrayed by many here is a
series of seemingly fast moves to release prisioners, unban
some organisations, and dismantle portions of the state of
emergency between now and the middle of 1990.
This will allow De Klerk to challenge the ANC/MDM leadership
to negotiate. One hope in his ranks is that Margaret
Thatcher will sponsor an attempt at a "fast and dirty"
settlement along the lines of the Lancaster House accord in
1979 that brought Zimbabwe to independence with a ZANU-PF
government bound hand and foot by guarantees protecting the
private sector and "minority rights".
In the face of this strategy, unity is uppermost in the minds
of progressive forces. Through the tactic of talks and the
coalition of forces around its own set of negotiation pre-
conditions the hope is that there will be a residue of
communication networks and understanding available to hear
why the answer will be "no" to any negotiation ploy which
would put De Klerk in the driver's seat.
During the short term the battle for control of the
negotiation platform will be used to further split the
ruling elite while winning concessions.
But, at this time, stalemate is the probable outcome. The
government has contempt for the sincerity of the progressive
forces, seeking to use them as a foil while playing to the
international gallery. The ANC/MDM alliance believes the
government, illegitimate because power has been seized from a
voteless majority, must relinquish control if it is to
create a proper negotiations climate.
* Origin: AlterNet Better World Communications (1:163/113)
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