Former South African President Nelson Mandela and former President Fidel Castro in Cuba during 1991. Mandela praised the role of Cuba in the liberation of southern Africa.
Originally uploaded by Pan-African News Wire File Photos
Leaked dispatch shows South African president FW de Klerk gave ANC leader set of release proposals for negotiation
David Smith in Johannesburg guardian.co.uk,
Sunday 28 November 2010 19.03 GMT
FW de Klerk's historic announcement that Nelson Mandela would be released stunned the world, but came as no surprise to Mandela himself.
South Africa's president of the time and his adversary had met several weeks earlier and by 17 January 1990 the world's most famous political prisoner "fully expected" De Klerk to declare his release along with others like him and the unbanning of the African National Congress (ANC), according to a cable from the US consulate in Cape Town.
Based on a half-hour briefing with Essa Moosa, a United Democratic Front lawyer who met Mandela the previous week, the cable offers a glimpse of the negotiations that paved the way for the country's first multiracial election.
"Mandela release will be announced 2 February in parliament," is the heading of one section of the memo. "Mandela made it quite clear that he fully expects president FW de Klerk to make several major announcements in his 2 February speech at the opening of parliament," it stated.
"De Klerk will announce: the unbanning of the ANC, PAC [Pan Africanist Congress] and other organisations; the end of the state of emergency; the return of political exiles to South Africa; the release of a number of political prisoners, including Nelson Mandela."
The cable said De Klerk had met Mandela several weeks earlier, presented a set of proposals and asked for the ANC's response. Mandela did not discuss the proposals in detail with Moosa but did forward them to his party comrades Alfred Nzo and Thabo Mbeki.
The document went on: "Moosa understands Mandela to have worked out a game plan for 'next steps' in a negotiation with De Klerk so as to ensure that he is not released from prison in a vacuum.
"Mandela has told various visitors that he has a good opinion of De Klerk as a sincere individual even though he regards him as still the leader of the National party and not more than that."
Moosa also appealed to the US consulate to ensure that the American civil rights activist, Jesse Jackson, did not cause a headache over the international sanctions imposed on apartheid South Africa. He was concerned that the South African government was doing well at "cultivating" Jackson, and that he "might return to the US and announce that sanctions should be lifted".
There was one outstanding question: where would Mandela take his first steps to freedom? "Moosa sidestepped a question about where Mandela's home base would be upon his release," the memo said. "He only remarked that Mandela can tell the SAG [South African government] where he wants to be released and where his first public appearance would thus take place.
"Sentimentally, said Moosa, Paarl (where Mandela is now in prison) seemed to appeal to Mandela. (Comment: but politically and practically this makes little sense. Johannesburg seems by far the most suitable venue. End comment.)"
In fact Mandela was at the centre of global attention from the moment he emerged from his final prison, near Paarl, on 11 February 1990. Later that day he addressed a huge crowd from city hall in Cape Town – where, witnesses later recalled, Jackson had to be restrained from muscling his way on to the balcony to join him.
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