Secret deal ‘rubber stamped’
Ramaphosa, Meyer held separate talks
THE Institute of Race Relations is back in the spotlight after one of its policy fellows claimed that President Cyril Ramaphosa and Roelf Meyer secretly met in 1992 and came back with agreements that were rubber-stamped during the Codesa talks.
The policy fellow, John Kane-Berman, said that during the political negotiations in the early 1990s the ANC found itself defeated on many fronts. He made these claims while giving a keynote address during the launch of the Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi and Harry Oppenheimer Trust in Durban yesterday.
He alleged that when the ANC walked out, Ramaphosa and Meyer met in the Free State to return with the infamous “record of understanding”.
Kane-Berman also claimed that agreements known only by the two were later endorsed by Codesa.
“When Codesa met at the World Trade Centre, the ANC found itself in a minority on a number of vital constitutional issues, notably its opposition to federalism.
“Its remedy was to walk out of the talks in May 1992 and refuse to return until Roelf Meyer and Cyril Ramaphosa had reached their infamous ‘record of understanding,’ as they called it in September 1992.
“This bilateral deal turned the multiparty constitutional conference into a rubber stamp,” Berman said.
Meyer has dismissed the claims, saying the talks broke down, first at a multilateral level in May 1992, and then in June the bilateral level between the National Party government and the ANC after the Boipatong massacre.
“To resume the talks Cyril Ramaphosa and I were mandated by our respective principals, former presidents Nelson Mandela and FW De Klerk, to find a way forward.
“This led to the record of understanding that was signed by the two principals on September 26 1992.
“We negotiated with all parties, including the IFP, until the multilateral talks resumed by March 1993.”
He further added: “Chris Hani was assassinated on April 10, 1993, and it led to a new threat to stall the negotiations.
“No party was ever excluded. We never met in Bloemfontein for talks.”
The ANC and the Presidency did not respond to requests to give their side of the story.
The crux of Kane-Berman’s speech was that the ANC and National Party betrayed IFP leader Buthelezi by watering down his role for the release of Mandela from prison and insistence on having all-inclusive multiparty talks.
He was even more critical of the ANC, saying it was behind the blackon-black violence that ravaged the country in the late 1980s.
“By the time of the 1994 election some 20 000 people were killed in political violence dating back to the launch by the ANC of its ‘people’s war’ after its visit to Vietnam in 1978.”