FORMER prime minister PW Botha “went through the roof” when he heard the radical proposals of a hand-picked team of senior civil servants whom he had mandated to find solutions to break the deadlock with the ANC in 1987.
In their final proposal, the civil servants who participated in Operation Skrik Vir Niks criticised the way government was handling reform and political resistance, snubbed the securocrats and the military, and predicted revolutionary conflict if steps were not urgently taken by government to change its attitude to the liberation forces and political change.
In their project document the team said the security forces did not have the resources to hold the liberation movements at bay for much longer and said the economy was suffering as a result of unrest and a lack of political vision.
They rejected the notion political reform could take place from within the apartheid framework, and pointed out the government lacked credibility and legitimacy among blacks and some groups of white people.
“The government projects an image of insensitivity towards black people in particular, and is seen to misunderstand the legitimate aspirations of black people, as well as having only taken steps within a rigid racially defined framework in order to maintain the current domination of whites and keep the status quo,” reads a loose translation of the document, which was drafted by a team of 40 top senior civil servants from non-security departments in March 1987.
The team – under the political leadership of Roelf Meyer – was requested to think creatively, not to be limited by government policy and to aim at providing real answers. The 40 civil servants, including former chief director of constitutional development Fanie Cloete and the then director of constitutional planning, “Kobus” Jordaan, met at the Union Buildings for three weeks in February 1987. Meyer was not present at the meetings.
Members of that team have told the Mail & Guardian they canvassed the opinions of liberation struggle leaders who were accessible in South Africa and then worked out a series of proposals which foreshadowed the announcements made by FW De Klerk in 1990, and later positions taken in constitutional negotiations.
The project was listed as top secret and all documents were handed in after every meeting. The civil servants decided among themselves they would all sign the document at its conclusion for the sake of solidarity.
The team proposed:
* Initiation of negotiations for a constitutional order in which all South African communities would have a share in decision-making.
* Giving the vote to all South Africans.
* Bringing the homelands and TBVC states back into South African territory.
* Representation for all in constitutional structures on central, regional and local levels.
* Decentralisation of power and privatisation of a number of government functions.
* The legitimisation of the judiciary and the confirmation of the independence of the Bench.
* Protection of human rights.
* Scrapping of discriminatory laws.
* Freezing of Parliament for a year and the setting up of an inclusive, transitional Parliament and executive authority to draw up a new constitution, allow temperatures to cool and for black people to have ownership of the process of transition.
* The withdrawal of troops from the townships and the lifting of states of emergency.
Jordaan said this week:
“I think if these steps had been taken the
transition between the National Party government and an ANC-led government would have been much easier and there would have been much less bitterness.”