Downing Street Years - Margaret Thatcher [332]
It was only shortly before I left office that President de Klerk again came to see me at Chequers — on Sunday 14 October. There had been some progress since I had seen Mr Mandela in June. The ANC had agreed to suspend the ‘armed struggle’ and the two sides had agreed in principle on the arrangements for the return of South African exiles and the release of the rest of the political prisoners. The remaining features of the old apartheid system were being dismantled. The Land Acts were due to be repealed and the Population Registration Act — the last remaining legislative pillar of apartheid — would go when a new constitution was agreed. Only state education remained segregated but movement on this — for the whites — very sensitive matter had also begun. However, violence between blacks had sharply worsened and this was poisoning the atmosphere for negotiations.
The South Africans were being careful about pressing for the lifting of the remaining sanctions. The most important contribution to this would have been that of the ANC: but they stubbornly refused to recognize that the case for sanctions — to the extent it had ever existed — was dead. Within the European Community, the key to a formal change of policy now was Germany, but for domestic political reasons Chancellor Kohl was still unwilling to act. The Americans held back for similar reasons. However, as President de Klerk told me, in practice most of the economic sanctions were being steadily eroded and what really mattered to the South Africans now was access to foreign loans and investment. (In fact, sanctions were gradually dismantled over the next few years: indeed the international community began to prepare financial aid for South Africa to undo the damage that sanctions had wrought.)
President de Klerk was clearly frustrated that the further round of informal talks with the ANC on the constitution for which he had been pressing had still not occurred. The longer the process continued the more opportunity there was for hardliners — on either side — to derail the negotiations. The main principle to which he held was that there must be power sharing in the Executive. In the new South Africa no one must have as much power as he himself had now. In some respects he thought that the Swiss Federal Cabinet was a guide to what was needed. This seemed to me to be very much on the right lines — not that either hybrid constitutions or federal systems have much inherent appeal, but in states where allegiances are at least as much to subordinate groups as to the overarching institutions of the state itself these things may constitute the least bad approach. It remains to be seen whether the ANC leadership is prepared to recognize this. With all the risks of violence and all the shortcomings of the various political factions, South Africa remains the strongest economy on the continent and has the most skilled and educated population. It would be a tragedy if it cannot exploit these advantages to build a genuine democracy, which respects minority rights, on the foundation of a free economy.
* See pp. 259–162.
* See p. 75.
* On 22 July 1946 91 people were killed when the hotel was bombed by Jewish terrorists from a group led by Menachem Begin.
CHAPTER XVIII
Jeux Sans Frontières
Relations with the European Community — 1984–1987
TWO VISIONS OF EUROPE
The wisdom of hindsight, so useful to historians and indeed to authors of memoirs, is sadly denied to practising politicians. Looking back, it is now possible to see the period of my second term as Prime Minister as that in which the European Community subtly but surely shifted its direction away from being a Community of open trade, light regulation and freely co-operating sovereign nation-states towards statism