TRANSCRIPT: WAYS AND MEANS
From the moment I set foot on South African soil again after 24 years of exile, the making of the Constitution was absolutely central. We spent most of 1990 getting the Constitutional Committee of the ANC organised, expanded, much richer in its composition and more diverse in its composition, planning for the future. Now from 1991 the National Executive Committee, ANC, is restructured on South African soil, Negotiations Commission is established, NEC meeting regularly. There’s a very firm structure to what we’re doing.
When the negotiations team was formed, I’d spent the night somewhere down in the Southern Suburbs and I actually took a train… it’s so long since I’ve taken a train in South Africa. And I see someone reading a newspaper, ‘ANC constitution team established’. And I’m trying to read, I can’t read, I can’t read. And eventually I get out at the station, and I go to the nearest newspaper seller, and I pick it up and I read. My name’s not there. I can’t believe it. I’ve been so involved since the Lusaka days, my name’s not there. I’m kind of stunned and upset and miserable! But we have our meetings, Constitutional Committee and the others, and somebody kind of indicates, don’t worry Comrade Albie, you’ll be there. But when it comes to actually going to Kempton Park for the first meeting, I am part of the team.
Then that moment when actual substantive negotiations start and we’re meeting. And I don’t wear a suit very often, I put on my suit and my tie. I didn’t sleep the night before. I was just so, so anxious – I’m sure many of my colleagues felt the same – that we might give away at the negotiation table that so many had died for, we fought so hard for. The sense of historic responsibility was enormous. It wasn’t just to get a constitution so that the country could move forward. It was a mission, a mission that incorporated the dreams and the longings and the anger and the vision going back for well over a century. And we were the people now in the frontline.
It was total immersion, to the point of exhaustion. Flying up and down, up and down, up and down. The most important person in the ANC in those days – after the president – was Andrew Mlangeni because he was in charge of the plane tickets. And I think he was given the job because he worked the underground transport system in the struggle days. Little bit different from getting plane tickets. Always rushing to the airport, always late. So it was 100% total immersion.
In terms of the hard negotiations, Mandela and De Klerk in fact played a very limited role. They were captains of their teams. But not heavily playing captains who engaged. Mandela wasn’t in that sense an active negotiator at the coalface of negotiations in terms of the structure, the wording, the terminology. And certainly, this idea that he and De Klerk got together and settled the main terms of the Constitution in, you know, a half an hour’s chat with big business in the background is just totally, totally wrong. It’s unworthy actually of the South African nation, unworthy of the two protagonists. It was a titanic battle between different concepts and different visions of our society. And then we battled over the details – but finding accommodation, finding ways of being able to resolve issues and to move forward.
There was just one famous encounter between the two at the end of the first general meeting of CODESA. We’re all sitting in this rather stuffy room. The speeches go on and on and on. And we’re all kind of dreaming and thinking and resting and shutting our eyes a little bit. And then, proceedings are about to close, and Mandela goes up to the microphone. And he says, ‘It was agreed last night between the president and myself that the issue of the armed struggle would not be raised at this conference. The president arranged the programme so that he would be the last speaker, and he raised the very issue that he’d agreed not to raise. This man is not to be trusted.’
Ohhh! We’re kind of stunned. Wow, this is puncturing that whole, you know, showing the world that things are moving forward, people are agreeing. And the sense of indignation was just so powerful. And we’re kind of shocked, we’re taken by surprise. De Klerk asks if he can reply. And he replied with a measure of dignity, saying that there’d been a misunderstanding. I forget the exact words. But I couldn’t help noticing: English wasn’t the first language either of Mandela or De Klerk. Mandela was better! Somehow, his authority and command and stature in this sort of clash between two very proud individuals – Mandela came out the stronger.
I heard afterwards that there was jubilation in the townships because people were worried, we were being too nice. And yes, yes, yes, we are willing to stand up to them. And maybe, maybe many of our supporters wanted a robust, fighting challenge. But the overall goal was actually to create conditions for a negotiating settlement. And you take it seriously. You took the armed struggle seriously, you took the talks about talks about talks seriously to get our prisoners released, exiles back. And now we’re into negotiations, we take them seriously.
It was interesting that some of the strongest of the freedom fighters who’d been right at the heart of the insurrection now became the most passionate participants in getting a negotiated settlement. Joe Slovo, who’d written about ‘no middle road’ – now he’s committed. This is the way forward now. We’ve achieved conditions for the breakthrough. Very strong defender of the process, and finding ways and means. Mac Maharaj – deep in the underground, keeping the struggle going, long period on Robben Island, coming out, doing dangerous work again; we heard afterwards, involved in Operation Vula, willing to – if necessary – be involved in insurrection right to the end; became a key person in negotiations in terms of the management, the structuring, the organising. Kader Asmal could be very strong in his opposition to the racism, the structures. He didn’t have a natural affinity to people from the Afrikaner establishment. He’d grown up in then-Natal, he’d been in exile for a long time. But he had a crackling sense of humour. So, he would be involved in a debate, discussion and he’d rush out to have his smoke. But he couldn’t bear decisions being taken without him. So, you’d see him poking his head around the door with his hand behind his back and then he’d pull back, take a few puffs and then his head would be there, because he was torn between his need to smoke and his desire to be a participant in the discussions.
I knew none of the National Party people. I’d left in 1966. I knew who our enemies were – the names that would drive us crazy, people we would get cross and angry about, CW Swart and Dönges and Vorster and so on. And now there’s a whole new generation that the comrades have been fighting against and angry about. And they’re just names to us. Every now and then somebody like Hernus Kriel would come and talk and talk and talk in a rather aggressive, blustery way. It didn’t take the matter forward at all. I remember on one occasion Pik Botha comes in. Pik has a very emphatic way of speaking. He came in, he made his pronouncements, and he left again. It also didn’t contribute at all. And there were some quieter people. And you start noticing who they are. The people who’re listening, the people who’re trying to find a way forward, trying to understand what you’re getting at. Roelf Meyer, very, very thoughtful, very quiet. Leon Wessels a bit more ebullient but there’s like a sparkle there. And he’s enjoying the process, participating in the process to find solutions. A third person was Dawie de Villiers. He was I think a Dutch Reformed Church minister then, he’d been the Springbok Rugby captain. And very composed, very thoughtful. You knew if he was chairing a meeting, he would be looking for solutions, giving everybody a chance. So, this came as a pleasant surprise to find that there were people on the other side who fought hard for their side. But in a way where you knew this was a serious negotiation and not just bluster. We were human beings having to perform a function and discovering points of convergence and divergence, and eventually accommodating each other.
From our side there were also surprises. Pravin Gordhan – he’d been a pharmacist, not a lawyer, not a political scientist. He was brilliant at negotiations. Another non-lawyer who just had a marvellous capacity to spot an issue was Valli Moosa, a mathematician. He often outshone us lawyers in terms of legal reasoning and constitutional reasoning. We had great depths in our ranks… and we were also used to discussing things and trying to find solutions.
This notion that it was a sweetheart deal that the marvellous, saintly Mandela got together with the wise, pragmatic De Klerk and said, ‘Okay, you give us this, we give you that, over and done with. Then we’ll speak to our lawyers to draft a document,’ is just totally, totally, totally wrong. It was six hard gruelling years. Different phases. You throw yourself into what you’re doing heart and soul, body and soul. Your spirit, your intellect, everything, even your humour, your charm, all that becomes in the service of the transformation, the revolution in South Africa.
