‘He’s walking to his freedom!’

Published May 20, 2016

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Francesca Villette

We all waited for him with bated breath.

Millions of people who had been prostrate under apartheid's jackboot for so long and had lived his ideal through their resistance, stood tall without fear, waiting to lay their eyes on the embodiment of their emancipation.

On February 11, 1990, a brown sedan, escorted by three helicopters, came slowly into view at the gates of Victor Verster Prison in Paarl.

When the car reached the outer security gates, it stopped.

Everyone, including the police and marshals with their walkie-talkies, seemed to hold their breath.

“He's walking… he's walking to his freedom!” a photographer shouted.

After 10 050 days in prison, Nelson Mandela demanded to take those first few steps to freedom, and finally, after what seemed and felt like an achingly and agonisingly long time, there he was. The Father of the Nation. Finally.

Minutes later, Mandela was whisked off to Cape Town where more than 100 000 people were waiting on the Grand Parade to see him.

Supporters could, for the first time, legally wave ANC banners.

“Viva Mandela, Viva,” the crowd chanted.

The biggest ovation of all was reserved for Mandela's announcement that the armed Struggle would continue.

“Our resort to the armed Struggle in 1960 was the formation of the military wing of the ANC, Umkhonto we Sizwe, a purely defensive action against the violence of apartheid. The factors which necessitated the armed Struggle still exist today. We have no option but to continue. We express the hope that a climate conducive to a negotiated settlement will be created soon so that there may no longer be the need for the armed Struggle,” Mandela said to tumultuous applause.

Ever since the victory of the National Party in 1948, people and organisations across the globe watched with alarm as the new government began implementing legislation that crushed the political and social aspirations of black South Africans.

Many of them began putting the squeeze on the apartheid regime.

From 1955, British Labour Party conferences passed resolutions questioning South Africa's fitness to be a member of the Commonwealth and, in a move which prefigured later campaigns to ban segregated South African teams from world sport, South Wales miners protested at the presence of the all-white South Africans at the 1958 Cardiff Commonwealth Games.

South Africans themselves were not giving up the fight to overthrow the racist government, and from the 1980s onwards opposition against apartheid began intensifying.

On January 31, 1985, State President PW Botha offered Mandela release from the prison sentence he had been serving since the conclusion of the Rivonia Trial in 1964, on condition he renounced violence and violent protest as a means to bring about change in South Africa.

Mandela communicated his refusal of the offer through his daughter, Zindzi Mandela, who read his statement at a rally in Soweto on February 10, 1985.

Mandela said that the ANC only adopted violence as a means of protest “when other forms of resistance were no longer open to us".

Mandela had also refused previous offers of conditional release when the condition was that he be confined to the Transkei.

Twelve days before Botha's resignation as State President, Cosatu, acting on behalf of an alliance of anti-apartheid groups known as the Mass Democratic Movement, started a campaign that took the form of national protests to force the desegregation of hospitals, beaches and public transport.

In the early hours of January 18, 1989, Botha suffered a stroke. He recovered sufficiently to make, perhaps, one of his biggest internal political mistakes: he suggested that the offices of party leader and head of state be separated. In the tough leadership battle that followed FW de Klerk, the leader of the Transvaal NP, defeated the Cape NP leader Chris Heunis, Finance Minister Barend du Plessis and Foreign Minister Pik Botha to become leader of the party. It soon pitted him against Botha, in what newspapers described “the battle of the bald eagles”.

Asked to choose between Botha and De Klerk, the cabinet chose De Klerk. Suddenly, the all-powerful Botha was out.

De Klerk quickly showed that under his leadership, it would not be more of the same from a government that was severely under pressure.

On February 2, 1990, he mounted the podium of the large chamber of Parliament in Cape Town and began a speech that was to alter the course of the country's history.

'Victory for rights'

About three-quarters of the way through his address, De Klerk announced the lifting of the restrictions on the previously banned ANC, PAC and the SACP, adding that people currently serving prison sentences would also be released.

He then turned his attention to Mandela.

“I wish to put it plainly that the government has taken a firm decision to release Mr Mandela unconditionally. I am serious about bringing this matter to finality without delay.”

Both supporters and opponents of the government were rocked by De Klerk's announcement.

The Cape Times carried messages from prominent local and international leaders the next day.

ANC president Oliver Tambo welcomed De Klerk's announcement, but warned that many aspects of South Africa's repressive machinery would still remain intact.

President Hosni Mubarak, of Egypt, chairperson of the Organisation of African Unity, wrote in a telegram: “The decision to release you (Mandela) is a victory for human rights everywhere.”

Canadian Prime Minster Brian Mulroney said Mandela's release was a time of tremendous joy for South Africa, Canada and the rest of the world.

Former Botswanan president Quett Masire said he was “most heartened” at the news.

“FREE AT LAST”, the Cape Times' front-page headline on February 12, 1990, read.

The picture on that page was the iconic one of Mandela walking hand-in-hand with his wife Winnie Mandela, each raising a fist in triumph while walking out of Victor Verster prison in Paarl.

The Business Report also carried a story of Mandela's release on its front page, analysing the effect his release would have on the country's finances.

“Nelson Mandela's release could help ease punitive anti-apartheid sanctions by Western nations and halt the stream of foreign disinvestment from South Africa, financial analysts and business leaders said.

“The black nationalist's freedom yesterday after 27 years in prison was also likely to have a big impact on domestic financial markets when they open today.

“Stockbrokers and bankers predict his release will boost the value of the financial rand investment currency and fuel a boom in mining and industrial shares on the JSE, as foreign and local buyers rush to register their approval of the political changes sweeping SA,” Business Report reported.

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