The first batch of leaked cables published by five major newspapers around the world last night reveals that Nelson Mandela was “furious” when a top adviser stopped him meeting Margaret Thatcher soon after his release from prison.
He apparently wanted to explain why the ANC objected to the former British prime minister’s policy of “constructive engagement” with the apartheid regime.
They also reveal brutally frank assessments of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and of now Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and other opposition leaders by outspoken US ambassador to Zimbabwe Christopher Dell in 2007.
According to the Guardian newspaper, one cable from the 1990s revealed: “We understand Mandela was keen for a Thatcher meeting but that (appointments secretary Zwelakhe) Sisulu argued successfully against it.”
It continues: “Mandela has on several occasions expressed his eagerness for an early meeting with Thatcher to express the ANC’s objections to her policy. We were consequently surprised when the meeting didn’t materialise on his mid-April visit to London and suspected that ANC hardliners had nixed Mandela’s plans.”
The Guardian website also carried a cable dated January 17, 1990, based on a half-hour briefing with Essa Moosa, a United Democratic Front lawyer who met Mandela the previous week, announcing that FW de Klerk planned to unban the ANC and other liberation organisations.
“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 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.”
Game plan
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.”
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.
“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.)”
In his cable from Harare in 2007 titled “The End is Nigh” ambassador Dell predicts that time is running out for Mugabe because more and more of his own Zanu-PF comrades are turning against him and that regional leaders, including president Thabo Mbeki, are growing increasingly irritated with him.
After considering various scenarios, Dell concludes that the “optimal outcome, of course, and the only one that doesn’t bring with it a huge risk of violence and conflict, is a genuinely free and fair election, under international supervision”.
“The Mbeki mediation offers the best, albeit very slim, hope of getting there. However, as Pretoria grows more and more worried about the chaos to its north and President Mbeki’s patience with Mugabe’s antics wears thin, the prospects for serious SA engagement may be growing.
“Thus, this effort deserves all the support and backing we can muster. Less attractive is the idea of a South African-brokered transitional arrangement or government of national unity.”
Dell also reports that a better opposition in Zimbabwe would have made change easier. He assesses Tsvangirai as “a brave, committed man and, by and large, a democrat”.
“He is also the only player on the scene right now with real star quality and the ability to rally the masses,” he says.
“But Tsvangarai is also a flawed figure, not readily open to advice, indecisive and with questionable judgement in selecting those around him.
“He is the indispensable element for opposition success, but possibly an albatross around their necks once in power. In short, he is a kind of Lech Walesa character: Zimbabwe needs him, but should not rely on his executive abilities to lead the country’s recovery.”