<B>By Chit DUKHIRA</B>

[On the occasion of the presence in Mauritius of President Thabo Mbeki as Chief Guest at the country?s 40th Independence anniversary celebrations, the author gives hereunder a brief account of the final phase of the long struggle, led by Nelson Mandela and others, allowing South Africa to become a sovereign non-racist democratic Republic in 1994 when Thabo Mbeki was made the first Vice-President]

Formal discussions with the government started on 20 December1991 upon the initiative of the Convention for a Democratic South Africa (CODESA), for a transitional multiracial regime and a new Constitution. The African National Congress (ANC) and the ruling National Party (NP) were the leading participants. The first ever most representative political forum in the country, CODESA was also the unprecedented vital constitutional summit in the country?s history. Consisting of delegates of 18 parties, it was attended in majority by the Africans.

Just a few days before CODESA met for the last time on 15 May 1992, the government was shaken by two scandals - corruption at the Department of Development Aid, which was in charge of upgrading the Africans?homelands, and the senior security officials? involvement in killing four United Democratic Front (UDF) members in 1985. The discussion on political transformation broke down. To show the government its extent of popular support and the people that it was now impatient to obtain freedom, the ANC planned a countrywide mass action, from 16 June to 4 August, through strikes, demonstrations and boycotts. However, in the meantime, sharp violence erupted again between the supporters of the ANC and those of other African organisations, specially the Inthaka Freedom Party (IFP). During the 3-4 August general strike, organised to espouse the demands of the ANC for continued negotiations and in protest against the government-aided acts of violence, more than four million workers stayed at home.

On 26 September 1992, the Record of Understanding was signed by F. W de Clerk (NP) and Mandela (ANC), allowing the discussions to resume. Joe Slovo, an influential member of the SACP, who had been in the forefront of the ?stay at home? strike following the Sharpeville Massacre (1960), advised that the NP and the ANC should come to terms for sharing power during a five year-mandate. Despite further violence, a new Constitution was accepted in 1993. In February 1994, the ANC and the government announced an agreement. It focused on a five-year government of national unity and a multi-party Cabinet as well as the creation of a transitional Executive Council.

In April 1993, the South African Communist Party (SACP) secretary-general, Chris Hani, also ANC very popular figure, who was previously MK (ANC armed wing) chief of staff, was assassinated, apparently by a racist White with a view to foiling the negotiation process. The country was on a volcano; the youth were determined to avenge their hero. Mandela did his utmost to thwart a mass violent reaction. Like him, President de Klerk too was not for a halted negotiation. A fortnight after Hani?s murder, Oliver Tambo who, heading the ANC since 1967, remained active throughout in his political contacts overseas, passed away suddenly; it was an irreparable loss to the ANC and Mandela.

Meeting again on 3 June, the CODESA appointed 27 April 1994 for holding the unprecedented national, multi-racial and one-person-one vote parliamentary elections. When it met anew in April to ratify the decision, the delegates of 26 parties were present. They now included those of the IFP, the Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC) and the Conservative Party (CP). In July, the first draft of the Constitution was agreed upon. Not satisfied that the election date was fixed even before the Constitution was ready, Chief Buthelezi (IFP) walked out. The Afrikaner Volksfront, grouping conservative White organisations, was set up with the aim of establishing a volkstaat (white homeland).

After the final touches by the government and the ANC, the interim Constitution was sanctioned on 18 November 1993 by CODESA. Some changes to these projected constitutional clauses were later brought following compromises reached with the IFP, the CP and the Volksfront.