Not everything you read is right

WHEN a former head of National Intelligence publishes a book on the inner workings of the negotiation process, one is justified to presume it will contain revelations and secrets previously unknown.

It is perhaps the duty of anyone with inside information to write publicly about that complex period of South Africa’s history so coming generations might better understand what happened.

Thus I received Niël Barnard’s memoir, A Peaceful Revolution: Inside the War Room at the Negotiations, with great interest. I have read enough such books to know they are written from a subjective perspective, so that assumptions, analyses and opinions are intermingled with objective information.

I was not disappointed. Barnard has documented valuable information that provides insight into the negotiations. But he has also drawn his own conclusions, some of which are not quite right.

I am grateful that a different dimension to this history will soon be available, as the late Dr Mario Oriani-ambrosini’s memoir, The Prince and I, is ready to be launched. Ambrosini, a constitutional law expert and adviser to the IFP in negotiations, became the bane of the ANC and the National Party governments.

His memoir, like all the others, is written from a subjective perspective. But Ambrosini’s perspective is unique in that he was an outsider on the inside.

He came to the negotiations fully cognisant of how the world viewed South Africa’s transition. As a former history professor at Georgetown University (in Washington DC), he understood the wider historical context and could draw parallels and lessons from experiences throughout the world.

He was also first and foremost a libertarian. He approached the negotiations with an agenda to win for our country the best democratic outcomes with the greatest possible freedoms, and the greatest protection of those freedoms. He was, effectively, unchained from narrow political doctrines and from the entrenched bias bred, unwittingly or intentionally, into every South African.

His memoir will, therefore, break new ground in terms of what we know, and what we believed. It will certainly respond to much of what has been written already on the negotiation process.

But until it becomes part of public debate, it would be remiss of me not to respond to Barnard’s book.

I, too, have a duty to complete the picture of the past, for I am one of the key protagonists.

Accordingly, Barnard has dedicated his chapter on “Critical Talks” to what he calls “one of the most important – and the most demanding” party to the negotiations: the IFP and Buthelezi.

Our positions, according to Barnard, were “more often right than wrong”, but the IFP endured obstacles to its participation on an equal footing with the ANC and the South African government. A major obstacle was the Record of Understanding signed by the ANC and the government behind the IFP’S back, which intended to make further negotiations bilateral, under the pretence of multiparty participation.

I disagree with Barnard, however, that our “influence in the negotiation process gradually faded”. If that were the case, there would have been no need for Mandela, De Klerk and I to sign a Memorandum of Understanding for Reconciliation and Peace, just eight days before the 1994 election. It was understood that the election would not be credible without the IFP’S participation, as millions of South Africans would have been excluded from a “democratic” outcome.

Moreover, the IFP secured substantial gains during the negotiations, in the interests of a strong democracy. We tabled the need for social and economic rights, a constitutional court, independent organs of state controlling the executive, the recognition of indigenous and customary law, a federal state with provinces, and many other aspects of a modern constitution.

While others focused on the details of the transfer of power, the IFP looked ahead to the kind of democracy we were forging. We insisted on discussing issues like the form of state – whether South Africa would be unitary or federal – whether the powers of governance would be centralised or devolved, and how we could create checks and balances to limit unfettered power, which always produces corruption.

We insisted the constitution contain a bill of rights. The ANC failed to see the need, believing that a democratic government would never infringe on the rights of its people; and it was simply not on the government’s agenda.

Securing a bill of rights and securing provinces were just two of the IFP’S victories. One can hardly say our influence was insubstantial.

But we certainly faced obstacles, not least the fact that National Intelligence was intercepting my and the IFP’S communications. This made it difficult to trust those we were negotiating with.

One of the ANC’S key negotiators, Cyril Ramaphosa, later told Ambrosini that they had been intercepting our faxes. It is no surprise that Barnard now admits that President FW de Klerk “would receive copies of IFP speeches before they were even delivered”.

Barnard freely quotes from minutes of meetings between the IFP and government. But he feels equally at liberty to quote from what he repeatedly calls a “confidential” letter that I wrote to my late friend Dr John Aspinall. Evidently, my personal correspondence was watched as carefully as my public statements.

I am rather disconcerted by Barnard’s verbatim recollection of my private correspondence. Evidently, he still has copies of these covertly obtained confidential documents, which to my mind is not merely unethical, but possibly illegal.

To a large extent, it was hardly necessary for National Intelligence to intercept my communications, for the IFP “had a habit”, as Barnard relates, of putting everything “in writing, handing out copies, and then reading everything out word for word”. Our reasons were quite simple.

The IFP was willing to commit to a position. We didn’t play the game of saying one thing in this meeting and something different in another. We believed strongly in documenting a factual record, for we had endured endless lies and propaganda against us. It was important the facts were on record at the time, and for the future.

The campaign of propaganda and vilification are exactly what made Mandela “uncomfortable” and “not entirely at ease” whenever I came up in discussions with Minister of Justice Kobie Coetsee and Barnard, before his release. Mandela was uncomfortable with the lie propagated by the ANC’S leadership-in-exile that I was an apartheid collaborator, because he knew full well that Tambo and Inkosi Albert Luthuli had asked me to lead the Kwazulu government.

Because of this propaganda, my life was continually threatened while I served as chief minister. Having no private army like Umkhonto wesizwe, and unable to issue a single firearm licence to the Kwazulu police, I was forced to seek government’s assistance with security for me and my ministers.

But Barnard overplays the extent to which National Intelligence supported the Kwazulu government. It was not he who brought Zuma to me, but Reverend CJ Mtetwa. I then took Zuma to see the king at his Enyokeni residence.

I have never done things for personal gain or advancement. As Barnard points out, my principled stand on the issue of the king earned me nothing. This perhaps is where the IFP’S approach to the negotiations differed from that of other participants.

We did, as Barnard says, have to become confrontational. At times we did need to employ delaying tactics and a boycott strategy. But none was done to advance the IFP’S position in a democratic South Africa. Our fundamental goal was to create a strong democracy, in which we would serve in whatever capacity the people chose. Many analysts still struggle to understand this truth at the heart of the IFP.

The record of the IFP’S participation provides insight into the party’s longevity and continued influence in South African politics. We maintain a legacy of putting principles first, honouring our commitments, and working in the best interests of all South Africans. To some extent, this uncompromising approach has prevented the IFP from capturing the limelight. But it has provided South Africa with a trusted political leadership for whatever lies ahead.

That is likely our greatest contribution to South Africa.