Not all so noble at the Nobel awards ceremony
Extract from Chapter 7 of George Bizos’ book ‘65 Years of Friendship’ (entitled 'Free Nelson Mandela – Take your guns, knives and your pangas and throw them into the sea’)
I had never seen Nelson so alarmed. His public appeal to his supporters not to be provoked into committing acts of revenge was successful and Hani’s death proved to be a turning point for the negotiations process.
[FW] De Klerk realised that he could not control the country without the help of Nelson and the ANC. Nor could he put off the timetable for the adoption of the interim constitution and the elections. Dates were finally agreed: December 1993 and April 1994 respectively.
In his speech after his release on 11 February 1989, Nelson had told the world that President FW de Klerk was ‘a man of integrity’. Not long afterwards, he confided in me that he was mistaken. Nelson never really liked De Klerk and there was no personal warmth between them.
Their relationship was fraught from the time of their first meeting in Cape Town when De Klerk told Nelson that the government would not negotiate with Joe Slovo or any other known communist.
Nelson was quick to explain to him that the choice of who represented the ANC was not De Klerk’s. The relationship deteriorated over time, causing Nelson to remark publicly of De Klerk: ‘He has sometimes very little idea of what democracy means’ and ‘Even the head of an illegitimate discredited minority regime as his has certain moral standards to uphold’.
Never one to speak with different tongues to different people, Nelson’s public ambivalence was unusual. He was walking a tightrope. He knew that De Klerk was needed to see the negotiations process through, but he did not trust him.
At the same time, Nelson faced criticism from his own side for not doing enough to pressurise him. When Nelson was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize jointly with De Klerk in 1993, he was not sure whether he should accept it. He felt that the Nobel Prize should have been awarded to him and the ANC alone, and that he should not have to share it with a man who had spent most of his political life upholding apartheid. His hesitation was compounded by his personal difficulty with De Klerk’s lack of humility or self-reflection and apparent failure to recognise the plunder of the spirit that was the essence of apartheid.
At the time, Nelson also believed that, not only was De Klerk not doing enough to stop the violence that raged across the country, but also that he was allowing the ‘third force’ – members of the security forces who were involved in organised killings of activists and innocent civilians – to continue with its activities.
He accused De Klerk of allowing the slaughter of innocent people because they were black. In the end, despite his concerns, Nelson decided to accept the award.
He invited me to attend the prize-giving ceremony in Oslo as part of a group of family and friends that included his daughter Zenani, Nadine Gordimer and then ANC publicity secretary Carl Niehaus.
We were booked into the Grand Hotel on Karl Johans gate, Oslo’s central plaza, together with De Klerk’s delegation. The potential for reconciliation between the two parties that the occasion presented was not fulfilled and the event served to further sour relations.
The difficulties started almost immediately. De Klerk’s wife, Marike, cancelled a joint shopping spree organised by our host after Zenani implied to a journalist that her father alone, and not De Klerk, deserved the award.
Nelson expected De Klerk to acknowledge the immorality of apartheid and the suffering it had caused the majority of South Africans in his acceptance speech at the awards ceremony. Instead, De Klerk said only that ‘both sides had made mistakes’, causing Nelson to shake his head grimly.
The two recipients of the prize, together with three members each from their entourages, were invited to a private audience with the king of Norway.
De Klerk introduced Pik Botha to the king as ‘the longest serving foreign minister of all democratic countries’. Nelson, as was his wont, introduced me as ‘the lawyer responsible for his 27-year imprisonment’.
‘Perhaps Mr de Klerk was more directly responsible,’ I remarked as I bowed to the king.
‘No. I was in nursery school at the time,’ De Klerk lied to his majesty.
From the balcony of the Grand Hotel where the playwright Ibsen famously addressed the crowds, the prize-winners stood to acknowledge the cheers of the symbolic torch bearers and those members of the public gathered on the snowy streets below.
The placards, freedom songs and shouts of praise left no doubt as to whom the people were there to see. The evening torch procession from the palace to the cathedral ended with the singing of what would soon become the South African national anthem – Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika – enthusiastically sung by the Norwegian crowd.
In stark contrast, De Klerk and Marike talked to each other throughout the singing. Their chitter did not escape Nelson’s attention.
We were all tired on the day of the prizegiving ceremony. Carl Niehaus and I asked Nelson’s secretary if he was available for a short discussion on what was to be said at the dinner that evening. ‘Come in,’ she said. ‘But don’t make it a long one, because it’s going to be a private dinner. The press won’t be there.’
When Nelson heard that, he said, ‘Ah, if that’s going to be the case, don’t write a speech. I’ll take it in my stride.’
We were happy to do that, and rested for the afternoon instead. At the private dinner hosted by the Norwegian prime minister to honour the two laureates, Nelson’s patience finally snapped. Before the 150 invited guests, he spoke off the cuff.
In horrible detail he described the treatment of political prisoners on Robben Island, recounting an incident in which prison warders buried a man in the sand up to his head and urinated on him.
He attacked the apartheid regime for the oppression of black people and for the murders committed by its hit squads.
‘What mistakes did we make when you were brutalising us and locking us up and banning us and not allowing us to vote?’ he asked angrily of De Klerk.
This was the one and only occasion that I would ever see Nelson lose control and allow his personal feelings to spill out in public. After he had finished, a furious Pik Botha approached me and said that in future he would make sure that his president spoke last.
‘If there is any such a performance by Mandela again, President de Klerk will give it back in kind,’ he warned.
The next morning the breakfast seating arrangements at the hotel had been changed and the two South African delegations sat separately to eat.
Minister Botha publicly accused the ANC of hijacking the awards ceremony by putting up posters in the hall where the event was to take place.
He claimed that the Nobel Prize committee had been forced to intervene and remove them. This in turn led to denials by the Norwegian organising committee that there were ever any posters or that they were asked to intervene.
The domestic media pointed out that in Norway, at least, the citizens were free to show their support for whomever they wished. The De Klerk delegation left the country early without saying goodbye to us.
Nelson expected De Klerk to acknowledge the immorality of apartheid and the suffering it had caused the majority of South Africans in his acceptance speech
This is an extract from George Bizos’ book ‘65 Years of Friendship’, first published in 2017, published by Umuzi, an imprint of Penguin Random House, and available from all good bookstores at R320.