Mandela freed to a South Africa at brink of civil war
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One of Nelson Mandela’s struggles was surving 28 years in Prison
- courtesy Google |
Nelson Mandela walked free from prison 20 years ago Thursday into a
South Africa inching toward democracy while skirting a civil war as the
apartheid state disintegrated.
"We had all hoped that as negotiations got under way, violence would
decrease. But in fact the opposite happened," Mandela wrote in his
memoir.
Political violence escalated, with the death toll jumping from 1,400
in 1989 to 3,700 in 1990, according to the South African Institute of
Race Relations. One month after Mandela's release, police opened fire on
African National Congress (ANC) protesters in a township south of
Johannesburg. Fourteen were killed, and the ANC shelved official talks
with the white government. Tensions further flared as members of the
Zulu Inkhatha Freedom Party (IFP) launched attacks in townships, with
suspicions that they were backed by a "third force" of white security
forces.
Meanwhile in KwaZulu-Natal, IFP and ANC activists clashed for local
power, turning the province into what Mandela described as a "killing
ground". In late 1991, formal talks started. Then history repeated
itself, with two massacres by security forces in 1992. The ANC again
suspended the dialogue. Multi-party negotiations restarted in 1993, but
were again threatened by extremists.
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South Africa’s freedom struggle - Courtesy Google |
On April 10, a white right-winger assassinated communist party
secretary general Chris Hani, former chief of staff of the ANC's
military wing and one of the movement's most popular figures.
That night, the state turned to Mandela to appease a nation thought
to be on the brink of civil war. Mandela said a nationally televised
address: "We are a nation in mourning. Our pain and anger is real. Yet
we must not permit ourselves to be provoked by those who seek to deny us
the very freedom Chris Hani gave his life for."
His message held, but the extremists did not disarm. Radical whites
in the Afrikaner Resistance Movement stormed the site of the
negotiations in Johannesburg. On the other side, radical black
liberation groups hostile to the truce targeted whites in attacks at a
church and a golf club.
The unrest continued into 1994. Three days before the elections, nine
people were killed in an AWB suicide bombing in central Johannesburg.
And only one week before the historic vote, the IFP agreed to
participate.
But on April 27 and 28, crowds of South Africans lined up for miles
at polls swept by the ANC with 62.5 percent of ballots.
AFP |
