The Downing Street Years, 1979-1990

by Margaret Thatcher

  I was less prepared than ever to go along with measures which would weaken the South African economy and thus slow down reform. So as the 1987 CHOGM at Vancouver approached I was still in no mood for compromise. In some respects the position was easier for me than it had been at Nassau and in London. Events in Fiji and in Sri Lanka were likely to occupy a good deal of attention at the conference. My line on sanctions was well known and the domestic pressure on me had decreased: I had made headway in winning the sanctions argument at home during the London conference. But it would not all be plain sailing. It seemed to me that the Canadians, our hosts, wanted to be more African than the Africans — particularly since countries like Zimbabwe knew that they could not possibly afford to implement full-scale sanctions themselves and hoped that we would do it for them. Brian Mulroney was keen to gain agreement for setting up a committee of Commonwealth Foreign ministers to monitor events in South Africa, which seemed to me not just a waste of time but counterproductive — as I told Mr Mulroney at a meeting with him on the eve of the conference. I said that its only purpose would be to satisfy the ego of the Commonwealth heads of government and I would criticize it publicly and strongly.

  I also had a talk with President Kaunda who was under some pressure to set his own country’s economic affairs in order to meet the requirements of the IMF. Our views were no more similar on South Africa than they had been. At one point I said that I regretted that I had not yet been able to visit Africa, apart from my attendance at the Lusaka CHOGM in 1979. Mr Kaunda said that Africa was not at all my area, which I found intensely irritating. I retorted that he himself had charged me with the duty of bringing Rhodesia to full independence as Zimbabwe at the Lusaka Conference and that I had accomplished it. But his off-hand remark did confirm me in my intention of making a visit soon to black African countries.

  In my speech to the conference I pointed out just how damaging sanctions and disinvestment were to those we were allegedly trying to help. I gave the example of an Australian firm which had just closed a fish-canning factory near Cape Town putting 120 non-whites out of jobs. I noted that a general ban on fruit and vegetable exports would destroy between 100,000 and 200,000 non-white jobs — and all those affected would have no social security benefits to fall back on. Nearer the knuckle, I said that I well understood why neighbouring countries had not imposed the whole range of sanctions. Eighty per cent of Zimbabwe’s external trade passed through South Africa. A million migrant workers earned their living there. Over half of Lesotho’s GNP came from their remittances. So I was more firmly convinced than ever that sanctions were not the answer. Of course, such arguments cut little ice with those determined on gestures.

  As usual, the main decisions were deferred for the — this time mercifully quite brief — retreat at the Lake Okanagan resort up in the mountains. The discussions took place and meals were provided at a central hotel with individual chalets dotted around it. It was bitterly cold at Lake Okanagan. But the Africans, of course, felt it more than I did. They turned up at the central hotel with blankets over their shoulders. Rajiv Gandhi obviously considered that exercise was the best way to keep warm and always seemed to appear in a tracksuit having jogged between meetings.

  The atmosphere at our discussions was not much warmer. I was not prepared to go along with the draft communiqué which they wanted. At a dinner given by Rajiv Gandhi back in Vancouver I was left to kick my heels for forty-five minutes on my own waiting for other heads of government to turn up. They had in fact been holding a press conference on South Africa to which I had not been invited and of whose existence I was unaware.

  But we had given as good as we got. In reply to the sanctimonious criticism of our Canadian hosts, I had figures released which showed that Canada’s imports from South Africa had risen. It was a useful comment on the Commonwealth heads’ sincerity. Not just Mr Mulroney, but almost everyone else it seemed, exploded with indignation at this intrusion of fact upon rhetoric. My suspicion that in this the political leaders were out of step with the people was confirmed when I received a rapturous reception from the crowds in Vancouver: one man kept on shouting ‘Hang in there girl, hang in there.’ I did.

  Visits to Black Africa

  Whatever Kenneth Kaunda thought of it, I was now determined to pay a visit to black Africa. It seemed absurd to allow the public arguments about South Africa to get in the way of that. I knew perfectly well from private discussions with African leaders that many of them wanted closer links with Britain. They also generally respect strength in leaders. No one gets very far in African politics without being tough. I also intended to use my visit for a purpose which was to become still more important during the rest of my premiership: I wanted to spread the message that a combination of limited government, financial orthodoxy and free enterprise would work for prosperity in underdeveloped countries as well as it did in the prosperous West. I chose Kenya and Nigeria for my first African political safari. In both cases this was with good reason.

  Kenya was the most pro-western, most free enterprise of the important black African states. Nigeria was the most populous African state — one in four Africans is a Nigerian — and a country of huge potential, if only it could achieve sound public finances and public administration. Both President Moi of Kenya and General Babangida of Nigeria were pro-British, though Nigerian feeling towards us was more volatile and on the South African question extremely hostile. Britain was the largest foreign investor in both countries — and in the case of Kenya the largest aid donor too.

  I arrived in Nairobi on the evening of Monday 4 January 1988, to be met by President Moi. He had a dignified, rather grave manner, with something of the tribal chief about him: we always got on well. But his human rights record was no better than that of many Commonwealth heads of government. Although we disagreed about South Africa, he was a moderate and one of the forces for common sense at CHOGMs.

  Denis and I and our party stayed at the government guesthouse, which left something to be desired. Denis tried to run a bath but found that there was no water and it had to be brought up in dustbins from the cellar: we heated it up on gas rings in the kitchen. Then no sooner did we have hot water than the lights went out.

  But whatever difficulties there were with the facilities, there was none with the welcome. President Moi, who loved nothing better than to get out of Nairobi into the countryside, accompanied me on a fascinating itinerary. Kenya, unlike some other African countries, has never lost sight of the importance of agriculture. Great efforts were clearly being put into improving it. I visited a Masai rural training centre and inspected their lugubrious cattle, toured a tea plantation, met a polygamous sugar farmer with twenty-three immaculately turned-out young children and then went on to what was described as a ‘Women’s Poultry Project’. This visit had been suggested by the British Overseas Development Administration (ODA) as a model small agricultural project. Unfortunately, the Kenyan Government, on learning that I was to go there, upgraded the whole project and moved the chickens into conditions of great luxury, which of course largely destroyed the point of the visit. Everywhere I went I was struck by the good-humoured reception I received. The bitternesses of the 1950s had clearly been forgotten. It was an encouraging start.

  I then went on to make a fleeting visit to Nigeria. I arrived at Lagos on the morning of Thursday 7 January and had talks with General Babangida. He was a forceful, intelligent man, trying to put Nigeria’s economy on to a sounder footing and in due course, we hoped, to create the conditions for a restoration of democracy. We had helped Nigeria in its dealings with the IMF and this was appreciated. General Babangida seemed to be open to my suggestions about the need to curb Nigeria’s budget deficit, cut inflation and provide reassurances for foreign investors. We also saw eye to eye about the dangers of Soviet and Cuban involvement in Africa.

  The next day I flew to the very north of the country to attend a Durbar as the guest of the Emir of Kano. It was a difficult landing because of the cloud of
fine Sahara sand suspended in the air. Denis was sitting in the aeroplane cockpit and he told me afterwards that there had only been a relatively brief period of visibility before landing. This real danger was, however, entirely subordinated to one manufactured by the British press. On the way up to the Emir’s box, from where I was to view the horses and camels parading below, I lost contact with the rest of my staff who were jostled by an overenthusiastic crowd and then treated with some vigour by anxious security guards confused about their identity. Bernard Ingham received a none too gentle rifle butt in the stomach. Later in the day an anxious Nigel Wicks, my principal private secretary at No. 10, rang up to see whether we were still in one piece. In fact — unaware of the confusion — I had been enjoying myself hugely, holding on to a rather fabulous hat I was wearing with the Nigerian national colours on it as horsemen charged in a cloud of dust up to where the Emir, Denis and I were seated. At the end I was presented with a horse myself as a gift; but, arguing that it would be happier with its own horse acquaintances than in a British stable, I prevailed on my hosts to keep it for me.

  The success of this visit convinced me that I should make a more ambitious foray into Africa the following year and this was now arranged. I would go first to Morocco — which is essentially part of the Arab world — and then on to Zimbabwe, Malawi, possibly Namibia, and Nigeria once more.

  I already had the greatest regard for King Hassan of Morocco, who was always underrated as a player in Middle Eastern politics. I had met him in London two years earlier when he was on a state visit. On this occasion our talk was mainly of the Arab-Israeli dispute and military co-operation between Britain and Morocco. As well as being enormously cultivated — he speaks half a dozen languages and can make an impromptu speech in any of them — the King has an icy nerve. When I heard from him about the measures he took to protect himself from further assassination attempts I understood that he, like me, understood what it meant to live as a terrorist target.

  Then I flew to Lagos. This was just a stop-over visit and General Babangida came to the airport to have lunch with me. I was glad to learn that he was not just pressing ahead with, but actually toughening, the economic reform programme on which Nigeria had embarked. With our support, Nigeria now had the approval of the IMF and its main western creditors and had secured a rescheduling of debt to its public sector creditors. It is never an easy task to govern a country like Nigeria — it is a somewhat artificial creation divided between the Muslim North and the Christian and pagan South — let alone to do so under conditions of economic austerity.

  I arrived at Harare, Zimbabwe, at 10 o’clock that night, to be met by Robert Mugabe and a floodlit, noisy tribal welcome. It was nearly ten years since I had convened the Lancaster House Conference which led to Mr Mugabe peacefully taking power in Zimbabwe. Since then Britain had provided more than £200 million in aid and military training. Britain was also the largest investor. Zimbabwe could still boast of one of the strongest African economies outside South Africa. But Mr Mugabe’s doctrinaire socialism, suspicion of foreign investment and reluctance to accept the prescriptions of the IMF and the World Bank were taking their toll. I had little reason to expect that I could persuade him to my point of view on the South African sanctions question, but I hoped that I might succeed in bringing him to accept the need for changes in economic policy. At my talks with him the following morning I sought to do this by describing my own economic policies in the United Kingdom where we were reducing the role of the state in the economy and encouraging free enterprise: this, I said, was why our economy was growing and enabling us to provide aid for Zimbabwe. I also drew attention to a recent World Bank study which showed that those African countries which followed programmes recommended by the IMF did better than those which did not. Mr Mugabe recognized, at least in principle, the need to devise an investment code so as to give asssurance to foreign investors. But I was not convinced that the rest of my message really went home. Much of our discussion, however, was about the situation in neighbouring African states, not least Mozambique. I was shortly to learn more about this.

  Later that morning I flew out with President Mugabe to the training camp at Nyanga on the border with Mozambique. There I was met by President Chissano of Mozambique and the three of us had lunch in a tent on a bluff overlooking a deep valley. Then I watched the British troops training Mozambique soldiers to fight the RENAMO guerillas. I could not help reflecting how impossible this prospect would have seemed back in 1979 when I was trying to bring Rhodesia back to peace and legality. It would probably have seemed hardly less improbable to those of my left-wing critics who considered my stand against sanctions as a kind of racist impulse.

  The following evening (Thursday 30 March) I flew from Harare to Blantyre, Malawi. The journey was short and so my VC10 was flying lower than usual — too low for comfort, since at one point we were fired on with missiles by RENAMO. Fortunately they missed. I was met at the airport — with another floodlit tribal greeting — by President Banda. It was an unforgettable occasion. He was an extraordinary man. Although probably in his early nineties, I found him, in my talks, bright, alert and humorous. Almost alone, he had built up Malawi, a poor country, into one with sound finances and sensibly developed agriculture. I stayed with him in his official residence, the Sanjika Palace, where I would come across him wearing dark formal dress and a black hat which he would doff when I met him in the corridor. There was another, less agreeable, side to his regime. Opponents quickly found themselves in jail and traders who, like several of my own Asian constituents, tried to get their money out of the country had their property confiscated.

  Early next morning I helicoptered out to the Mankhokwe Refugee Camp on the border with Mozambique. Most of the flight was over mountains which then dropped away to a plain on which a vast refugee camp housing over 600,000 people had been built. These refugees had fled from the civil war in Mozambique. What they told me about the atrocities committed and the reign of fear created in their villages by RENAMO was truly horrifying. I saw some of those who had just recently fled: they had not eaten for several days and had travelled by night. Their eyes had that deadness which total exhaustion brings. After this, I could never be tempted to regard RENAMO as anti-communist freedom fighters in the way that some right-wing Americans continued to. They were terrorists.

  That night President Banda hosted a state banquet for me. It was a memorable occasion, not least because it lasted over five hours. Each new dish which was brought in was presented first to the President before being served to his guests. My own gaze fell on a giant chocolate cockerel: I can never resist chocolate. Zulus sang and danced throughout the banquet. Then Dr Banda rose to speak. An hour later his account of his life and experiences had only reached 1945. Some of his guests had actually fallen asleep. At this point the lady who acted as his hostess gave him a hard nudge and reminded him of the time. We got through the next forty-three years in five minutes flat. In consideration of those present I cut down my own speech accordingly.

  Hardly anyone knew that from Blantyre I intended to fly to Windhoek, Namibia: the press who were with us were only told after we had taken off. The UN plan to bring Namibia (formerly South-West Africa) to democratic independence had been drawn up in the late 1970s but only now, as a result of American efforts to broker a settlement of the Angolan civil war — to which we had given strong support — was it possible to put it into effect. Security Council Resolution 632 of 16 February 1989 was to be implemented from Saturday 1 April — the day on which I arrived in Windhoek — with a view to elections later in the year.

  On my arrival I was met by the three key figures — the UN Special Representative (Mr Ahtisaari), the UN Force Commander (General Prem Chand) and the South African Administrator-General (Mr Pienaar). Denis and I then visited and had lunch with the small British Signals contingent in their base camp, visited the Rossing Uranium Mine — where I was much impressed by the housing and welfare services provided for the employees
— and then returned to Windhoek. By now it was clear that the whole UN solution to the Namibian problem was at mortal risk. In flagrant disregard of previous undertakings that no armed personnel would come south of the 16th Parallel (well within Angola) hundreds of SWAPO (South-West Africa People’s Organization) troops had crossed the border into Namibia with military equipment. I was not in the least convinced by the reaction of the SWAPO leader — Sam Nujoma — who claimed that his organization was faithfully abiding by the cease-fire and that the so-called invaders must be South Africans in disguise.

  But nor did I believe that it would do anything but harm — not least to South Africa — if the South Africans now responded by unilaterally moving their own forces out of barracks to drive SWAPO back. I met Pik Botha, the South African Foreign minister, at Windhoek Airport. I said that SWAPO had done wrong and therefore South Africa must act with scrupulous correctness. ‘Never put yourself in the wrong’, I said, ‘particularly when your opponents have just done so.’ I told him that he must get in touch with the UN representative and General Prem, present his evidence before them and ask for their authority to get his troops and helicopters out of barracks. I rang Mr Ahtisaari myself to alert him to what was happening.