The democratic revolution is not complete
It's strange the things that people find challenging. Valli Moosa
is the South African Minister for Provincial Affairs and
Constitutional Development and ANC National Executive member. He
has been an anti-apartheid activist since the age of 14 and as
such has been imprisoned, participated in a gruelling six years
negotiations process and taken on the transformation of a hugely
indebted, inequitable economy turning it into one where basic
needs are put before vested interests.
However Moosa also revealed that not only did he ``not know you
were going to ask such difficult questions'', he found Irish
weather difficult and didn't know how we endured it. He also
believes that South Africa can win the FIFA World Cup this
summer. Moosa spoke to An Phoblacht's Neil Forde.
Phoblacht. Looking back at the South African negotiations
process how would interpret the years of deliberations?
Valli Moosa: One could look at broad phases. The first would be the period
from 1986 to 1990. The apartheid regime at the time and the ANC
began to give serious thought to the possibility of a negotiated
settlement. There were a specific set of conditions in the
country at the time. The struggle was at its height and while we
were not in a position to militarily overthrow the regime, they
found it impossible to rule in the old way.
All the repressive measures which the regime had taken had failed
to stem the growing tide of resistance. The regime had played out
its hand.
We had to ask the question that having intensified the struggle,
whether it was actually possible to conduct an insurrection.
Clearly it wasn't possible. So both sides began to explore the
possibility of a negotiated settlement. The regime saw the need
to have certain reforms to the system so as to be able to stem
the tide of resistance and set back the revolution. They had a
strategy to divide the revolutionary forces by removing some of
the formal trappings of apartheid without any real change.
Phoblacht: What then were the phases after 1990?
Valli Moosa: We went into the next phase of talks about talks. We believed
that talks could only take place if there was a climate of free
political activity. We said the troops must leave the townships,
prisoners must be released and a whole number of other things
have to happen.
The talks began in 1991, broke down in 1992 because of a lack of
seriousness on behalf of the regime. When we entered the
negotiations the regime very quickly assumed that we were doing
this from a position of weakness.
Then we resumed an intensification of mass action. The talks
resumed again in 1992, this time with a greater degree of
seriousness.
The 1994 elections brought the current phase, that of the Interim
Government of National Unity, which allows for the minority
parties to serve in government. During this period the
democratically elected constituent assembly drafted and adopted a
new constitution
Phoblacht: During the 1991-92 period there was a significant
upsurge in killings and attacks on black communities
Valli Moosa: The security forces had continued with their dirty tricks and the
death squad activities. There was a strong demand from the people
that we should resume the armed struggle, that we needed to
defend ourselves, but we had correctly read that this was the
work of those elements within the security forces who wanted to
sabotage the talks. It was a very difficult thing to explain that
we were talking to the enemy while they were killing our people
in the streets.
We thought that if we allowed that to put off the talks then we
would be giving in to those who didn't want the talks to take
place because they knew the result of the talks would be a
dismantling of apartheid and the creation of democracy. It was in
a sense the kicks of a dying horse.
Phoblacht: How did you manage the relationship between your
negotiators and supporters.
Valli Moosa: How did we manage that? It took up a hell of lot of my time and
energy. It was a lot of hard work. We had taken the greatest of
care to ensure that our structures, our branches, our membership
and even the broader democratic movement outside our own
organisation were regularly briefed and kept informed.
We could not always rely on the media to report accurately what
was happening. So we had a very regular newsletter which we
distributed to everybody. We established a national negotiating
forum within the ANC which was the body through which we
consulted the membership.
As negotiators we travelled the country on a regular basis when
we were not negotiating and planning. It was time well spent.
Often we found that negotiating within the movement was sometimes
even more difficult than negotiating with the enemy.
Phoblacht: Did internal deliberations affect how you
negotiated with the apartheid regime ?
Valli Moosa: It did. Often we didn't know whether a certain position would be
acceptable or not and we had to genuinely find out from our
structures. Often because we were at the cutting edge, at the
coal face, it was for us to be putting forward what we thought
were acceptable options to the membership.
We found that if the negotiations were completely open to the
public this would remove any suspicion that negotiations were
taking place behind the backs or above the heads of the people.
Phoblacht: Last night you made a distinction between what was
a principle and what was a tactic in terms of negotiating
positions. Could you elaborate?
Valli Moosa: For example, one of the big debates we had was whether or not to
agree to a government of national unity and to agree to give the
deputy presidency to F W De Klerk. Now that was a compromise of
sorts but did it compromise our principles was a question we had
to ask ourselves or was it a necessary tactical approach that had
to be taken in order to secure agreement and to have for a period
of time something less than what we wanted.
other question was whether or not we should have provincial
governments and legislatures. We had always fought for a single
non racial, not sexist united South African Republic, that was
what the struggle was all about.
We had to examine whether we were compromising our principles and
we opposed it for a very long time. Our principle was to create a
democracy where there would be human rights, equality and equity
for all. We would be one sovereign nation with a single
citizenship, a common voters roll, a single economy and all of
those things could be achieved in the context of a system of
provinces.
For negotiators this was an agonising experience. At the end of
the day you feel more responsible than anybody else. The movement
as a whole should feel responsible because the movement gives you
the mandate to do whatever you do.
Phoblacht: When you entered government as a minister how did
you set about bringing change?
Valli Moosa: For me it was the strangest experience of all. The Department of
Constitutional Development had been responsible for conducting
the negotiations with us. The day I walked in there as minister
responsible for a department run by the same people I had been
negotiating with.
You would now not recognise the department of constitutional
development form the one which existed four years ago. We are
very much still in the change process. The democratic revolution
is not complete. We have a democratic government, a democratic
parliament but the democratic transformation of society is still
in the process of taking place. It is far from over.
The struggle was at its height and while we were not in a
position to militarily overthrow the regime, they found it
impossible to rule in the old way
It was a very difficult thing to explain that we were talking to
the enemy while they were killing our people in the streets.
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