John Hall: Negotiator, troubleshooter and champion of peace
1935-2013
JOHN Hall, who has died in Johannesburg at the age of 78, chaired the national peace committee in the early ’90s.
By an extraordinary process of shuttle diplomacy never quite equalled anywhere else in the world, the committee managed to get warring factions to stop fighting each other so that elections for a democratic South Africa could be held in 1994.
At the time, the ANC and all other political parties had been unbanned, the National Party government had lost practically all legitimacy, countrywide political violence was sweeping South Africa into the abyss and people had lost faith in the ability of most politicians to control it.
This was when Hall, president of the South African Chamber of Business and a senior Barlow Rand executive, was asked to chair a committee to bring about peace. It comprised church leaders and representatives of all but the far left and far right political parties, as well as trade unions and civil society.
At countless meetings, many of them hosted at Barlow Rand’s offices, the committee hammered out what became known as the National Peace Accord. This was a set of rules, codes of conduct governing the behaviour not only of political parties, but of the government, defence force and police, as well as socioeconomic initiatives that had to be implemented to bring peace to communities being torn apart by rivalry and factionalism.
The accord was signed by all the major players in September 1991, which was in itself a significant achievement.
The hard part was ensuring that it was implemented and honoured by the signatories. The accord established a secretariat that trained and coordinated the activities of thousands of peace monitors in every township and village.
They often found themselves in the middle of rallies that became war zones, fighting to keep apart marching factions baying for blood. On a few celebrated occasions, the situation became so dangerous that they were forced to seek the protection of armoured vehicles.
Hall sometimes found himself on the front line, such as in 1992 when he was helping to monitor the ANC march on Bhisho — in the former homeland of Ciskei, in what is now the Eastern Cape — which ended in a massacre when the Ciskei army opened fire and killed 26 marchers.
When he was not negotiating with gun-toting and panga-wielding mobs in the field, Hall was on the phone to Nelson Mandela and FW de Klerk, or in meetings with Mangosuthu Buthelezi or King Goodwill Zwelithini at his palace at Nongoma in rural KwaZuluNatal.
In spite of the best efforts of Hall’s committee, by mid-1993 the level of violence was still horrendous. It made a mockery of the Convention for Democracy in South Africa (Codesa), which began negotiations three months after the signing of the accord. Hall had just about had it. “How can South Africans trust politicians to honour the new constitution if the National Peace Accord is not honoured to the letter?” the usually calm and laid-back Barlow Rand executive exploded.
“South Africans must stop killing each other. It is unthinkable that a country whose leaders are locked into sophisticated and serious negotiations to bring peace can tolerate the violence sweeping the country and threatening to destroy us all.”
The National Peace Accord succeeded “in spite of the political leadership”, he said.
And it was thanks only to the work of thousands of dedicated South Africans and international observers, “who labour day and night, often in life-threatening circumstances, to prevent the pot of violence from boiling over”.
“South Africans should be ashamed of the face of violence they present to the world. Enough is enough!”
In spite of the despair that provoked this uncharacteristic outburst from Hall, the fact was that he and his committee were doing an extraordinary job holding South Africa back from the edge.
From the time the committee began its work until the end of 1993, the death rate— 13 546 killed and many times that number shockingly mutilated — began to come down. When peaceful elections were held in 1994, it was no miracle; it was in large part thanks to the sweat and often tears of Hall’s committed team.
He did not think the national peace committee received the recognition it deserved. “Well,” said Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who was initially joint chairman with him: “God knows what you did.”
God and the Queen. In 1995, Hall was made a Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (OBE) in recognition of his contributions to governance in South Africa. Also in 1995, he became the first person, other than a visiting head of state, to address a joint sitting of parliament when he handed the National Peace Accord to the speaker, Frene Ginwala, to be placed in the archives.
Hall was not without his critics. The National Peace Accord stated that, for a comprehensive peace to be achieved, socioeconomic issues and job creation needed to be tackled. It was felt that the contribution of business to this was inadequate, and some blamed Hall.
Hall was born in Nottinghamshire in England on February 10 1935. He came to South Africa at 14 in a flying boat, which landed on the Vaal Dam.
He left school before matriculating to work as a bank teller. This was to support his family after his father became ill and was laid off. He then worked as what he called a “bush accountant” on a cattle ranch in what was then Rhodesia before starting his own mine and engineering agency.
Back in South Africa, he became general manager of SA Pipe in 1962, and sales and marketing director for Middelburg Steel and Alloys and an executive director of the Barlow Rand group in 1978.
In 1974, he was returning from a business trip in Europe when the Boeing 747 he was on crashed while taking off from Nairobi, killing 77.
Hall, who died of cancer, is survived by his wife, Gwen, and four children. — Chris Barron