The drama of the peace process in South Africa : I look back 30 years

Weaves together personal experiences with historical accounts to present rare insight into the struggle to end apartheid. Contents Acknowledgements About the author Abbreviations PROLOGUE: CONCEPTUAL AND METHODOLOGICAL CONSIDERATIONS PART I: RESHAPING THE NARRATIVE 1 Introduction 2 Nelson Mandela takes the initiative 3 Was Mandela selling the ANC down the river? 4 The parallel strategy of Oliver Tambo and Thabo Mbeki 5 Communists take an ultra-radical stand 6 A qualitative shift in national and international conditions 7 An alliance between the ANC and imperialist capital? 8 Timing of the start of negotiations 9 The structure of the national democratic revolution in South Africa 10 Transitional mechanisms in the framework of the negotiation process 11 Resistance to neocolonialism, the key content of South African liberation 12 The Kabwe conference, June 1985 13 ‘ANC Statement on Negotiations: October 9th, 1987’ 14 Conclusions concerning the Mandela talks 15 Conclusions regarding the secret Afrikaner nationalist–exile ANC dialogue group 16 The Constitutional Committee 17 The ANC’s anniversary (January 8th) statements, 1987–1990: A shift towards a political solution 18 The in-house seminar on ‘Constitutional Guidelines’ 19 The ANC’s fragmented organisation on the negotiation (constitutional) front 20 ‘Constitutional Guidelines’, including my response 21 The SACP conference document ‘The Path to Power’, April 1989 22 Drafting the Harare Declaration 23 Confusion reigns in the last months of 1989 and early 1990 24 FW de Klerk’s speech on 2 February 1990 25 Uncertainty continues as the exiles return in 1990 26 Epilogue Notes PART II: EXTRACTS FROM MY DIARY, 1985–1989 October 1985 – New Year’s Eve 1989 Postscript PART III: INTERNAL PAPERS ADDRESSED TO THE SACP AND THE ANC 1 We need to prepare ourselves for new possible tasks (August 1985) 2 Economic commission (November 1985) 3 Response to ‘discussion document’: There is a danger that the party will be isolated (July 1986) 4 Some suggestions in connection with the present strategy and tactics of the liberation movement (July 1986) 5 Work in the Bantustans (August 1987) 6 The death squads – white and black (August 1987) 7 ANC platform for negotiations (January 1988) 8 A response to ‘Constitutional Guidelines for a Democratic South Africa’ (extract) (November 1988) 9 Question of an interim phase (extract) (November 1988) 10 Response to the SACP’s new draft programme, ‘The Path to Power’ (March 1989) 11 Response to ANC discussion paper on the issue of negotiations (August 1989) 12 Response to a party analysis (extract) (March 1990) 13 Prospects for a negotiated settlement (third quarter 1990) Source material Index "The Drama of the Peace Process in South Africa: I look back 30 Years is a rare portrayal of the unfolding of the peace process in South Africa in the second half of the 1980s into the 1990s as it links general historical accounts with personal experience. The author, Sylvia Neame, was a member of the African National Congress and the South African Communist Party and combines the view of what she denotes as an outsider (the historian) with that of an insider. The chief historical figures involved in Sylvia's narrative are the ANC leaders, Nelson Mandela who was serving a life sentence, and Oliver Tambo who led the organisation from exile, but she also indicates her own contribution to the peace process in 'internal papers', addressed to the leadership of the liberation organisations from 1985 to 1990. She makes the point that her efforts were geared specifically to reaching a political solution and not simply a negotiated one that can take place at the end of an extended armed struggle. What adds to the interest of the book is that Sylvia was at the time based in communist East Germany and the theme of German reunification finds its way into the book, including in the diary extracts in Part II. She was, indeed, in a position to experience at close hand two important historical events of the late 20th century and to observe from a strategic location in Central Europe what she believes was the unfolding of a new epoch of world history in which global human problems would come to the fore." -- Back cover Historian Sylvia Neame portrays, from a unique vantage point, the unfolding of the peace process in South Africa in the late 1980s and early 1990s. As a scholar, a member of the African National Congress and the South African Communist Party, and a former prisoner of the apartheid regime, Neame weaves together her personal contributions with historical accounts to offer rare insight into the struggle to end apartheid.