In the quicksands of
SOUTH AFRICA carrying into them a part of the past, its prejudices and its divisions. This is, indeed, the objective.
On the conference's opening day, de Klerk launched a surprising attack on the ANC over the question of its armed wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK). Nelson Mandela replied with equal violence, directly
DIANA TILDEN-DAVIS is happy. Her photo made the front page of the South African press on December 30. She had come second in the Miss World contest. Could there be anything more important for the South African public at the end of 1991? The press moguls clearly didn't think so. PETER BLUMER
NA COUNTRY in the throes of the biggest political turning point in its history, when a decisive political and institutional change is being negotiated in the corridors of power, it would be easy enough to make jokes at the traditional frivolity of the South African press. However this time it would be something of a mistake. For Miss TildenDavis mounted the podium after a 14-year absence by South Africa from that idiotic competition. A symbolic return to the "world of beauty"!
The same is true of the reappearance of the national team in the cricketing World Cup; the decision to organize the next rug by World Cup in South Africa or the restarting of its Formula One Grand Prix. The message is clear. The country is once again respectable and it is possible to be seen visiting it. This return to "normality" finds its first expression in these media
It would be wrong to under-estimate the force of this propaganda, including among some layers of the Black population. Not only the constitutional changes, but also the social openings that are imminent, are going to benefit a number of Black social groups, such as the liberal professions, small entrepreneurs and various notables. A new consensual national myth is being created, of which Miss Tilden-Davis is as much a part as the new "multi-racial" cricket team. The South African flag is certain to be changed and why not the national anthem too?
It is by no means only the better off sections of the Black population that are affected by these events. Aside from symbols, the whole political arena is changing. Systematic and massive repression has stopped and now it is often the inhabitants of the townships who want police intervention to halt local clashes. ANC has broad access to the media and seems able to talk to the regime on a basis of equality. The prevailing sentiment is "life can change, and life will change."
This was also the point of the solemn opening of the Convention for a Democratic South Africa (CODESA) that took place December 19 and 20 in Johannesfrom the ruling National Party, the liberal Democratic Party, the African National Congress (ANC), and various organizations claiming to represent their "race" as defined by apartheid - the Coloured Labour Party and the chiefs of the Bantustans. The far right, and particularly the Conservative Party, refused to take part, and among the liberation forces, the PanAfricanist Congress (PAC), the Azanian People's Organization (AZAPO) others turned down the invitation.
At the end of the congress five working groups were set up to reach a consensus on different aspects of the transition. One is in charge of the constitutional project properly speaking. Thus CODESA represented an important step, confirming that the negotiations are multilateral, even if the face to face talks between the ANC and the government remain highly signif-
Buthelezi pulls out
The "Zulu" organization Inkatha took part, waging a spectacular battle for the participation of the King of the Zulus, in order to highlight its party's "national" quality. Faced with an initial refusal, particularly from the chiefs of the other Bantustans, Buthelezi chose not to personally attend the conference, in declared, "to remain with his king.""]
This set the tone. The "races", the homelands and the apartheid parties were all invited on an equal plane with the ANC to negotiate an end to the old system. This means that the liberation movement can no longer pretend to represent all the oppressed. The regime has succeeded, beyond all its hopes, in fragmenting this representation by enforcing acceptance of the representative status of the notables of the system of the "separate development of the races". It is thus banal to say that some of the negotiating parties are loath to saw off the branch they are sitting on. They will find their place in the post-apartheid institutions by and personally challenging the republic's president. The following day, however, everything was sweetness and light with handshakes and new statements about virtual consensus. Why, then, these epi-
It is probable that they are partly for the ears of the two parties' rank-and-file. But above all they represent the determination of the regime to bring the ANC to the negotiating table on its knees. The township youth have been forever awaiting the appearance of MK, these fighters of the ANC which are a part of its mystique. Some of these youth are forming a radical fringe that has an influence in some debates. In other words, at a time when it has become clear that the ANC leadership has definitively brought MK to heel, the regime is trying to make it seem important in order more strongly to insist on the change it wants to see in the ANC: from a liberation movement to a party like other parties, and from a militant and popular force to an apparatus of notables.
Agreement on arms likely
It was no accident that in the days following the dispute the likelihood of an agreement between Inkatha and the government was announced on the carrying of traditional arms by the former at its demonstrations. Or that it was suddenly discovered that the Nazi party, the AWB, has a military training camp. This is an amazing "discovery" in a country equipped with a comprehensive state intelligence system. An equals sign was thus put between the AN's military forces and the fascists by the remarkable coincidence in the timing of the press reports.
In a few months time CODESA is intended to give rise to a political agreement. A commission appointed by the regime has already proposed, with consultative status, a two house system. The first would be elected on a proportional basis; the second, representing nine big regions (which implies the disappearance of the Bantustans and their integration into regions) will effectively ensure overrepresentation for "white" rural regions and "local communities". The possibilities for racial minorities to exercise a veto and for the maintenance of ethnic fragmentation are thus more or less preserved. 1. According to the Weekly Mail of January 3, 1992, the Inkatha delegation at CODESA was advised by a certain Albert Blaustein, "from Rutgers University", presented also as an adviser to Boris Yeltsin and an expert in ethnic conflicts such as that in Yugoslavia. It is worth noting also that the representative of the "govemment" of the Bophuraswana bantustan was a white 1 3 ex-Rhodesian, recycled in South Africa!
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negotiation
SOUTH AFRICA
International Viewpoint #222 • February 17, 1992 munist Party and COSATU trade union confederation leaderships,
OmaN
AFRIC APARTHEID According to the commission regionalism based on ethnic divisions may be replaced by a regionalism based on socioeconomic specificities?. There remains the problem of the transition. For the moment, the AN and the government have put forward widely different proposals. The former wants to see the setting up of an interim government for 18 months which would prepare the calling of a constituent assembly. The latter wants to discuss and approve a constitutional project more or less prepared by CODESA.
Regime abhors a vacuum
On its side, the regime says that it does not want any constitutional vacuum. This means that the existing institutions, even if partly modified, must stay in working order until a new text can be approved by referendum. The regime rejects any notion of a constituent assembly, which, in its view, would imply a constitutional interregnum, at least during its working. In fact, de Klerk is seeking to coopt the ANC before any appeal is made to universal suffrage and to make it responsible for the planned compromises without too much external pressure.
Finally, and while the CODESA's labours are still unfinished, de Klerk wants to advance a step further in his political offensive on the nature of the transition. On January 24, at the opening of the parliamentary session, it was announced that the Black population? could express its views in a referendum on the introduction of a "transitional government".
In the meantime, de Klerk may also be thinking in terms of an "interim parliament" consisting of a upper house that 14 houses (White, Coloured, Indian) and a would be a fusion of the three existing
SOUTF
HOW COME ..THATS THE ITS STILL UP LAST ONE! THERE? lower house based on universal suffrage, including therefore, for the first time, the votes of the "Africans"4 Without doubt in preparation for the eventuality of the ANC getting a majority in the lower house, it would be proposed that the two houses have mutual rights of veto. Finally this set up would be put to a referendum with votes counted by community. envisaged would thus allow the ANC, as well as other "representatives" of sections of the population that have hitherto been deprived of any rights as citizens, to be coopted. One can see figures such as Inkatha's Gatsha Buthelezi (Kwazulu), Lucas Mangope from Bophuthatswana or General Holomisa from the Transkei ending up in the government. For the ANC to be coopted alongside a panoply of Bantustan leaders would amount to a significant turn in the liberation struggle and the nature of the ANC.
### Treacherous ground
Constitutional negotiations are treacherous ground for any liberation force, and all the more when the latter has decided against using the pressure of the masses. In recent months the ANC leadership has given up stimulating or organizing struggles. It has even, it seems, given up efforts to form a militant and structured movement.
Who has given Nelson Mandela the mandate to put an equals sign between the far right and the far left who did not take part in the conference? What leading body has given him permission to declare, in contradiction to everything his movement has said in recent years, that he does not see the possibility of whites having reserved parliamentary seats for a period as an insurmountable problem? Is this the new doctrine of the ANC, Comwho have created a "strategic alliance", which was supposed to discuss all negotiations in a democratic way from the top to the bottom? There can be no doubt that the leading group is operating totally on its own behalf in pursuit of an objective that is not understood by the members. Every one of these slippages is another bucket of cold water on the heads of thousands of militants who have been repeating for months that what is really being negotiated is the "transfer of power '. The crisis of the ANC has become such that is arouses worries about the very future of the mass movement. Furthermore, signs of decomposition are becoming clearly visible. An incident in the Port Elizabeth region, where MK militants who had not been paid for months sacked the ANC premises, denouncing the bureaucracy, is an example.
A curious alliance
On the other hand, cases of cooption, bureaucratization and renouncement are legion. There is a curious alliance, for example, between the ANC's Women's League and the National Party's women's structure, which are debating the place of women in a "post-apartheid society".
The ideology of post-apartheid development, that of "national reconstruction", has, furthermore, become the excuse for all kinds of compromises. It has become impossible to keep count of the ANC cadres who have in recent months found research structures on the new South Afriinto think tanks supposed to "reflect" upon the future. One example among others is that of Trevor Manuel, a member of the ANC's Central Committee who is at one and the same time working movement on socio-economic aspects of the future and doing the same kind of research for Mobil Oil.
The Independent Development Trust (IDT) and its 5 billion rands in funds controlled by the AN allows the movement to envisage social development projects in partnership with the banks and pension funds. Beyond the doubts one could have on the social transformations that such projects may permit, we are now seeing the development of a new bureaucracy in the spheres of the regime and the ruling
Money from firms, international institutions and states is flowing around. Things have now gone beyond the stage of tactical opportunism to reach the shores of compromise. What must the Dutch anti-apartheid movement, which for years led
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Redemption and pardon
THE CODESA conference was the occasion for many ringing speeches whose real aim was to wipe out the memory of hundreds of thou-
February 17, 1992 • #222 International Viewpoint a campaign to boycott the Shell oil company with the ANC's blessing, be thinking on suddenly learning that the same multinational has now offered the ANC its
SOUTH AFRICA building in Johannesburg as its local sands of victims of apartheid, that is, of a crime against humanity.
Finally, the movement's leadership has
Thus the leader of the ruling party, Dawie de Villiers, declared that the recently been shaken by worrying and still policy of racial separation was intended to bring peace to the nation.
murky scandals over police infiltration -
"That did not produce the anticipated peace, but greater conflict and for example the rumour that the main increasing injustice. It was not the intention to deprive other people of youth leader, Peter Mokaba, had been working for the police, or the expulsion of their rights and to contribute to their misery... Insofar as that occurred one of the main COSATU and engineerwe deeply regret it" (The Citizen, December 21, 1991).
Justice Ismail Mahomed, the vice-president of the conference, may ing workers leaders, Maxwell Xzulu, accused of having been an agent for severhave been echoing this monstrous piece of hypocrisy when he said at the end: "We have emerged stronger because some experiences have
While at the top all is up for negotiation, to be lived with intensity" (The Weekly Mail, January 3, 1992). Apartthings are very different back in the townheid as intensive group therapy for the construction of a new ships and Bantustans. The social crisis has nation...Wow! * not been suspended for the discussions and we are seeing a deepening of the crisis of political representation and a dangerous fragmentation of the communities.
Thus, in the Cape region, notably in the
Crossroads township, there has been a real civil war between two Black-owned taxi firms who are fighting for the most profitable routes? The central town council has been exacerbating the conflict by supporting one side against the other. Various clans have been formed and some say that people from the ANC can be found in them. The peace committee set up by all the local progressive forces has been paralyzed by sectarianism.
Results not encouraging
The initial results are not encouraging and only render even more obscure than ever in the eyes of the Black population the real issues of the day. Many have been killed by gun attacks. Gangs are becoming widespread, and it is quite easy to get an
AK47 for a few dozen rand, notably owing to the crisis in the lower ranks of
The situation is hardly better in some
Bantustans, starting of course by the near permanent clashes in Kwazulu. In Ciskei clashes have been increasing between
ANC supporters and people manipulated by the local powers-that-be. The forthcoming semi-dismantling of the Bantustans will lead to new migrations which will put increased pressure on employment, the urban environment and the eduholds out the threat of an exacerbation of ethnic hatreds and competition, further weakening the solidarity among the oppressed that has been built up over the last ten years.
The paradox is that at the moment when
CODESA claims to be moving ahead to the building of a new South Africa, the economic crisis is showing no signs of letting up, leading to a deterioration in the situation of millions of Blacks. According to Business Day on December 20, inflation for foodstuffs is at an unprecedented level; an annual rate of 43.4% for fruit,
38.1% for meat and 33.9% for vegetables. The inflation is particularly the result of the recent introduction of VAT for such merchandise. From November 1990 to November 1991 the price of all foodstuffs rose by 26.9%, while overall inflation was 11.5%.
### Recession continues
The recession is continuing; the price of gold, one of the country's main exports, continues to fluctuate at a low level. Unemployment and layoffs are mounting. According to New Nation (December 20, 1991) 39,000 jobs were lost in the mining sector in July and August 1991 alone. In August, the construction sector lost 4,300 jobs. And according to official statistics from the Central Statistical Office, registered unemployment (that is to say much under-estimated) rose by 47,000 between June and August 1991. In six months, overall employment fell by 2.1% in engineering, by 6% in construction, 3% in trade and 5% in transport. The engineering employers have announced 35,000
But what is perhaps most significant, given the wonderful speeches coming out of CO DESA, is the fact that Black workers have seen the initial signs of a reversal of the trend of recent years for their wage rates to close the gap with those of white workers. The difference in average wage between the two "races" has risen from 2.432 to 2.717 rand. Official figures also show that Black workers have had to take bigger real wage cuts — 3.8% in the second quarter of 1991 for Whites, and 6.3% for Blacks.
This has not prevented the delegates at CODESA from proclaiming the end of apartheid. It is however, significant that participation in the conference
. Thus, social questions are being deliberately kept out of the current negotiations. However, everything suggests that the negotiators are already shaping the country's socio-economic structure. While no explicit mention is made of the social dimension it is in fact being dealt with, through plans for a contract between unions and bosses or by proposals to return to the big national and international trusts the burden of "enriching the country".
The ANC's propaganda on the redistribution of wealth is not accompanied by any suggestions on the speed of this process nor the means. The whole constitutional contraption that will come out of the negotiations will, in the long term, shape how the country's social and political affairs will be managed. All the compromises made on the institutional level will also be social compromises.
### State not weakened
The main characteristic of the present phase is that the South African state has been in no sense weakened. It is intact, particularly as concerns its administrative structures, its intervention in the economic field and its repressive forces. This is not Zimbabwe in 1980. The ruling party is not surrendering power as lan Smith had to do in what was then Rhodesia. Here the National Party is happy to coopt others. Still less is this a repeat of the Namibian experience, where, even if by a compromise, the liberation movement finally got its hands on the reins of government. In South Africa the trend is towards a coali2. Business Day, Johannesburg, December 23, 1991. 3. This refers to the "Africans" who have not, until now, had the right to vote in national elections. 4. In 1984 the constitutional reform created two chambers, representing the separate votes of the "Coloureds" and the "Indians". "Africans" were still refused the right to vote. This segregation of universal suffrage and the exclusion of the Black majority led to a very stroing mobilization in all the oppressed communities in favour of a boycott. This latter was massive. 5. Cape Times, December 31, 1991. 6. Business Day, December 22, 1991. 7. Although the owners may be Black, in certain cases this may be merely a formal cover for white entrepreneurs who wish to intervene on the market in the Black 15 townships.
International Viewpoint #222 • February 17, 1992
SOUTH AFRICA / USA tion government.
And the former freedom fighters may find themselves running a society where social and racial discrimination are not substantially reduced, since we should not confuse some tens of thousands of privileged Blacks with the great mass of oppressed and disinherited.
Is another outcome still possible? The temptation to make predictions leads optimists and pessimists to follow their subjective predilections. It is thus better, at this stage, simply to point out the main likely protagonists of a sharp turn.
Despite the crisis of their leaderships and the retreats of their basic organizations, the fighting spirit of the masses has not been greatly affected, as is shown by the big strike against the government's VAT plans. We are certainly a long way from the atmosphere of militant readiness of 1984-87 but there is still a significant potential for struggle. Against this background we can approach the question of how the coming crisis of the ANC and above all of the Communist Party may
CP widens influence