About this site

This resource is hosted by the Nelson Mandela Foundation, but was compiled and authored by Padraig O’Malley. It is the product of almost two decades of research and includes analyses, chronologies, historical documents, and interviews from the apartheid and post-apartheid eras.

10 Aug 1993: Jordan, Pallo

Click here for more information on the Interviewee

Click here for Overview of the year

POM. Dr Jordan, I'd like to go back to an article that you wrote after the ANC had produced a document called Strategic Perspectives and which you were very critical of, the whole notion of power-sharing on the basis that has been suggested in that paper. Do you still have the same reservations now regarding a government of national unity where there would be essentially power-sharing for a period of five years?

PJ. Now, to set the record straight, it was not an article it was a paper, which was an internal discussion-bargaining between the ANC, which was then leaked to the press. I don't know which one you guys read?

POM. New Nation.

PJ. By someone or other who felt it should go public, even myself I believed it. The New Nation of course edited the article in a version that I would have approved of solely because it's a rather truncated version of the argument I presented but that's just for the record.

POM. What paper appeared in the SACP or does the bulk paper appear in the SACP's...?

PJ. It's the same thing, they took that to just reproduce and also, incidentally, [... but I don't suppose the paper to sue them]. The issue then and, I think, now still remains what is meant by a government of national unity? And the issue was also the strategic conjunction in which the ANC found itself. I think those were the points of departure which my argument took up. There is a sort of government which can be characterised as a government of national unity, and there's another form of government that can be characterised as a coalition. A coalition is usually a partnership between two parties [on the political derail] who have a certain affinity in terms of their objectives. That affinity might be a very limited one, it might be around certain core issues, certain core questions that face the country at that particular time and somewhere going down the line they might part company.

. If you take, for example, in the history of South Africa the 1924 Nat/Labour pact government was a coalition. And the issues of which the Labour Party and the Nationalist Party came together, what they considered core issues of the moment, the question of securing the employment and economic interests of poor whites, white wage earners, white middle classes, the question of policy towards the African majority, the issue of low-grade mines, the question of South Africa's position within the British Empire, I think those were considered core issues by and around which they could then unite and they formed a coalition, they went into government as such.

. Now if you look at the core issues that plague the country today, that is, the issue of democracy and the issue of peace, the issue of expanding the floor of opportunities for the black majority who have been denied opportunity in the past, the issue of the quality of life for the black majority as affects education, as affects health, as affects employment opportunities, housing, around all these issues there is, if you would call it, such a wide gulf between ourselves and the National Party that there is no possibility of actually forming a coalition around those issues. So that's just around, as far as I'm concerned, if the ANC is to go into a coalition with the Nationalist Party, it's going to be on someone's terms, either our terms or on their terms. If we go into coalition on their terms, the only thing, and that's the only thing, only core issue facing the country and on which we could agree with the Nationalist Party, as far as I can see, is the question of everyone having the right to vote. That's the only one. The other core issues facing the country, the issue of peace, the issue of the poor opportunities for the blacks, quality of life, etc., there is just a complete parting of the ways there, there is no possibility in agreement between the ANC and the National Party which then leaves open the question of who does the ANC wish to attract into this government of national unity. And does it hope to attract the Democratic Party into it? No, that would be something else we'd be looking at. Does is it hope to attract the PAC into it? That's something we'd be looking at. Does it hope to attract any other number of players into it? Those are issues which face them. But the issue as it was posed, was never a possibility of unity with the DP, PAC, AZAPO and who knows. It's just between the ANC and the National Party. And I don't see the possibility of that happening. On the core issues, there's no meeting of the minds.

POM. So, do you say that any party that received more than 5% in the election would be entitled to a seat in the Cabinet would make the whole thing unruly?

PJ. No, no, not only unruly. The issue, as I see it, is which core issues can you unite around? If you can unite around core issues then it's something we were discussing. Now we need to examine them, what the proposal was in terms of a government of national unity in that document of Strategics and Perspectives which I take issue with, in that article you have there. The argument was never that we can in fact form a government of national unity around the core issues facing the country, never that. The argument was that we have to do this in order to tempt the elements in the civil service, in security service, the white population in general. We would otherwise be tempted to support a right-wing project in opposition to democracy into co-operation. That was the argument which has implicit limits that you are going to form this coalition not on your terms but on their terms.

. Now what are the implications in terms of that? Largely, if you are going to form a coalition not around core issues around which there is agreement, but in order to pre-empt a right-wing coup or some sort of right-wing reactive posture against democracy, then you are going to place yourselves in a sensitive corner. But they would dictate to us that we want this, we want that, we want that otherwise we are going to go into a [ransom riot ???], we want the other, otherwise we are going to stage a coup. You do this, you do that, you do the other, that you give us this or we are going to cause instability. You give us this otherwise we are going to sabotage the civil service. You give us this otherwise we are going to let crime run rampant, you won't be able to govern the country. So on whose terms are you going to form this coalition? On their terms? Which means then that on the core issues facing the country the ANC is going to have to renege on its constituency.

. The other side of the argument was that the strategic conjuction in which the ANC found itself was not one of a defeated political party begging for the best possible terms. [And that was that strategic conjunction party or something at all, but quite the contrary.] The strategic conjuctive could be described as inverted. We were in a situation where if one were to use a military analogy, you could analogise with the Battle of Stalingrad during the Second World War, when the Nazi armies suffered decisive strategic defeat. It didn't mean they were crushed, they weren't broken, they weren't finished. They could mount formidable resistance, but from that moment on after they lost the Battle of Stalingrad, it can be said that the Nazi armies were in strategic retreat and it was an irreversible strategic retreat. They could mount resistance up to and including the taking of the prisoners and the Red Army had to fight every inch of the way and lost heavy, heavy, heavy casualties all along the way, but the strategic retreat of the Nazi army was irreversible.

. Now, another situation in South Africa is that 1990 in a sense, was the Stalingrad of the Nationalist Party. It doesn't mean that it is crushed, it doesn't mean that it is broken, it doesn't mean it is finished. But it had lost the battle, it had lost a war, so to speak, as a result of our strategically speaking and that reverse that it had sought as a result that forced him into this position of strategic retreat. It could not recap, it could not resist, it dug in its heels but the trend was irreversible, that is setting the trend in 1990. And that being the case, what the ANC is called on to do at this juncture is not to act as if it is an army that is trying to beg the most favourable possible terms, but to take advantage in its strong strategic position in those terms and say, "This is what we want, this is what we will get and this is how we shall get it."

. What I argue also is that the ANC painted itself into untenable position by elevating negotiations, which is just an aspect of its strategy, in this period when it has its opponent in an irreversible strategic retreat, elevated this to the only strategy it has, nothing else in its arsenal except negotiations. Which, of course, places this enemy who is in strategic retreat in a very favourable position because you are not putting pressure on him to retreat further and further and further and faster. You are actually giving him a breathing space. Not that you shouldn't negotiate, but if you elevate it to your only strategy there is nothing else. You're giving him a breathing space and not taking advantage of the position you find yourself in. That was the argument.

. Argument further was that what was required in this period, therefore, was a combination of all four tactics, a multi-pronged strategy which included negotiations, but which was such that you would put the maximum pressure on the opponent on as broad a front as possible and at the same time again, using your analogy of Stalingrad, sharp, quick tactical strikes against their weakest points. Now, that could entail a number of things. As far as I was concerned you needed to look at, first of all, the whole question of the civil service, you needed to look at the question of military, you needed to look at the question of the police, you needed also to look at other strategic areas like parastatals when all of these are piled up they represent a very, very powerful and strategically important centre for the opposition at this moment in time.

. In the main white wage earners, most of them are in the support of the far-right, or supporters of the government. It's one area in which the Nationalist Party's own Afrikaner affirmative action policies have been pursued in absolute vengeance. I mean in all these areas, language of the shops and managers is Afrikaans. English-speaking youth are out of place there. The civil service is manned by Afrikaners, government supporters and then people who support the far-right. With respect to the civil service, you need to target certain commanding heights in the civil service, certain key positions, and say these ones we want to be in the hands of our people. We begin identifying people you can place there, train people for that purpose so that they can seize those positions strategically in the civil service.

POM. Would you fire the people who already have them?

PJ. Yes, of course. You'll find a way of firing them. I mean, the Nats when they came in they found a way of firing English speakers, and the device they used was bilingualism. So everybody who works in the civil service at that level has to be bilingual, had to speak at least English and Afrikaans. And most English-speakers did not understand Afrikaans, so to them OUT! You introduce trilingualism, that is, on top of English and Afrikaans speak at least one African language. You'll clean them out very fast. And it not like you're just sacking the guys for the hell of it. I mean, why the Boers insisted that you understand Afrikaans so that the same civil service that could serve English-speaking South Africans was then to serve English and Afrikaans speaking. We say the same thing, it's not to serve whites, it's to serve the majority of the people. You learn an African language, if you learn it fine, if you don't learn it too bad. OUT. Introduce trilingualism.

. In terms of the military and the police, there are lots of people in there who have been involved in all sorts of really wicked, wicked corruption. You have an option, you can leave them there where they can merrily plot your overthrow and subvert your government while you think you are running a country, or you can take them out. Again you identify who they are, you identify also who amongst them are most likely to be involved in conspiracies. You identify also certain key positions in the command structures, and it's not necessarily at the very top. You might find that the level of Colonels and the Majors and the Captains that is strategically important. Because after all, those are the guys through whom the orders filter down to the bottom. You might well find that it might even be at the level of Lieutenants and soldiers that it's strategically important for you. And you begin with the people there and knocking out certain characters you don't want there. And, at the same time, people like the Gregory Rockfords, an organisation like POPCRU, you begin giving it very visible support so that for all those black police there who have been of two minds - "Should I, should I not?" - give them a signal that if you are seen to be in support of democratic change in this country, your position, your situation will be looked upon favourably by this government that's coming.

. You also insist on comprehensive training programmes, so that immediately you come into government you can begin promoting. Guys who now are lieutenants at best or who are sergeants and in non-commissioned officers, you hire an intensive training programme for people like that. It didn't happen here, you could ask any number of countries to offer those systems training programmes for you from commissioned officers in the police force and in the military and the Americans, if they are willing to come, to consider it. I know the British will be willing to consider it. So, you give them, you offer them the utmost of the opportunities and then when you come into government you are in position to say, "Right, Colonel so and so, out! Captain so and so, out! Major so and so, out!" Out, out, out. Put your lives in there. They can plot as much as they like at the top about a coup. How are those orders going to filter down to the people who are going to carry it out below? It can't, you have secured yourself in that. You are not going to do it by saying, "Alright, we know you all black bunch of ... you've been murdering our people, we going to forgive carte blanche, bygones are bygones, it's all right we won't touch you."

. Look at these parastatals. You take, for instance, electricity generation, you take railways, all these are part of state security, you take telecommunications, manned in practice in the main by white people at skilled levels. We haven't looked, for example, what level of skill there is among blacks. I mean the actual level of skill. It's triplicated level of skills among blacks, for instance, who work on the railways. All the blacks, for example, in the shunting yards, have been shunting trains and what not on behalf of whites, who have the job, who are paid for it but if he doesn't do it he will give it to some black guy. All these people who could easily become engine drivers. All the people in electricity generation, for example, who are blacks who could be entrusted certain types of jobs in electricity generation industry. Do we know the levels of skills among the black work force? Do we have a clear idea of who you could put there if in the case of, lets say, as the far-right is threatening? Because they are very well placed in the railways, they are very well placed in the electricity. Do we shut the country down? Do we switch off? Do we have any idea? No we don't, we haven't bothered to look at it. And we are hoping that by offering this sort of blank cheque you are actually going to buy their favour. And I don't think it's going to happen.

. OK, I might have been right, I might have been wrong. Now let's look at what had happened. The ANC said those things, there was a big hullabaloo about it in papers here but I don't know whether that got into Afrikaans papers. What has in fact happened? Has the white right been disintegrated, has it been disunited, has it been tempted by this? No, quite the contrary, it has been emboldened. A year ago the white right wouldn't have had the guts to do what he did at the World Trade Centre, he did it this year, almost 12 months after the ANC pronounced itself in those terms. The white right clearly ... because breaking up into a thousand and one pieces this year they'd come together. Under whose command? Whose going to put them together? The Generals? The ones whom the ANC so graciously forgave?

. So it hasn't worked as I said it won't, it would not work. So what was the point of doing it? And what is more the white right are testing it out to limits of what we are capable of. De Klerk hasn't charged a single one of the leaders of the white right who went and did this. No, some small flunkeys, lackeys and nonentities who are going to get a fine of maybe a R1000 or whatever have been charged. But the leaders, he hasn't touched them. So is the white right afraid of de Klerk? They know de Klerk doesn't dare take the one? What happened, they went in there, they stormed in, everyone said, "No, no, we can't order the arrest because there'll be bloodshed." The fact of the matter is that de Klerk didn't trust his own police force to arrest them. The fact of the matter is that after they left the World Trade Centre, we told him, and they were outside barbecuing meat there, half the police officers mainly partaking in their barbecue. They've tested the out-limits, so this does not work. Now the question then is what should the government of national unity do?

POM. You distinguish that from a power-sharing government?

PJ. What should a government of national unity do and what should it be? There are two things that you have to consider there, they are the core issues which you have to agree need addressing. Now, if you are going to agree on addressing those core issues which we have said are the issue of democracy, the issue of peace, expanding floor of opportunities, quality of life issues for the black majority, create jobs, create a viable house service, bring housing, education. All these are issues around which I think you can get a whole number of parties to agree. But those parties do not include the National Party. The Democratic Party will buy into some of that except in so far as it might encroach on the rights of property, the rights of white property to be exact. The Democratic Party doesn't give a damn about black property. On the rights of white property that they could buy into, some of them. The other black parties will buy into it, AZAPO, PAC, all of them will probably buy into it. The IFP because it has decided to play the particular role it's playing now, it has excluded itself from maybe such a coalition. So then the issue then is whom do you negotiate with, around what issues? Now the problem that you find with respect to the way we've formulated it is by saying this 5% is silly, that you have to reach it. Now, none of these other parties are going to make that 5% threshold. The Democratic Party by its showing in most of the opinion polls being conducted now won't make it, PAC won't make it, AZAPO can not even begin to think of making it. So effectively what's left is the ANC, which means the ANC has to win those elections convincingly with well over 60% majority and can constitute a government into which it can then invite people of talent from other parties on its terms that could be a government of national unity. The Nationalist Party like any other party that's been defeated in the election will go to the opposition and will be expected to behave like a loyal opposition.

POM. So the way you envisage it the ANC getting now a mandate, that 51% or 52% is not sufficient, it must break some threshold like 60% at which point it will form a government and invite talented people like Derek Keys, you would like to keep finances or something,

PJ. There are other talented people in this country.

POM. Sure, not necessarily I was just making an example. But you would then pick and choose some among the talent in the other parties and outside of the other parties?

PJ. Yes, even people who are non-party people. It depends. We've sought other expertise and vice versa. But while we need a convincing majority, not one that's sort of dubious, so that no one can say - I mean, if we get like 40/40 the argument is going to be that 46% of the of the population of South Africa voted against the ANC, not that 16% of would be NP, which is very likely that could happen. They won't say 16% voted for NP, they'll say 46% voted for the ANC. We don't want that, we want at most people to be able to be 66% of the people of South Africa, two thirds of the population who voted for the ANC. That's what we want.

POM. Do you think the ANC is organising itself to achieve that kind of vote?

PJ. No. If it starts off on that leg it won't.

POM. It starts off on which?

PJ. On the leg of trying to find the lowest the common denominator and compromising the NP.

POM. What about the widespread perception that I run into everywhere that the ANC and the government have got the Record of Understanding and they've had a number of meetings and it's essentially been said that the two of us ... [but the degree of what we want ... most things that had been railroaded to the World Trade Centre?]

PJ. I'm not surprised there's such a suggestion. I don't think that's actually what has happened. The fact of the matter is that NP has not delivered even a single item on that Records of Understanding that they've signed.

POM. Have not delivered even a single?

PJ. Item on that Record of Understanding. It has not delivered. Would you recall - what did you find?

POM. They are holistic things. Because first he was to release over 90 political prisoners. He hasn't done that. There's banning of the public of carrying weapons. He hasn't done that. Identifying the most dangerous hostels and fencing them. They haven't done that. Right now here in the East Rand in hostels into which those guns are coming, it wouldn't have happened if (he had done what he promised to do). And even last week Mandela went to go and meet the press and said, "No, let's even now fence it. Just put a ring of police around it so that they cannot be a target and they can not attack." He refused to do it, he did it deliberately. And everyone, if there is a conspiracy, it's the conspiracy of silence around the Nationalist Party's failing to deliver.

. So what do you see the National Party's strategy at this point in the context that again moves the poles, shows that it's base is disintegrating?

PJ. And which is going to produce interesting parallels at the end of day because what you might find is that the people who make ... is the Conservative Party.

POM. There were two articles that I read. Louw is with the Weekly Mail, there were two articles in May. One of them had it, "NP strategists steal the constitution", and that the NP was having have to receive the crumbs of the new constitution. And one of them said, "How the NP will hang on to power". I was just going through the articles, nothing in particular, I don't know if you've read them or not?

PJ. The NP has always had that as its part of life, losing the election but holding on to power. It is trying to divide the formula that could give it back power, losing the election yet holding on to power. [The difficulty has been ??? that to everyone else.] The way I see it is that some of the people who own the strategic perspectives don't even understand the ANC, understand that clearly, and that that document was carved to try and meet that aspect of the NP's agenda that we will devise a means whereby you can lose the election but still maintain some power and that's basically what that was. Because what the NP is saying is, "We want to lose the election but not surrender power, we can surrender some of it."

POM. The trappings would not be the essence of the substance?

PJ. No, they would argue that they're stripping up the substance and giving him trappings. I don't see it that way at all. And of course, in pursuance of that particular challenge the NP - I mean, it doesn't just have one string to its bow, there's a whole number of strings to its bow, and within the party itself there are tensions which are evident, there are people who are of the view that the NP should have hard and fast rules, maintain some sort of alliance with the IFP, the others, like the Agenda programme on television last night.

POM. Who?

PJ. Marthinus van Schalkwyk, Secretary of the Nationalist Party, he was very dismissive of the IFP characterising at best the Natal region of the party. There are people like that in the NP. There are others who feel that the IFP and its followers can be used to advantage because they recognise that the ANC feels a certain urgency about the transition and therefore will get the IFP to play a role at the end of the day, maybe it will squeeze more concessions out of the ANC because it wants some expedition on this matter. And then I'm sure there are others who feel that, no, I'm not that old, my chosen career path is politics, I'm not that tamed by the crimes of the NP, there might be life in South African politics at the demise of the NP. The sooner we get the show on the road the better and I might in fact survive the demise of the NP. There are those people as well. Then there are yet others who say, well, lets have a scorched earth policy. And in many respective you can see that facet of the NP policy is a scorched earth. They want to leave such a mess that whoever comes in he will take the first ten years trying to clear up the mess, never have a chance to address anything, instead of productive affirmative action is going to be fighting the rearguard battle in getting flood waters out of the house, so to speak.

POM. If you look at June of last year, when the CODESA talks collapsed, and today, what do you see as a major concession made by the ANC and a major concession made by the government to bring things to the position where they are today?

PJ. The only concession which the government made was to sign that Record of Understanding. I mean, that took a little bit of guts to do that, to sign that Record of Understanding on their part. It was seen as a major concession but it's just a piece of paper.

POM. So essentially as far as you are concerned where they were at year ago is where they are at today?

PJ. No, no, I mean, given the chemistry of South African politics, the signing of that Record of Understanding has produced consequences. They're not where they were. It was seen by the IFP as what they characterised as the government and the ANC are conniving, made a deal, what they're going to do is forge ahead and those who are laggers are going to be left behind. So it produced that consequence. The other consequence it has produced, of course, is the apprehensions on the part of the far right that it is precisely that, that the government has decided to grasp the nettle, has sold out Afrikaner interests. So, I mean, those are the consequences of that damage. But in terms of having delivered on the Record of Understanding, the only advantage the ANC has gotten out of it is that of tactical advantage in that it has foreclosed some of the government's previous options. The government is going to have to do a hell of a lot to mend its fences with the NP and that's not going to be easy. It's going to need to do a hell of a lot to mend its fences with the far right Afrikaner, that's not going to be easy. But one of the consequences of course, is that the perception of the Democratic Party as the liberal-centre, I think, has been destroyed. I don't see the Democratic Party making any show. I mean, I feel very apprehensive about it. If all their people keep on, "Oh no, no, no, we hold our 8%." And I think their in cloud cuckoo-land they're not going to make it.

POM. So, looking at the ANC, did the ANC make any concessions to the government?

PJ. Well yes, the ANC has. Firstly, as I say, that whole document, Strategic Perspectives, was carved to try and accommodate the NP's desire to retain power after it has lost election and that's what the ANC has in a sense done. So you've got the formula to give you a way out. The ANC has, in fact, in many ways placed itself in a very tough position. Because all those statements in there are markers and the NP is going to call them in. You can bet your life on that, they're going to call in those markers. You won't get away with it, they'll call each and everyone of them in.

POM. They will look for entrenchment of their position, to ensure that there is no firing, there's no this or that or the other?

PJ. Absolutely. They'll call in those markers, and you're going to be stuck. Just to give you example, it seems that South Africa spends more in education than most other countries. They look at the absolute [picketing] and say "They're mad." About 60% of that budget goes in salaries for civil servants, 30% goes in delivery. They had to, with inflated bureaucracy in education, have different departments. We're not going to fire them or retrench some of them, that is going to continue. You're going to spend huge sums of money in education paying overblown salaries [of 40% on delivery]. And who is it going to impact on? Not on the white kids in Sandton, but on the black people of Soweto whose parents voted for him so that they can get gutter education. And the ANC is going to hold it to marker. So you are going to waste your money there and year after year you are going to have to explain to the people in Soweto, Phola Park why they are not getting decent schools. And you'll have no answers. So who are they going to vote for in the next election round, vote for you again? They won't vote for you.

POM. I sometimes feel that it's trickiest to lose the first election.

PJ. What?

POM. I sometimes feel that it's trickiest to lose the first election.

PJ. No, the trick is to win the first election but to go into that first election not having bound himself hand and foot, give yourself a freedom of footage, so that you can deliver.

POM. But, again, that in some way depends upon there being a strong central government which are fighting ...

PJ. Of course, that's the better method, that's ... with the ANC with it's regional policy.

POM. When I look at what the IFP had demanded until they walked out, I don't see how there could be a reconciliation between what they want, if they really mean it, or whether it's an act of a spoiler, and how far the ANC can go.

PJ. No, no, they have little room there. I mean, the IFP just has to take him to the polls and see him thoroughly trounced, that's all, shut them up at least for next five years; that's what you have do with them. Well, they don't want to go to the polls, they fear that fate. But you take again on the issue of regional policy, the ANC has taken away so much, with respect to that.

POM. You mean some of the key issues in CODESA, as far as I recall, were that the government wanted both the borders of the regions be delineated before a Constituent Assembly and they wanted the powers of the regions to be spelt out and they wanted it to be a devolution of power from the regions to the central rather than from the central to the regions. And it seems to me now that since the ANC had moved ...

PJ. And again [on ??? for ??? Constituent Assembly,] the ANC has considered that. So it has gone a very long way [and in return it actually can't ...] The Record of Understanding was based on the premise that both the ANC and government were interested in ending acts of violence and finding the most effective ways of doing that. And that is the primary concern of the ANC. No whites are dying, if they died maybe it some sort spin-off from the crime or violence that existed in the country. In the violence that's right in the country whites are not dying, black are dying. And it's been going on consistently now for the last three years, and that is the primary concern of the constituency the ANC represent. It hasn't been able to address the question, it hasn't been able to find a solution. And it went to the government and tried to reach a Record of Understanding based on the premise that both were interested in ending the violence. The government is not interested in ending violence, it has nothing to lose. It loses nothing, it loses nothing from it. I don't think any government will lose sleep over it.

POM. But again, in the sense that many people say you can't have a free and fair election in the state of intimidation and a wide scale of violence?

PJ. And that particular line of argument is beginning to gain momentum and when it's been said a couple of times by some people it's going to gain momentum. So in the end what's going to happen is that it is an issue of elections but still we might lose that.

POM. Last night I spoke to a group of residents of Orange Farm and their primary concern was violence on election day, that would there be violence, would it be safe, would it be secure, when they have to go and vote will there be any guarantee to safe-passage?

PJ. Yet if you look at what people have been saying about voting, most people want to vote. If their eyes could win a vote, if they vote what would deter them from voting? Violence? The people, you see, who get violent are Inkatha, not the whites. And here a dangerous South Africa would completely disintegrate. No white who is afraid of violence on election day is going to be intimidated from voting, it doesn't affect the NP at all. They calmly go to the polls and go and vote. And if anyone drives the message, they can do so, they'll go to the polls with complete confidence that the police will be watching to defend them, to protect them as they did in a particular incident in East London and King Williamstown last year. They seized the Transkei. [When they were hostile ... used to do that the ... the body of the Transkei because those were whites.]

POM. We are going back to the far right again. You said last year after the referendum that it appeared to be almost dismembered, that people didn't talk anymore about the right. But a year later they seem to be more coherent, cohesive, more organised and have produced a figure (Constand Viljoen), a figure who is a respectable figure who has important ties with the security forces and therefore his constituency is in the security forces. How great a threat is the right as it is today? Also the fact that the skilled whites who would be presumably supportive of the Conservative Party occupy top positions in the power stations so that they could turn off the electricity ...

This resource is hosted by the Nelson Mandela Foundation, but was compiled and authored by Padraig O’Malley. Return to theThis resource is hosted by the site.