By Norm Dixon
A firm date for South Africa's first non-racial general election is to be set by June 3. After a week of discussions beginning on April 30, representatives of South Africa's key 26 political organisations agreed that a constituent assembly to draw up a new democratic constitution would be elected before next April.
The decision came after the African National Congress had proved its overwhelming mass support in a series of general strikes and mass demonstrations in the aftermath of the vicious assassination of Communist party leader Chris Hani on April 10. The growing anger and impatience of the black majority was obvious in these actions.
It was soon apparent that the ANC had behind its demands a powerful and disciplined mass movement prepared to do whatever was deemed necessary by its leaders.
The government of President F.W. de Klerk recognised that any hope it still entertained of maintaining some form of minority rule would not be achieved by further provoking the anger of the black population.
The participants in the multiparty negotiations on May 7 agreed to a "Declaration of Intent on the Negotiating Process" which called for urgency in talks and the holding of elections by April. Seven technical committees were established which will deal with issues such as constitutional proposals, human rights, violence, ensuring free and fair elections, ensuring fair media access to all parties and ridding the country of discriminatory legislation.
The effect of the assassination of Chris Hani has proved the opposite of what its far-right perpetrators must have hoped. Rather than provoking a race war that would plunge the country into turmoil and strengthen the position of the white paramilitary right and their allies in the military and government, it has marginalised the right wing and boosted support for the non-racialism of the ANC, increased the standing of the Communist Party and accelerated the move towards elections and majority rule.
Yet the far right, and their co-thinkers within the regime, the police and military, remain committed to stoking the fires of race hate. As multiparty talks began in Johannesburg on May 1, five whites were murdered by three balaclava-clad men. The government and police were quick to accuse the military wing of the Pan Africanist Congress, the Azanian People's Liberation Army, and an anonymous caller to the South African Press Association claimed responsibility on behalf of the Azanian National Liberation Army, the armed wing of the Black Consciousness Movement of Azania. Both the PAC and BCM denied any involvement in the attack.
The ANC urged South Africans not to be "provoked into abandoning the negotiation process even where it is motivated by a burning desire to express legitimate anger at such murders". It is widely suspected work of the right wing or their allies within the security forces. Eyewitness accounts of the killers' getaway car being driven by a white strengthen these suspicions.
A group of retired army and police generals, far right political parties and paramilitary organisations met on April 21 to mobilise and unite South Africa's ultraright. The meeting was initiated by General Tienie Groenewald, former Military Intelligence chief, and Dries Bruwer, a Conservative Party MP.
Among those present were former South Africa Defence Force chief General Constand Viljoen, former police Criminal Investigation Department head Lieutenant-General Cobus Visser, and former SADF chief of staff Lieutenant-General Koos Bischoff. The three were appointed to devise strategies to combat a total takeover of South Africa by the ANC, reported the Johannesburg-based Southern Africa Report on May 7.
Also present were former police commissioner General Mike Geldenhuys and deputy commissioner Lieutenant-General Lothar Neethling. Conservative Party spokesperson Piet Gous, who was also present, said that the right had to get together. "We cannot have splinter groups. Times are too serious. There must be a place where the Afrikaner can rule himself or else South Africa will turn into the next Bosnia-Hercegovina." Gous said the new alliance would accept any right-wing group, "parliamentary, extraparliamentary or paramilitary", which shared "Afrikaner ideals".
The creation of this front and the leading role of former senior military figures suggest that their conservative ideas are well entrenched in the officer corps of the SADF and police. Controlling a hostile military is the greatest challenge the democratic movement faces during the transition period to majority rule.
Meanwhile more details have emerged of the conspiracy behind the murder of Chris Hani. In a hearing before the Supreme Court in Pretoria on April 30, assassin Janusz Waluz said senior Conservative Party member Clive Derby-Lewis gave him the gun and silencer and told him to shoot Hani over the Easter weekend. The gun was part of the consignment "stolen" from an air force base in 1990. A hit list found in Waluz's flat, which included the names of Hani, Nelson Mandela and SACP chairperson Joe Slovo, was also drawn up by Derby-Lewis.
Clive Derby-Lewis was arrested on April 17. His arrest was followed in subsequent days by the arrest of his wife, Gaye Derby-Lewis, and four other people with strong right-wing views. The other four were later released. Clive Derby-Lewis has not been formally charged with plotting Hani's murder, while Waluz and Gaye Derby-Lewis have both been charged with the murder.
Clive Derby-Lewis has wide contacts in a range of South African and international right-wing organisations. He is a former member of parliament who currently sits as a Conservative Party representative on the President's Council, an advisory body to de Klerk. He is one of ish-speaking right-wingers. His right-wing connections include:
- Current president of the Western Goals Institute, an international anticommunist organisation which has been giving military training to white South Africans in preparation for a race war. The previous president is Roberto D'Aubuisson, whose leadership of El Salvador's infamous death squads is widely known.
- Chairman of the Republican Unity Movement of South Africa, a South African-based organisation which was established to accommodate "English-speaking patriots".
- Honoured guest in Britain of the World Anti-Communist League (WACL), which was renamed in 1990 the World League for Freedom and Democracy. The WACL is at the centre of an international network of conservative politicians, retired CIA and other intelligence operatives, ex-Nazis, and military and geopolitical strategists from around the world. Retired US general John Singlaub played a major role in the WACL, while helping to raise funds internationally for the contras in Nicaragua, Renamo in Mozambique, UNITA in Angola and other right-wing rebel movements.
Johannesburg's Star newspaper reported on May 11 and 12 that South African police had uncovered a right-wing plot to assassinate Joe Slovo, Winnie Mandela and president of the ANC Youth League Peter Mokaba. Slovo was to be shot outside his home by four right-wingers between May 15 and 21.
The police told the ANC about the plot on May 11, three days after they first discovered it when one of the plotters turned himself in. The ANC said the failure of the police to immediately inform them was "disturbing".