THE MANDELA DILEMMA
Stephen Robinson on the
problems of releasing South Africa's most famous prisoner
Cape Town A FEW weeks before he resigned as leader of the opposition, Dr Frederick Van Zyl S. labbert addressed a group of businessmen In a Cape Town hotel. The theme of his talk was the need for clarity in South Africa's reform process. He warned those Present that he was not personally impress- ed by what the Nationalists had so far unveiled. One eager executive suggested from the floor that Dr Slabbert was being too pessimistic: in particular he cited the reports that Nelson Mandela was soon to be released as evidence that the reform Process was finally on the move. I remem- ber watching the rows of bewildered faces as Dr Slabbert turned on the unfortunate man and declared that Mandela's release, alone, would do nothing to solve South Africa's problems. Indeed, in the short term it could have disastrous consequ- ences. It would amount to no more, he declared, than an empty gesture which Would impress no one but the odd skittish American banking executive. There was no longer room in South Africa for the quick fix. .It now appears that the government is so !tightened of the consequences of his dying in captivity that it has finally decided to tackle the Mandela issue. For the past three weeks the leafy suburban streets s‘iirrounding Pollsmoor prison have been transformed into something resembling Berlin's Glienicke bridge before an East- west spy swap. Each cryptic report which flashed from London, Tel Aviv, or even Luanda has sent yet more journalists flock- ing to join the assembled media men on the scorching tarmac outside Cape Town's main jail. The story has changed course at frenetic pace. Mandela had accepted asy- lum in the Transkei homeland, Mandela had been seen and filmed in Cape Town (since flatly denied by the prisons depart- ment), Mandela needed urgent surgery for the removal of gallstones, Mandela was edven dYing of cancer. Each unofficial e.adline for the release set by journalists With impeccable sources' came and went, but the goverment stubbornly refused to ,,tlinck the story on the head. Official nokesmen now refuse any comment on _mandela, which suggests that for the mo- ment at least public posturing has made way for the serious business of negotiating his release. The only clear fact that emerges is that the cabinet has decided in principle that they want him out — they just need a formula for setting him free without enraging their right flank in parlia- ment.
President Botha makes great play of his offer last year that Mandela could come out if he publicly repudiated the use of violence. The mechanics of the offer reveal something of what Mr Botha means by his much vaunted commitment to negotiation with black leaders. In fact, he made the suggestion in a speech to parliament, and then informed Mandela by sending a copy of Hansard to Pollsmoor prison. Mandela replied tartly through his daughter Zinzi he would not come out unless the release was unconditional.
The government now appears to have abandoned any hope of forcing Mandela to renounce violence, and is angling instead to link his release to the return of Wynaid du Toit, the South African soldier captured during last year's embarrassing Defence Force adventure into the American- operated oilfields in Angola. Bringing the boy back home in exchange for Mandela's release would go some way to appease the far-right opposition parties, which are in- creasingly becoming the real political threat to the National Party.
The government is justifiably nervous about the consequences of Mandela roam- ing South Africa at will. It would be a giant step into the unknown, and the consequ- ences are difficult to predict. The extra- parliamentary opposition is relatively frag- mented, ill-disciplined, and decentralised at present. A free Mandela could provide exactly the rallying-point the left-wing groupings and union organisations would need to mount a national campaign of civil disobedience, or even a general strike.
As the Mandela story threatened to `bomb' outside Pollsmoor this week the only activity for the newsmen to record was a small throng of supporters from the `Release Mandela' campaign. Right under the noses of the assembled security police they obligingly unfurled banners proclaim- ing 'Viva Mandela' for the benefit of the camera crews. The most striking feature of the demonstrators was their youth; some of • then cannot even have been born when Mandela went into jail 23 years ago. Yet they would clearly have been delighted had the police risen to the bait and arrested them, and thus granted them some loose identification with their imprisoned hero. It is Mandela's name which is chanted at the funerals of unrest victims, it was his photograph which was displayed illegally at mass meetings prior to the declaration of the state of emergency.
The Mandela issue has now become one of those political issues in South Africa irresistible to all but the far-right fringes. Industrialists, bankers, and newspaper editorials scream for his release with one voice. Hostile foreign governments flay the South Africans for Mandela's continued incarceration, and friendly administrations — even those which eschew official contact with the ANC — call for his freedom. Setting him free, so the argument here goes, would do wonders for the Rand, placate the Americans and the British, crack the offshore debt problem. It would, most of all, prove that South Africa was really moving at last. As one of the endless stream of visiting American senators might say, it would be widely perceived to be a very real step in the right direction.
The question, though, is, a step in what direction? Because of Mr Botha's con- trived attempt to link Mandela to Shchar- ansky, Sakharov, and the captured South African soldier, the government has lost the initiative in using his release as a `gesture' to the black majority simmering in the townships. If Mandela were to be released, he would emerge as a de facto leader without a party or any form of legal organisation. The only logical next step would be the un-banning of the ANC, which not even the most enlightened nationalists on the government benches are prepared to contemplate. Indeed, the un- banning of the ANC would be unaccept- able to very many of the people who call so loudly for Mandela's release. It would present a ticklish problem too for the British and American governments. Would they, for instance, send their ambassadors to greet him at the gates of Pollsmoor?
It is supremely significant that specula- tion about Mandela's release reached its peak in the same week that the foreign minister, Pik Botha, was publicly hauled over the coals for suggesting to foreign newsmen that there could ultimately be a black South African president. When Dr Slabbert stunned liberal South Africa by walking out of parliamentary life on the very same day, he said he agreed entirely with the far-right political parties: apar- theid cannot be reformed, and as soon as you tinker with it, it becomes absurd. Slabbert resigned because he was fed up with half-measures, and Mandela's release looks suspiciously like one of these. As an isolated concession, it will do absolutely nothing to soothe the turmoil in the coun- try's townships, and in the short term it could well precipitate a renewed, more intense round of violence.
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