Not for the first time, President PW de Klerk holds the fate of South Africa in his hands. Following the African National Congress’ rebuff of his offer of a two-day summit to talk about obstacles to the resumption of negotiations, De KIerk has two options. He can either lay aside his distaste of “ultimatum politics” and seriously address the ANC’s 14 pre-conditions for a return to negotiations. Or he can declare a State of Emergency, lock up Nelson Mandela and the ANC leadership and forge a deal with what is left of Codesa after the walk out by the ANC and its eight allies.
Voices within the Inkatha Freedom Party and the Conservative Party – even within his own cabinet – are urging the latter course. But De Klerk is too well-schooled a student of the follies of his predecessor to do a repeat performance of PW Botha repression, too pragmatic a politician to abandon entirely the high ground that he has fought hard to these past three years and too mindful of international opinion to tell the world to get lost. Perhaps he will persist with the middle path approach he revealed at his press conference on Wednesday night appearing to respond reasonably to the ANC while attempting to recapture the moral high ground.
Unfortunately, that easy option has gone. Boipatong was in every sense a township massacre too many. The international community, quietly easing out of what was starting to look like a not very interesting debate between “federalism” and “winner takes all majoritarianism”, has been shocked back to attention. The South African question has not been “resolved”. The leopards of the National Party have not changed their spots. No matter how reprehensible he views the suggestion, there is a widespread perception that De Klerk has the blood of Boipatong on his hands.
An important lesson that the NP has failed to realise about the ANC response is that it is not simply a matter of political expediency. The ANC is reflecting the sentiments of its followers in the townships who have been at the receiving end of the violence. As Mandela told a rally in Evaton on Sunday: “We can no longer explain to our people why we are talking to a regime that continues to murder our people.” Some leaders at the ANC National Executive Committee meeting this week urged that now was not the time to walk away from negotiations. They argued that it was precisely the time to get in and extract concessions from a weakened NP. That would have been the most expedient path. But the ANC leadership was vigorously reminded by tramping around Boipatong that it ignores its base at its peril.
De Klerk himself came face to face with that consideration on Saturday when he witnessed the fury of Boipatong from inside his ear. It was a journey that elevated Boipatong from being just another township massacre to becoming a turning point in our politics. Simply to respond, as De Klerk did, that they were put up to it by the ANC and the Pan Africanist Congress exposed how sorely out of touch and badly advised the president is. Perhaps that explains why De Klerk has so far underestimated the volatility of the townships, why he has underestimated the will of the ANC not to allow itself to be politically outmanoeuvred, and why he has overestimated the new mood of acceptance of the international community.
In the end, says Foreign Minister Pik Botha, the ANC will have to find its way back to the negotiating table. Yes but not on terms that compromise democracy and emasculate the ANC. And not while nothing is done to stop the murderers of ordinary black people. Which brings one to the demands that the ANC has made. What they amount to is forcing the government to take the carnage in the township seriously. If it looks like a repeat of the April 1991 ultimatum it is because the condition of violence are, incredibly, the same after all this time. ANC secretary general Cyril Ramaphosa stressed that all the demands were “do-able”. Those concerning the hostels have already been agreed and simply await implementation.
The prosecution of security personnel such as General CP van der Westhuizen, head of military Intelligence who have been implicated in murder and other misdeeds is simply a call to start applying the common law of the country. As for disbanding 32 Battalion, Judge Richard Goldstone has already recommended that they not be deployed in the townships. The ANC is quite right to say that there should be no more talking about these questions. People are impatient for action.
As for an international inquiry into the Boipatong massacre, De Klerk made some important concessions on Wednesday, allowing an assessor at the Goldstone Commission and an international review of the police investigation. A bigger battle lies ahead in the ANC’s demand for international monitoring of the township violence.
Yet collectively the ANC’s demands offer De Klerk an easy way back from the brink. He would be foolish to squander another opportunity, as he did at Codesa II when he believed that time was on his side. This time De Klerk and the NP need to clutch at the life-raft that has been thrown for them. But he should go even further. He needs to restore trust even if he will never again be hailed by the township comrades in the way that he was after February 1990.
He should declare that the NP is willing to accept democracy as it is normally understood, and that it is not committed to tricky power-sharing manoeuvres that will retain the NP permanently in power irrespective of the electorate. That is De Klerk ‘s one way of undermining the mass action campaign that has him so bothered. He can prove that its premise, that he is not about to surrender power to the democratic process, is fallacious. If he did that he would clear the air at Codesa so that its work will not be bedevilled by the constant suspicion that there is a double agenda at work.
The win in the House of Representatives seat of Diamant on Wednesday and the NP’s recruitment meeting in the black township of Ikageng prove that there is a political route for the party that does not have to involve hit squads and violence to weaken the NP’s opponents, and rigged constitutions to ensure a role in government. As he sits down to ponder his options to overcome the crisis, there is a route for FW de Klerk. It is a hard one, perhaps requiring the same courage as it took when he stood up to address parliament on February 2 1990. But it will be equally important for the future of this country.
This article originally appeared in the Weekly Mail newspaper