Negotiations to end apartheid in South Africa

1990–93 summits to end formal segregation and racial discrimination policies

The apartheid system in South Africa was ended through a series of bilateral and multi party negotiations between 1990 and 1993. The negotiations culminated in the passage of a new interim Constitution in 1993, a precursor to the Constitution of 1996; and in South Africa's first non racial elections in 1994, won by the African National Congress (ANC) liberation movement. Although there had been gestures towards negotiations in the 1970s and 1980s, the process accelerated in 1990, when the government of F. W. de Klerk took a number of unilateral steps towards reform, including releasing Nelson Mandela from prison and unbanning the ANC and other political organisations. In 1990–91, bilateral "talks about talks" between the ANC and the government established the pre conditions for substantive negotiations, codified in the Groote Schuur Minute and Pretoria Minute. The first multi party agreement on the desirability of a negotiated settlement was the 1991 National Peace Accord, consolidated later that year by the establishment of the multi party Convention for a Democratic South Africa (CODESA). However, the second plenary session of CODESA, in May 1992, encountered stubborn deadlock over questions of regional autonomy, political and cultural self determination, and the constitution making process itself. The ANC returned to a programme of mass action, hoping to leverage its popular support, only to withdraw from negotiations entirely in June 1992 after the Boipatong massacre. The massacre revived pre existing, and enduring, concerns about state complicity in political violence, possibly through the use of a state sponsored third force bent on destabilisation. Indeed, political violence was nearly continuous throughout the negotiations – white extremists and separatists launched periodic attacks, and there were regular clashes between supporters of the ANC and supporters of the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP). However, intensive bilateral talks led to a new bilateral Record of Understanding, signed between the ANC and the government in September 1992, which prepared the way for the ultimately successful Multi Party Negotiating Forum of April–November 1993. Although the ANC and the governing National Party were the main figures in the negotiations, they encountered serious difficulties building consensus not only among their own constituencies but among other participating groups, notably left wing black groups, right wing white groups, and the conservative leaders of the independent homelands and KwaZulu homeland. Several groups, including the IFP, boycotted the tail end of the negotiations, but the most important among them ultimately agreed to participate in the 1994 elections.

Apartheid was a system of racial discrimination and segregation by the South African government. It was formalised in 1948, forming a framework for political and economic dominance by the white population and severely restricting the political rights of the black majority. Between 1960 and 1990, the African National Congress and other mainly black opposition political organisations were banned. As the National Party cracked down on black opposition to apartheid, most leaders of ANC and other opposition organisations were either killed, imprisoned, or went into exile. However, increasing local and international pressure on the government, as well as the realisation that apartheid could neither be maintained by force forever nor overthrown by the opposition without considerable suffering, eventually led both sides to the negotiating table. The Tripartite Accord, which brought an end to the South African Border War in neighbouring Angola and Namibia, created a window of opportunity to create the enabling conditions for a negotiated settlement, recognized by Niel Barnard of the National Intelligence Service.

On 4 January 1974, Harry Schwarz, leader of the liberal reformist wing of the United Party, met with Gatsha (later Mangosuthu) Buthelezi, Chief Executive Councillor of the black homeland of KwaZulu and signed a five point plan for racial peace in South Africa, which came to be known as the Mahlabatini Declaration of Faith. The declaration stated that "the situation of South Africa in the world scene as well as internal community relations requires, in our view, an acceptance of certain fundamental concepts for the economic, social, and constitutional development of our country." It called for negotiations involving all peoples, in order to draw up constitutional proposals stressing opportunity for all with a Bill of Rights to safeguard these rights. It suggested that the federal concept was the appropriate framework for such changes to take place. It also affirmed that political change must take place through non violent means. The declaration was the first of such agreements by acknowledged black and white political leaders in South Africa that affirmed to these principles. The commitment to the peaceful pursuit of political change was declared at a time when neither the National Party nor the African National Congress was looking to peaceful solutions or dialogue. The declaration was heralded by the English speaking press as a breakthrough in race relations in South Africa. Shortly after it was issued, the declaration was endorsed by several chief ministers of the black homelands, including Cedric Phatudi (Lebowa), Lucas Mangope (Bophuthatswana) and Hudson Nisanwisi (Gazankulu). Despite considerable support from black leaders, the English speaking press and liberal figures such as Alan Paton, the declaration saw staunch opposition from the National Party, the Afrikaans press and the conservative wing of Harry Schwarz's United Party.

The very first meetings between the South African Government and Nelson Mandela were driven by the National Intelligence Service (NIS) under the leadership of Niel Barnard and his Deputy Director General, Mike Louw. These meetings were secret in nature and were designed to develop an understanding about whether there were sufficient common grounds for future peace talks. As these meetings evolved, a level of trust developed between the key actors (Barnard, Louw, and Mandela). The first less tentative meeting between Mandela and the National Party government came while P. W. Botha was State President. In November 1985, Minister Kobie Coetsee met Mandela in the hospital while Mandela was being treated for prostate surgery. Over the next four years, a series of tentative meetings took place, laying the groundwork for further contact and future negotiations, but little real progress was made and the meetings remained secret until several years later. As the secret talks bore fruit and the political engagement started to take place, the National Intelligence Service withdrew from centre stage in the process and moved to a new phase of operational support work. This new phase was designed to test public opinion about a negotiated solution. Central to this planning was an initiative that became known in Security Force circles as the Dakar Safari, which saw a number of prominent Afrikaner opinion makers engage with the African National Congress (ANC) in Dakar, Senegal, and Leverkusen, Germany at events organized by the Institute for Democratic Alternatives in South Africa. The operational objective of this meeting was not to understand the opinions of the actors themselves—that was very well known at this stage within strategic management circles—but rather to gauge public opinion about a movement away from the previous security posture of confrontation and repression to a new posture based on engagement and accommodation.

When F. W. de Klerk became president in 1989, he was able to build on the previous secret negotiations with Mandela. The first significant steps towards formal negotiations took place in February 1990 when, in his speech at the opening of Parliament, de Klerk announced the repeal of the ban on the ANC and other banned political organisations, as well as Mandela's release after 27 years in prison. Mandela was released on 11 February 1990 and direct talks between the ANC and the government were scheduled to begin on 11 April. However, on 26 March, 11 protestors were killed by police in the Sebokeng massacre, and the ANC announced on 31 March that it intended to pull out of the negotiations indefinitely. The talks were only rescheduled after an emergency meeting between Mandela and de Klerk, held in early April. After the first day of meetings, a joint statement was released which identified the factors held by the parties to constitute obstacles to further negotiations: the government was concerned primarily about the ANC's ongoing commitment to armed struggle, while the ANC listed six preliminary demands, including the release of political prisoners, the return of ANC activists from exile, and the lifting of the state of emergency. The parties agreed to establish a working group, which should aim to complete its work before 21 May and which would consider the terms under which retroactive immunity would be granted for political offences. The government also committed to review its security legislation to "ensure normal and free political activities". Following another meeting between Mandela and de Klerk on 26 July, intensive bilateral talks were held on 6 August in Pretoria, resulting in another joint communiqué, the Pretoria Minute. The minute reiterated and extended earlier pledges by the government to consider amending its security legislation and lifting the state of emergency (then ongoing only in Natal province); and it also committed the government to releasing certain categories of political prisoners from September and indemnifying certain categories of political offences from October. Most significantly, however, the minute included a commitment to the immediate and unilateral suspension of all armed activities by the ANC and its armed wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe. which contained commitments arising from the activities of the working group on political offences, and which also clarified the terms of the ANC's suspension of armed struggle. It specified that the ANC would not launch attacks, create underground structures, threaten or incite violence, infiltrate men and materials into the country, or train men for armed action inside the country. In early April 1991, the ANC imposed an ultimatum, threatening to suspend all negotiations unless the government took steps to reduce the violence. Its case was strengthened by a major scandal in July 1991, known as Inkathagate, which unravelled after journalist David Beresford published evidence, obtained from a Security Branch informant, that the government had been subsidising the IFP.

On 14 September 1991, twenty six organisations signed the National Peace Accord. The first multi party agreement towards negotiations, it did not resolve substantive questions about the nature of the post apartheid settlement, but did include guidelines for the conduct of political organisations and security forces. To address the ongoing political violence, it established multi party conflict resolution structures (or "sub committees") at the community level, as well as related structures at the national level, notably the Goldstone Commission. The accord prepared the way for multi party negotiations, under the organisation that came to be called the Convention for a Democratic South Africa (CODESA). and a further variety of political groups. These were the SACP, the Democratic Party, the Dikwankwetla Party, the Inyandza National Movement (of KaNgwane), the Intando Yesizwe Party (of KwaNdebele), the Labour Party, the Transvaal and Natal Indian Congress, the National People's Party, Solidarity, the United People's Front, and the Ximoko Progressive Party. However, the negotiations were boycotted by organisations both on the far left (notably the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) and Azanian People's Organisation) and on far right (notably the Conservative Party and the Herstigte Nasionale Party). And South Africa's largest labour grouping, the Congress of South African Trade Unions, applied for but was denied permission to participate at CODESA; instead, its interests were to be represented indirectly by its Tripartite Alliance partners, the ANC and SACP. In the aftermath of the massacre, the ANC capitalised on public sentiment to further promote its mass action campaign, and also harnessed the increased international attention – on 15 July, Mandela addressed a meeting of the United Nations (UN) Security Council in New York about state complicity in political violence, leading to a UN observer mission and ultimately to additional UN support for various transitional structures, including the Goldstone Commission. The political impetus for a negotiated solution was given further urgency after the Bisho massacre on 7 September, in which the Ciskei Defence Force killed 28 ANC supporters.

In early March 1993, an official Multi Party Planning Conference was held at the World Trade Centre to arrange the resumption of multi party negotiations. The conference established the Multi Party Negotiating Forum (MPNF), which met for the first time on 1 April 1993. Each party sent ten delegates to the plenary, which, as in CODESA, was required to ratify all formal agreements. However, Mandela's plea for calm, broadcast on national television, is viewed as having increased the status and credibility of the ANC, both internationally and among domestic moderates.

In early October 1992, Buthelezi had been infuriated by the IFP's exclusion from the Record of Understanding, and in October 1992 had announced to a rally that the IFP would withdraw from further negotiations. after a flurry of bilateral agreements on sensitive issues were concluded in quick succession on 17 November. On the day of the council's inauguration in late 1993,

In the run up to the 1994 elections, a final stumbling block was the continued boycott of the elections by the members of the Freedom Alliance. Shortly before the election, an international delegation, led by former U. S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and former British Foreign Secretary Peter Carington, visited South Africa to broker a resolution to the IFP's election boycott, or, failing that, to persuade the ANC and NP to delay the elections to avert possible violence. Its name was added to the ballot papers, which had already been printed, by means of a sticker added manually to the bottom of each slip. Opposition from other wings of the former COSAG was also neutralised: in March, days after Mangope announced that his "country" would not participate in the elections, his administration was effectively paralysed by the Bophutatswana crisis. Six other parties were represented in the national legislature and among them, under the provisions of the interim Constitution, the NP and IFP won enough seats to participate alongside the ANC in a single term coalition Government of National Unity. Also in terms of a constitutional provision, de Klerk was appointed Mandela's second deputy president.

In 1995, the government passed legislation mandating the creation of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, a restorative justice tribunal which over the next three years investigated human rights violations under apartheid. The final Constitution was negotiated by the Constitutional Assembly, working from principles contained in the interim Constitution, and was provisionally adopted in 8 May 1996. The next day, de Klerk announced that the NP would withdraw from the Government of National Unity, calling the moment a "natural watershed". Following changes made to the text at the instruction of the new Constitutional Court, the final Constitution came into effect in February 1997 and successful elections were held under its provisions in June 1999, consolidating the ANC's long lived majority in the national legislature.