safeguarded against a black majority? The difficult
task of reaching political settlement had to
address these concerns and others. There were
sections of the white population determined to
derail the negotiations. Some sinister elements in
the South African security services and police
exploited the hostility between the ANC and
Inkatha and themselves fomented violence. In the
past, moreover, Inkatha had received financial
support from government sources. There is white
as well as black violence. The ANC accused de
Klerk of double dealing, of not doing enough to
stop the violence. If de Klerk was sincere in his
efforts, and it was difficult to doubt this seriously,
then clearly he had enormous difficulty in con-
trolling all that was done in the name of the
government.
De Klerk began by dismantling minor
apartheid laws which prevented black people
mixing with whites socially on beaches and else-
where. The ANC and PAC were recognised as
political organisations and were no longer defined
as terrorists. Their leaders were released from
prison. Over a period of three years, by the
middle of 1992, the whole legal system of
apartheid was repealed. But the social and eco-
nomic effects of the system did not thereby dis-
appear overnight. Discrimination of more than a
century had left the great majority of black
Africans in a depressed and severely disadvantaged
position in housing, in training and education, in
the provision of social services, in employment, in
health, in income – in every aspect of life.
Violent clashes in the early 1990s between
Inkatha and ANC supporters and in the home-
lands resulted in several thousand deaths and
threatened to undermine further progress towards
a settlement and transitional government. Presi-
dent de Klerk, who was blamed for the violence
by the ANC, succeeded in calling a ‘peace con-
ference’ in September 1991, which was attended
by the Inkatha Freedom Party, the ANC and the
National Party. But, despite a ‘national peace
accord’ which set up procedures to contain vio-
lence, the bloody clashes continued. Nevertheless,
the negotiating sessions, periodically broken off
by the ANC in protest at the violence, had made
solid progress.
In December 1991 representatives of nineteen
political groups of all races created a Convention
for a Democratic South Africa, CODESA for
short, which began work on establishing how an
interim government of national unity might be
formed and a parliament or assembly called whose
task it would be to agree a constitution. The gap
between the ANC’s demand for majority rule and
de Klerk’s desire for a more decentralised state
founded on the power-sharing principle, no
majority being able to override a minority,
remained the major obstacle to a settlement. In
economic policy Mandela had reassured whites
that there was no plan to nationalise everything.
A significant step forward was taken in March
1992 when in a nationwide referendum of white
South Africans de Klerk gained a large majority
in favour of his policy of reform and of sharing
power with black people. CODESA was the best
hope of resolving existing differences about how
to create a new constitutional South Africa. To
put more pressure on the government, the ANC
launched ‘mass action’ to end white rule. The
protest campaign led to more bloodshed, law-
lessness and violence. White South Africa was in
1992 in the throes of recession, with at least a
third of the black population unemployed; the
potential for an ever-escalating violence under-
mining the process towards a negotiated peaceful
settlement was great. But the majority of black
Africans had accepted the leadership of Mandela,
who was striving for a just settlement with de
Klerk. They also knew that de Klerk was the one
white political leader who could deliver it and
carry white South Africa with him.
A deal was struck in the spring of 1993.
De Klerk abandoned the principle of power
sharing and Mandela agreed to the postponement
of undiluted one man one vote majority rule until- A new constitution was drafted meanwhile
by a constituent assembly and an interim national
unity government was set up.
Nelson Mandela towers over Africa’s other
leaders. The peaceful negotiated transfer of power
from whites to the black majority of South Africa
was a landmark in the history of the country. The
white population still controlled the military and
the police force, but Mandela and the African