Points of View

With the current crisis in the Middle East entering its ninth month, this `Points of View' feature presents the views of two respected voices from another conflict that was also the focus of world attention for many decades: South Africa. The two authors, Roelf Meyer and Jan van Eck, provide their insights about the factors that allowed for a successful transition to democracy in the face of determined opposition and terrible violence.

Lessons for the Middle East from South Africa's Transition to Democracy
by Roelf Meyer and Jan van Eck

The ongoing violent confrontations in the Middle East are a stark reminder of the fact that, where serious attempts are made to end a conflict, violence - generally orchestrated by those who oppose the process - tends to escalate at the same time.

This also happened in South Africa where, as in the Middle East, violence seriously threatened the very survival of the peace process.

The ANC's response to the countrywide violence and massacres, which it blamed on the South African government, was to refuse to start negotiating while such brutality continued. The organizers of the violence seemed to be achieving their objective.

But, realizing that this response would virtually give those opponents of peace a veto over the creation of a democratic South Africa, the ANC took a critical - and, to its own supporters, a controversial - decision in July 1991 to negotiate in spite of the violence.

An ANC leader, Thozamile Botha, captured the logic behind this decision very well:

"We cannot choose war, we have come from war. We thought we could destroy one another, but we could not. Why can we not rather talk?!"

Five months later formal negotiations between the two parties started. And although the spoilers kept at it, once this hurdle had been overcome and a decision had been made, the continuing violence was unable to permanently derail the process.

By signing the National Peace Accord in September 1991, through which structures were created all over South Africa, the parties could jointly monitor, mediate, and report incidents of violence. The negotiating parties virtually marginalized the destructive issue of violence, allowing them to continue with the real peace negotiations. Once the negotiating political leadership had legitimized this peace accord, all sectors within civil society were able to (safely) use the accord in keeping the daily incidents of violence to manageable levels.

But when the violence peaked with the extremely brutal massacre of 38 people - including 24 women - at Boipatong on 17 June 1992 (for which the South African government at that time was blamed), the commitment wavered and Mandela withdrew the ANC from negotiations. Stating that this was "the darkest hour before the dawn," he added:

"I can no longer explain to our people why we continue to talk to a regime that is murdering our people and conducting war against us."

Despite this public withdrawal, however, steps were taken to ensure that the process would not die. At the same time that Mandela and De Klerk were publicly at odds with each other, they also kept open a critically important line of communication. In what became known as the "channel," their two representatives - Cyril Ramaphosa and Roelf Meyer (one of the co-authors of this article) - met secretly at least 43 times between June and September 1992 to search for a deal.

This intensive four-month period of one-on-one 'back door negotiations' between Ramaphosa and Meyer became the most critical trust-building period between the two opposing sides, and eventually determined the success of the next and last phase of the negotiations process.

But the behavior of the two leaders, especially their public responses to crises, played a critical role in keeping negotiations alive. Although the horrendous massacres and violence resulted in them repeatedly attacking one another in public, neither tried to destroy the other. Both leaders (even Mandela, in spite of being confronted with intense anger within the black community) seemed to accept that they still needed one another to create the new South Africa.

When during Easter weekend in April 1993, the extremely popular ANC and Communist Party leader Chris Hani was brutally assassinated by a white 'right-winger,' South Africa expected the worst: a race war.

Mandela could easily, and even understandably, have resorted to generalized and polarizing expressions of outrage against "reactionary apartheid whites" (as many in the ANC did), but instead he masterly used his address to the nation on public television to channel this extreme tragedy in the opposite direction. He used these words:

"A white man, full of prejudice and hate came to our country and committed a deed so foul that our whole nation now teeters on the brink of disaster. But a white woman, of Afrikaner origin, risked her life [by noting the registration number of his car, which led to his arrest], so that we may know, and bring to justice, the assassin."

"Now is the time for all South Africans to stand together against those who ... wish to destroy ... the freedom of all of us."

South Africans of all persuasions gave a collective sigh of relief, knowing that the expected disaster had been averted - by one man, who thought before he spoke.

Contrary to what the South African transition has been termed, a so-called "miracle," it has been a successful transition because of sheer hard work, strategic thinking, and real statesman-like leadership.

This does not have to be unique to South Africa. Any other country and its people can do the same, on condition that they first take a deliberate decision that talks, dialogue, and negotiations are, by far, a preferable option to the ongoing conflict and war. Israelis and Palestinians have the same ability - even if they think that they do not.

(Unless otherwise stated, all quotations are from Anatomy of a Miracle: The End of Apartheid and the Birth of the New South Africa by Patti Waldmeir, W.W. Norton & Company, New York, 1997).

Roelf Meyer is currently the Chairman of the Civil Society Initiative of South Africa. Previously he was a Member of the South African Parliament, South African Deputy Minister for Law and Order, and subsequently of Constitutional Development and South African Cabinet Minister. Mr. Meyer was intimately involved in the negotiations on the settlement of the South African problem from 1989 to 1994, first as Deputy Minister of Constitutional Affairs and thereafter as Minister in which capacity he served as the then National Party and Government's chief negotiator. It was in this capacity that he negotiated the end of apartheid together with Cyril Ramaphosa, who was the chief negotiator of the African National Congress (ANC). These negotiations resulted in the first democratic election in South Africa at the end of April 1994. After the election, Mr. Meyer continued in the same portfolio of Constitutional Affairs in the Cabinet of former President Nelson Mandela until March 1996.

Jan van Eck was for 23 years involved full-time in South Africa's internal struggle against apartheid. As Member of Parliament for the liberal opposition, he specifically focused on monitoring and mediating in the violent conflict between the Government (and its security forces) and the internal black opposition. Mr. van Eck joined the African National Congress (ANC) two years after it was unbanned and represented the ANC in Parliament until 1996. Since then he has been involved in conflict analysis and resolution in the Great Lakes Region and as informal facilitator of political dialogue in the broader Burundian peace process. He is attached to the Centre for International Policy Studies at the University of Pretoria, South Africa.

Bulletin of Regional Cooperation in the Middle East Spring 2001
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