Mandela and the Commonwealth

Introduction

Few would deny the historic importance of South Africa to the Commonwealth. As an independent dominion within the association after 1931, it was a powerful ally in war, a significant trading partner and a magnet for largely white migration. Its disenfranchised and neglected non-white majority only occasionally troubled the consciences of those who had abandoned its rights in 1910, putting the interests of the union of South Africa’s then four states before the rights of the majority. The overriding pursuit of ‘fusion’—bringing the Afrikaner and English whites together and healing the deep wounds of their recent conflict—was punctuated by a steady retreat from African and Indian empowerment. In the new world that began to emerge from the ashes of the Second World War, far-reaching changes had begun to shake the old ‘imperial’ Commonwealth and herald its eventual transformation into a modern, multiracial international organisation. Even as that process was beginning, the early signs of conflict over race were apparent. Jan Smuts, South Africa’s victorious leader in war and author of the preamble to the charter of the new United Nations, encountered early opposition from the UN—and India in particular—over South Africa’s treatment of Indians in Natal and its desire to annex the mandated territory of South-West Africa.¹

The question of racial (and political) equality became central for the ‘new’ Commonwealth, with its rapidly burgeoning African, Asian, Caribbean, and Pacific membership. Its approach to racism in Southern Africa—specifically manifest in the white settler rebellion in Rhodesia and in the system of apartheid in South Africa—became the touchstone of its sincerity and credibility as a multiracial organisation. At the same time, the UK’s deep-seated economic interests in South Africa and its perceptions of its security interests (Dubow, 2017, p. 295)—across the African continent and in the sea lanes bounding it—was the source of repeated friction with its Commonwealth partners. This deep-rooted British ambivalence over South Africa haunted the rest of the Commonwealth and dogged the organisation’s long struggle against apartheid.

While these issues form the bedrock of any understanding of the relationship between the UK, South Africa, and the Commonwealth, they are not the primary concern of this special issue. This is not the place to tell the story of the Commonwealth’s engagement with apartheid and South Africa, nor to attempt an assessment of the Commonwealth’s contribution to the international campaign which helped bring about apartheid’s demise.

Nevertheless, the fourth anniversary of Nelson Mandela’s death is a fitting moment to re-visit this relationship for various reasons. First, there have been a number of recent publications which are either sceptical of the Commonwealth’s role in helping end apartheid or present only a partial account of what the association would see as one of its principal achievements. Second, twenty-three years since apartheid’s demise there is now little evidence in South Africa’s public memory of any recognition of the Commonwealth’s contribution to the struggle, other than within a post-colonial and post-imperial framework. Third, the Commonwealth itself is facing a period of challenge and change, as both a united, values-based organisation and one offering global relevance and leadership.

Of course, the Commonwealth’s relationship with Nelson Mandela was both less—and more—than the history of the Commonwealth and apartheid. It is not one that is explicitly addressed in the major biographies of Mandela, although elements are touched on in a number. But Mandela’s experience of the Commonwealth goes to the heart of the contradictions and tensions between Britain, as the former imperial power, and other Commonwealth members. It illuminates some of the hitherto neglected areas of Commonwealth involvement in the struggle. And it reaches beyond apartheid to a Commonwealth spurred into a deep and introspective re-evaluation of its role and purposes after the struggle, as it worked through the legacies of the preceding five decades.

It is this relationship which this special issue seeks to explore.

Mandela and the Commonwealth

By his own admission, Mandela was ‘something of an anglophile’ (Mandela, 1994, p. 360). He supported the allied cause against Nazi Germany and saw in the Atlantic Charter, signed by Roosevelt and Churchill, a promise of democratic rights and freedoms for the African people, as well as those enslaved in Europe and elsewhere. He admitted to having been ‘susceptible to paternalistic British colonialism’ (ibid., p. 111) but recognised this as an illusion, for which the antidote was militant African nationalism. He declared himself ‘stunned and dismayed’ (ibid., p. 128) by the victory of the Afrikaner National Party in the 1948 elections but was under no illusions about Smuts’s United Party and its attitudes to racial justice. He reflected that what had been de facto was to become relentlessly de jure.

As Mandela’s opposition to the new apartheid state intensified, so his contacts with neighbouring African countries increased. As an African nationalist, he saw the freedom of the oppressed in South Africa bound up with the liberation of Africans elsewhere in the continent. The Bandung Conference, of 1955, in drawing delegates from Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, pointed to a global anti-colonial movement and the desire to break free of the geo-political straitjacket of the cold war. Mandela later noted Harold Macmillan’s ‘wind of change’ speech and the promise of British decolonisation for seventeen African countries.

That said, a relationship with the Commonwealth can only be said to have meaning if, in working with one or more of its members, there was a clear desire to influence the organisation as a collectivity. That steadily became more evident. In 1958, a newly independent Ghana saw legal opportunities to bring pressure on South Africa for flouting its UN mandate over South West Africa, and this Mandela supported. This was a prelude to the case filed by Ethiopia and Liberia two years later in the International Court of Justice challenging South Africa’s mandate. While this ultimately unsuccessful legal challenge did not directly involve the Commonwealth, it helped focus attention, after the Sharpeville massacre of March 1960, on calls for South Africa’s expulsion from the Commonwealth. In June of that year, the second Conference of Independent States, meeting in Addis Ababa,² adopted a resolution on South West Africa and on South Africa that, inter alia, invited ‘independent African states which are members of the (British) Commonwealth to take all possible steps to secure the exclusion of the Union of South Africa from the (British) Commonwealth’ (Calvocoressi, 1961, p. 61 Resolutions of the Conference of Independent African States, Addis Ababa 14–26 June 1960, paragraph 2(v), annexure).

Mandela, and London-based allies such as Dr Yusuf Dadoo, saw the political opportunity arising out of Verwoerd’s determination to hold a referendum among South Africa’s white electorate on the issue of republican status. For many Afrikaners, the republic was the ultimate assertion of their nationhood over the remnants of British Imperialism. For the non-white citizens of South Africa, while the effects may have been largely cosmetic, it was a decision about their rights and their future from which they were excluded. But this change in South Africa’s status required it to reapply for Commonwealth membership. A vigorous campaign enlisted the support of some of the newer Commonwealth Prime Ministers; and, with Dadoo and others joining the picket lines outside Marlborough House, the outcome was the withdrawal of South Africa’s application. The message from London was that South Africa’s enforced withdrawal was ‘a resounding victory for our people, and marks an historic step forward in our struggle against apartheid’.³ In 1962, Mandela spoke of the successful campaign to oust South Africa from the Commonwealth and praised the role played by Ghana, Nigeria, and Tanganyika (Mandela, 1962).

However, if this was a defeat for Verwoerd, it was not one which he and his supporters recognised. Contrary to Mandela’s hopes, South Africa’s increasing isolation and international ostracism made no observable impact on Verwoerd, the great architect of apartheid, who now set about destroying all opposition and consolidating the regime.

Mandela’s capture at Howick, in Natal, in 1962 marked the end of his time as the ‘Black Pimpernel’ and the beginning of his long years of imprisonment. At that time, rumours abounded suggesting the involvement of the CIA in his arrest and in the raid on Lilliesleaf Farm in Rivonia, a year later, which saw the capture of most of the High Command of Umkhonto We Sizwe (MK) and the virtual destruction of its operating capacity. Mandela tactfully discounted these rumours, though there is some recent evidence that suggests otherwise.⁴ Whether British intelligence was also involved in either or both events is unclear. However, as the Rivonia trial drew to a close, Mandela and his co-defendants, on trial for sabotage, faced the death penalty if convicted. At the UN and individually a range of governments (including the UK and other Commonwealth countries) pressed Pretoria not to execute the Rivonia accused, who received terms of life imprisonment instead.⁵ There were also protest marches, vigils, and a threat to boycott South African goods (Frankel, 1999, p. 261)

Mandela was to be imprisoned for 27 years but there is little evidence of Commonwealth contact about him until the 1980s. Although the communiqués of Commonwealth summit meetings regularly covered South Africa and aspects of the struggle against apartheid, it was not until 1985 that Mandela’s release became a specific demand.⁶ His prolonged incarceration had only begun to attract public comment some years before, partly due to the efforts of Enuga Reddy.⁷

Contributions in the special issue

The story of Mandela’s resumed relationship with the Commonwealth is largely told in this special issue. It was an organisation which had changed dramatically in the 25 years after South Africa’s Commonwealth exit. The UK no longer led the body, providing administrative control from Whitehall and therefore setting an agenda largely determined by British interests. Instead, the Commonwealth had its own independent Secretariat (and Foundation) supporting the association’s chief officer, the Commonwealth Secretary-General. It also, in some cases, had clearly divergent interests, as the struggles over Rhodesia/Zimbabwe and over apartheid were to repeatedly demonstrate

Uniquely for an issue of The Round Table journal, three former Secretaries-General of the Commonwealth give their sometimes overlapping testimonies. Each account offers a significant insight into the period. Shridath ‘Sonny’ Ramphal, who began his service with the Commonwealth in 1975, injected a new intensity into the Commonwealth’s opposition to apartheid. A year later, the extraordinary courage of the school students of Soweto ignited more general internal revolt in South Africa. This in turn demanded a stronger international response, from the sporting boycott to the campaign for economic and financial sanctions. As regards the latter, the UK government and all other Commonwealth governments disagreed sharply (although in private several were deeply worried about the effect of sanctions on their economies). Ramphal’s article captures the ferocity of this internecine struggle and the frustrations of his long and turbulent relationship with his nemesis, Margaret Thatcher. But he also describes the genesis of the Commonwealth Eminent Persons Group (EPG) in 1985, and the start of the next phase of the Commonwealth’s relationship with Mandela.

The EPG’s diplomatic initiative, born out of the Commonwealth’s sharp disagreements with the UK over sanctions at the Nassau summit in 1985,⁸ is often less recognised than it deserves to be. Although this ambitious mission to negotiate an end to apartheid ended in failure, it marked the first serious attempt to engage with a still imprisoned Mandela (and the ANC and many others) in beginning the negotiating process and creating a suggested framework for those all-party negotiations. It is an initiative often better remembered for the power of its final report (Mission to South Africa, 1986) which was published as a Penguin Special and rapidly became a best-seller and a powerful tool in the worldwide campaign for further sanctions on South Africa (Ramphal, 2014, pp. 447–9). Yet it should also be seen as the start of a process of change which began to flow from Mandela’s prison cell. Pik Botha, the former Foreign Minister, later confessed that: ‘the EPG came closer to success than most people realised. I saw in the EPG a real chance of achieving a breakthrough’.⁹ A hitherto unpublished pen portrait of Mandela by the late Archbishop Ted Scott, a Canadian member of the EPG, adds a human dimension to the history of the group’s visits.

Chief Emeka Anyaoku, who joined the nascent Commonwealth Secretariat in 1966, also played a prominent part in these important events as a Deputy Secretary-General. In 1990, however, his assumption of office as the Commonwealth’s third Secretary-General coincided with Mandela’s release from prison and a further phase in Mandela’s relationship with the Commonwealth. These were both the best—and the worst—of times for South Africa. Despite all the pitfalls, a near miraculous path to peaceful elections and change was opened up. At the same time, the final days of apartheid triggered violence and death on an unprecedented scale, almost suffocating all chances of peaceful agreement and reconciliation. In assisting South Africa to navigate change, overcome violence, and begin building a post-apartheid society, Anyaoku has a significant Commonwealth story to tell.

An intriguing element in South Africa’s transformation is its return to Commonwealth membership in 1994. This was by no means a forgone conclusion and certainly did not feature in the ANC’s earlier post-apartheid planning. Mandela’s ready support for the idea (which Oliver Tambo had also endorsed) probably explains its popularity. Others argue that it was the Commonwealth’s strength as a ‘network of networks’ that allowed South Africa—which had suffered isolation on so many levels during the apartheid years—to rapidly reconnect with the world (Anyaoku, 1997, p. 179).

Nor should the warmth of Mandela’s relationship with the Head of the Commonwealth, Queen Elizabeth, be discounted. In 1991, Mandela (then no more than the President of the ANC and a special guest at the Commonwealth’s Harare summit) had, with great charm and style, innocently gate-crashed the Queen’s banquet for Commonwealth Heads of Government. While courtiers reeled, the Queen immediately ordered that an extra place be laid close to her (Murphy, 2013, p. 187). She then paid a State Visit to South Africa in 1995 (the first royal visit since 1947) and returned for the Durban Commonwealth summit in 1999, in part to bid farewell to the retiring South African president. For his part, Mandela enjoyed a triumphant State Visit to the UK in 1996. As the South African journalist John Battersby has remarked: ‘He had a particular affinity with Queen Elizabeth. Having his own royal tribal lineage, he was completely at ease with her’ (Buchanan, 2013).

The Anyaoku term also covered Mandela’s five years as South Africa’s president and, inevitably, as a Commonwealth statesman. Much is sometimes made of the importance of Thabo Mbeki, as the Deputy President, in effectively steering the ship of state. Mandela once self-deprecatingly remarked that he was merely ‘an ornament’ (Lodge, 2006, p. 211). But, in truth, his authority was considerable and the turbulent relationship with Abacha’s Nigeria—and the changes that he encouraged in the Commonwealth in dealing with those who blatantly flouted its principles—was a major contribution, of significance beyond the Commonwealth.

This is familiar territory for Sir Don McKinnon, who was the fourth Commonwealth Secretary-General. As New Zealand’s Foreign Minister, and involved in the hosting of the 1995 Auckland summit, McKinnon observed these developments at close quarters. When the Nigerian crisis prompted the Commonwealth to establish guidelines for dealing with errant members (policed by a Ministerial Action Group of foreign ministers) McKinnon became its vice-chairman and was deeply involved in the Mandela presidential years, as the Commonwealth sought to establish its credentials as a values-based association. In this role, he played an important part in Nigeria’s return to democracy in 1999 (McKinnon, 2013, pp. 53–56). Later, he grappled with other challenges to Commonwealth values, notably in Fiji and Zimbabwe, and worked with Thabo Mbeki, Mandela’s successor.

Professor Chris Saunders probes the UK-Commonwealth relationship and questions whether the great divide over sanctions can justifiably be the basis for assessing the sincerity of an individual’s or nation’s opposition to apartheid itself. Some see the UK as hopelessly compromised over apartheid and race because of its perceived economic and security interests. In resisting sanctions, Mrs Thatcher therefore becomes, in the eyes of her critics, an ally of President Botha and an apologist for apartheid. Others argue that Thatcher’s opposition to apartheid was sincere. In this vein, Saunders compares the respective roles of the UK and the Commonwealth in pressing for Mandela’s release from prison. He argues that Thatcher’s pressure on Botha to release Mandela was genuine and persistent (Onslow, 2013), and arguably more effective than that of the Commonwealth collectively or other individual leaders. Thatcher was certainly influential, and played a decisive role in persuading Botha to accept the mission of the EPG and avoid placing obstacles in its path.

Others in the Commonwealth would point to the EPG’s insistence that the group visit Mandela in gaol (an aim the British Government initially thought unrealistic) and its understanding (explained by Mandela himself) that Mandela’s release only had meaning in the context of a framework of dialogue and negotiation, not as an isolated act. As Pik Botha later recognised, releasing Nelson Mandela was a crucial step because ‘it was not possible for negotiations to take place in the absence of the people’s authentic leaders’.¹⁰ There was also an obvious contradiction in Thatcher calling for Mandela’s release but, as late as 1987, continuing to support the banning of the ANC as a ‘typical terrorist’ organisation (Sampson, 1999, p. 360) with whom no dialogue was possible. Calls for his release outside that political framework, critics argued, were therefore mere posturing.

Whatever the truth of this debate, it was undoubtedly the case that Mandela’s realism and pragmatism helped him sustain a good relationship with the UK, even when differences over sanctions continued to occur.

Of course, Mandela’s relationship was not only with the Commonwealth collectively and its various governments, it was also with the global anti-apartheid movement and its UK centre. This included its London base, where so many South African exiles sought refuge. Even in his absence, his 70th birthday tribute (which took the form of a rock concert at Wembley Stadium on 11 June 1988) made a deep impression on the British people. It was also broadcast to a further 66 countries, reaching a global audience of 600 million. The power of civil society pressure on the apartheid regime, and how this related to both individual governments and international organisations like the UN and the Commonwealth, is reflected in several of the articles. They serve as a reminder of how widely flung popular opposition to apartheid was. In 1961, Trinidadian dockers refused to unload South African ships in the wake of the massacre at Sharpeville. This triangulated Commonwealth relationship—Commonwealth, UK, and anti-apartheid activism—arguably created a key point of influence for Mandela.

Conclusion

If the Commonwealth’s attitude to Mandela has appeared adulatory and uncritical, it does not mean that there were no differences in approach, both in attitudes to negotiations and the apartheid regime and, after 1994, when Mandela was South Africa’s president. Mandela provided practical assistance to the Commonwealth across a range of issues. These included assisting the smooth transition to multiparty rule in Zambia (Anyaoku, 2004, pp. 141–142) as well as the question of widening Commonwealth membership to include the entry of Mozambique (though Ireland’s return proved more problematic, despite Mandela’s willingness to intervene). Additionally, as an indication of South Africa’s commitment to the association, it hosted the 1999 Durban Commonwealth summit.

This special issue is far from the last word on Mandela’s relationship with the Commonwealth. It is hoped it will be among the first words, for many of Mandela’s biographers fail to recognise this unique context, even when the evidence is clear (Lodge, 2006, p. 215, on Mandela’s approach to the Abacha regime in Nigeria). There is much more to be said both on the extent and on the significance of the relationship in its various phases. Though there is an inevitable tendency towards the hagiographic, this special issue argues that the relationship, if nuanced, was real and enduring. It was about more than symbolism and diplomatic form; more than inspiration and influence. Through the person of Mandela, the Commonwealth was able to reach further in the cause of racial justice. After apartheid’s end, Mandela helped point the Commonwealth towards a changed future.

Stuart Mole
[email protected]

Notes

1. Resolutions of the United Nations General Assembly (First Session) 44 (1) Treatment of Indians in the Union of South Africa, Fifty-second plenary meeting, 8 December 1946 and 65(1) Future Status of South West Africa, Sixty-fourth plenary meeting, 14 December 1946 (Dag Hammarskjold Library, United Nations, New York, USA). See also http://www.sahistory.org.za/topic/united-nations-and-apartheid-timeline-1946-1994.

2. The first had been in Accra, Ghana, in 1958. The group was to become the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) in May 1963.

3. Message from London to the South African people, March 1961, ‘Forced withdrawal of South Africa from the Commonwealth’, Padraig O’Malley archives, Nelson Mandela Foundation.

4. Sanders, J. (2016) ‘How the CIA trapped Mandela’, The Sunday Times (News Review) 15 May 2016, p. 27.

5. UN Security Council resolution 1909 June 1964 prompted significant diplomatic efforts by the USA, the UK, and the Soviet Union.

6. The Commonwealth Accord on Southern Africa, agreed at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Nassau, The Bahamas, 20 October 1985. http://www.anc.org.za/content/commonwealth-accord-southern-africa-nassau-accord.

7. Enuga Sreenivasulu Reddy, a UN Assistant Secretary-General, was a key figure in the work of the UN Special Committee against Apartheid and later became the Director of the United Nations Centre Against Apartheid (and Director of the UN Trust Fund for South Africa).

8. Commonwealth Accord on Southern Africa.

9. Botha, P. (1996) Evidence to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Security Hearing, Johannesburg, 14 October, p. 3, http://www.justice.gov.za/trc/special%5Csecurity/1securit.htm.

10. Ibid., p. 4.