Mandela

by Anthony Sampson

  The optimism about an African renaissance was fading as civil wars raged again through the continent, and South Africa was seen abroad as part of a deteriorating continent. “When pictures flash across the television screens of hunger, of poverty, of devastation, of the dependence on charity,” warned Mbeki in July 1998, “they do not say it is occurring in the Republic of Kalahuta. They say it occurs in Africa.”15

  Mandela still retained his unique prestige, not only in Africa but in most developing nations; and South Africa was a potential bridge to the richer countries. It had an opportunity to play its new role when the Non-Aligned Movement, including over a hundred developing nations, held its twelfth summit in Durban in September 1998, chaired by South Africa. Mandela welcomed an exotic gathering, including Fidel Castro and Yasser Arafat, and gave a challenging opening speech. He questioned the “orthodox uniformity” of the global marketplace, with its language of budget deficits, capital movements and flexible labor markets, and warned that people might “end up deifying the means to an end,” and forget that the real purpose of development was to improve “the material and spiritual life of every citizen.” He assured them of his independence; he also criticized “the narrow, chauvinistic interests of the current administration in Israel” for blocking the prospect of a permanent peace in the Middle East; and urged India and Pakistan to resolve their bitter dispute over Kashmir through peaceful negotiations, offering his help.16 The Israeli government quickly complained about Mandela’s “unpleasant and unhelpful remarks,” while the Indian Prime Minister, Vajpayee, warned third parties to stay out of the Kashmir dispute. But Mandela received praise from Pakistan and the Palestinians, and later played host to a state visit by Arafat—now debilitated and shaking from Parkinson’s disease. “South Africa must be able to say that someone or some government is doing something wrong,” said Jackie Selebi, the new Director-General at the Foreign Ministry, “without having the stock markets plunge.”17

  Mandela had been redrawing South Africa’s economic map of the world by forging new alliances. At first his most promising new financial friends were in the fast-growing economies of Asia, who had made generous donations to the ANC (see Chapter 28). But there were many complications. Taiwan, which had given the ANC $10 million in 1993, proved an embarrassing ally when Mandela’s government sought to recognize mainland China. Mandela insisted that he would not stab his old friend Taiwan in the back, drawing the complaint from Tony Leon of the Democratic Party that “Our whole foreign policy is based on the electoral debts of the ANC.” But Pretoria soon switched course, and was able to recognize China without completely alienating Taiwan.18

  Mandela had more than party political reasons to develop links with Asia, at a time when international investors and bankers were heaping praise on the wonder economies of the “tigers” of the East. He looked to reinvent the “Indian Ocean Rim,” which had played its part in earlier South African history when communities of Indians, Malays and Chinese settled on its shores. “Long years ago, trade and relations existed between Asia and southern Africa,” Mandela pointed out in Singapore in 1997, “relations that we are only now starting fully to appreciate.”19 And he had useful links with Muslim countries: there were three Indian Muslims in his cabinet, as well as two Hindus. “Democratic South Africa, unlike its predecessor,” he told the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies in 1998, “accords Islam equal constitutional status with all other religions.”20 Mandela had been lionized in Indonesia, where he had praised President Suharto as “an able, patient and suave leader.” He refused publicly to condemn Suharto’s abuses of human rights. But he privately raised with him the issue of East Timor, which Indonesia had annexed in 1975 against heavy world protest; and in 1997 he persuaded Suharto to allow him to see Jose Xanana Gusmao, the jailed leader of the East Timor Liberation Movement, whose ordeals had some parallels with Mandela’s own. He pleaded with Suharto to release him, with his familiar argument: “unban, release, negotiate”21—which would be vindicated after Suharto’s fall.

  Malaysia developed a closer commercial relationship with South Africa. Mandela had been impressed by Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamed when he visited South Africa in 1990, and again at the Commonwealth Conference in 1991; he was also attracted to the Malaysian concept of “Bumiputera,” or “sons of the soil,” which sought to give Malays a bigger share in the ownership of industry and to establish a prosperous Malay middle class to compete with the Chinese minority—a situation with obvious parallels for black South Africans. When Mandela visited Malaysia in 1996 he praised the country as a model for training, restructuring and empowerment. And Mahathir encouraged Malay businesses to reach across the Indian Ocean, in keeping with “South-South” diplomacy. After the 1994 elections Malay companies moved into timber, property and other industries in South Africa, culminating in the purchase of a third of the energy company Engen and a major share in the telecommunications giant Telkom. Malaysia, it was said, was taking the place of Cuba in the ANC’s intellectual geography.22

  But the Southeast Asian tigers were crippled by the economic crises of late 1997, which sent currencies tumbling, banks failing and companies collapsing into bankruptcy; and President Suharto was toppled. Western economists who had lavished praise on the Asian miracle countries now claimed they had always been flawed by corruption and “crony capitalism.” For a time South Africa, with its sounder banking system, seemed much less vulnerable; but the collapses in Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand soon scared Western investors away from all emerging markets, and they withdrew funds from South Africa, precipitating a new fall of the rand; while the openings to the East now looked much less promising. South Africa could not escape from its basic dependence on the West, whether for investment or diplomacy.

  Mandela had an ambivalent relationship with the United States. Since his first triumphant tour in 1990 he had been encouraged by the reservoir of American goodwill, and he loved the visits of film stars, pop singers and friendly politicians. Presidents Bush and Clinton were both proud of their personal links with him. The past sins of the CIA had been forgiven, and the State Department wanted to use Pretoria as a surrogate power in Africa. But Mandela was resistant to American arrogance, and reacted fiercely to patronizing attitudes or insults to African dignity. He was one of the few leaders who could publicly criticize Washington and get away with it; as one Ambassador said: “He wants to exorcise the idea that America is unchallengeable.” And he knew that much of the developing world was behind him.23

  Mandela spoke out against Clinton in November 1996, when he vetoed the reappointment of UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, who was supported by most other UN members: if America defied the consensus, he warned, “we could be plunged into chaos because, after that precedent, no country will observe majority decisions in the world body.”24 Mandela was partly reassured by the appointment of an African Secretary-General, Kofi Annan from Ghana, but he continued to object to Washington’s high-handed treatment of the UN.

  Mandela also resented Washington’s attempts to restrict Pretoria’s selling of arms—where he was on shakier moral ground. The apartheid governments had built up an extravagant weapons industry which they subsidized by selling weapons abroad wherever they could; and after the ANC came to power the state arms company, Armscor, continued to make deals with dubious customers. The State Department was outraged in early 1997 when they learned that Pretoria was planning to sell tanks worth $650 million to Syria, Israel’s bitter enemy. The Americans warned that such an act would be “extremely serious,” and Senators threatened to cut off aid to South Africa. Mandela reacted angrily: “We will conclude agreements with any country whether they are popular in the West or not … the enemies of countries in the West are not ours.”25

  But Mandela’s chief defiance of Washington was his championing of the two American bêtes noires, Qadaffi and Castro. He reasserted his friendship for them in February 1996, while he was visiting Robben Island with Gro Brundtland, the Prime Mini
ster of Norway. It was a dramatic moment: speaking impromptu in the lime quarry, Mandela paid tribute to Norway for having supported the ANC when they were almost without friends. Warming to his theme with visible enjoyment, he announced that he would invite both Castro and Qadaffi to South Africa; he complained that President Bush had advised him not to support them, but said “we will never renounce our friends.”26

  Castro made a theatrical state visit to South Africa in 1998, after attending the Non-Aligned Summit in Durban, where he warned about “an unavoidable and deep economic crisis” which was threatening the whole world. He addressed a joint sitting of Parliament, delivering an emotional speech, “like a love letter that you write to a sweetheart you have been longing for.” The Democratic Party boycotted Castro as an “enemy of democracy,” but black South Africans applauded him with shouts of “Cuba! Cuba!” Later he spoke for two hours in Soweto without taking even a sip of water.27

  Qadaffi never visited South Africa, but Mandela continued to champion him as an old ally who had helped the ANC in the dark days of the sixties (though he had also helped the rival PAC). Qadaffi was still more demonized by the West after the bombing of an American airliner over Lockerbie, Scotland, in December 1988, which was blamed on Libyan agents. But Mandela had visited Libya several times from 1990, partly to raise funds for the ANC. When the West demanded that the Libyan suspects be extradited and put on trial, Mandela argued with President Bush and insisted they should be tried in a neutral country.28 The Americans’ anger boiled over in October 1997, when Mandela was preparing for a state visit to Libya. The State Department said it would be “disappointed” if the visit went ahead. Mandela reacted furiously at a banquet in Johannesburg:

  How can they have the arrogance to dictate to us who our friends should be? … Can you imagine what they would say if I said Boris Yeltsin should not visit Albania? They would say that I am the most arrogant black man.… Notwithstanding the changes in the world, the contempt for blacks is still deep-seated.

  He ended with an echo of his favorite poem on Robben Island: “I am the master of my fate.” And he defiantly went ahead with his visit to Libya. Qadaffi embraced him, kissed him, held up his hand in solidarity and showed him the presidential palace which had been destroyed by American bombers. Mandela criticized “countries that play policeman of the world,” and argued that “those who object to my visiting Libya have no morals.… A politician must not lose his morals and must be ready for suffering, and this is the reason which made me remain twenty-seven years in prison.”29

  From Libya, Mandela flew on to Edinburgh for a Commonwealth Summit hosted by Tony Blair, and put the subject of Libya into the forefront, arguing again that the bombing suspects should be tried in a neutral country: it was wrong, he said, for any country to be “the complainant, the prosecutor and the judge at the same time.” He gained support from British families of the victims of Lockerbie, who resisted the American hard line. On his way back he stopped again in Libya, where he invested Qadaffi with the Order of Good Hope, and advised him to “understand the importance of moderate language.”30

  Mandela’s defense of Qadaffi upset many Westerners: the saint of Robben Island, as the Guardian put it, appeared to be in league with the mad dog of Tripoli.31 His attack on American morality exasperated American conservatives: it was disgusting, said the New Republic, “an example of moral absolutism at its worst.”32 White South Africans were also outraged by his defiance of American policy. But Mandela saw the criticism as basically racist. “Not a single African, Coloured or Indian has questioned my going to Libya,” he said, “but they regard the interests of the whites as being the interests of the country: that you cannot challenge the United States because the interests of the country are going to be harmed. Not one black man has said so: only the white parties.”33

  Mandela kept in touch with Qadaffi through Jakes Gerwel, his self-effacing Cabinet Secretary, who had experience of negotiating the nonnegotiable, while Mandela would ring up Blair and Clinton directly, to the dismay of their diplomats. Mandela was able to reassure Qadaffi—who trusted him much more than the UN—and in March 1999 flew to Tripoli to clinch the deal: that Qadaffi would hand over the two suspects, in return for the UN dropping its sanctions. It was (as the conservative media conceded) a vindication of Mandela’s personal diplomacy and friendly relations with Libya.34

  Mandela’s championing of Libya did not damage his growing friendship with President Clinton, which was based on mutual admiration. Clinton always remembered watching Mandela’s release on television in Arkansas with his wife, Hillary, and daughter, Chelsea (who became fascinated by Mandela’s story).35 Mandela found Clinton “brilliant” when they first met, and soon saw him as the friend of minorities. “Clinton has done something which has never been done in the United States,” he told me. “He has brought in blacks, he has brought in women, disabled, and he has got solid support from blacks.”36 Mandela would often ring Clinton, and could not remember him refusing any request.*

  In March 1998 Clinton paid a state visit to South Africa as the climax of an African tour, which emphasized the special importance of Pretoria’s role. “South Africa’s relationship with the rest of the continent,” said the American Ambassador, James Joseph, “is very much like our relationship with the rest of the world. We’re both dominant powers.”37 Addressing Parliament, Clinton paid tribute to the courage and imagination of the new South Africa, and insisted that Americans should stop asking what they could do for Africa and instead ask what to do with Africa—a point which particularly appealed to Mandela.38 But Mandela soon broke with the usual exchange of compliments: at a press conference in the Tuynhuys garden he criticized American pressures and reasserted his independence over Libya, Iran and Cuba. Clinton appeared unfazed, and Mandela delighted him by telling his own South African critics to “go jump in the pond.” Later he infuriated Clinton’s aides by insisting on very private diplomacy: he first talked alone with the President, and then invited his Saudi friend Prince Bandar, who was waiting, to join them.39

  Mandela could give Clinton the kind of moral support he desperately needed—as he displayed in Washington six months later, when Clinton was feeling the full heat of his persecutors, who were threatening him with impeachment. At a White House reception for religious leaders Clinton paid an emotional tribute to his guest: “Every time Nelson Mandela walks into a room we all feel a little bigger, we all want to stand up, we all want to cheer, because we’d like to be him on our best day.”

  Mandela replied, referring obliquely to the clamor to impeach the President. He insisted: “It is not our business to interfere in this matter,” but went on to praise Clinton as “a friend of South Africa and Africa,” and to promise his loyalty, as he had done to Qadaffi: “We have often said that our morality does not allow us to desert our friends. And we have got to say tonight: we are thinking of you in this difficult and uncertain time in your life.”40

  Mandela, now eighty, did not lose his delight in foreign travel. In his last months as President he covered much of the world with his wife, Graça, to say good-byes to his friends. Some white South Africans complained or joked about his absences (“This week President Mandela is paying a visit to South Africa”), but he had made it clear that he was not now running the country. His international aura had hardly been blurred by his years in office. Insecure heads of government gained confidence and kudos from being seen with him, and he could reassure leaders from the right as much as the left. In Britain the Queen visibly appreciated his visits at a time when her own family was under fire, while Tony Blair could improve his left-wing image by making a quick visit to Mandela in January 1999.

  How far were these enthusiastic welcomes translated into practical assistance? Could Mandela cash in on his charisma? South African Ambassadors tried hard to use their President’s visits to attract investors or to improve terms of trade. But the image of the saintly Mandela was not necessarily helpful in the marketplace, for it implied
that he was above worldly matters, like Mother Teresa or the Dalai Lama. “St. Nelson needs our cash,” warned The Times of London above an article about Mandela’s 1996 state visit by the conservative columnist Simon Jenkins, who wrote him off as a serious head of government: “A state can be represented by a saint but not ruled by one.”41

  In Europe there was an even wider gap between moral praise and economic support. When Mandela first became President in 1994 the European Union was full of goodwill for a prosperous and stable South Africa, and promised to open up a free-trade area which would be a model of enlightened development policy. But the negotiators in Brussels soon came up against German potato farmers, Italian wine producers and Dutch flower growers; and after four years and forty rounds of talks they had still not made good their original promise to Mandela. The British, being less threatened economically, were the most supportive of South Africa, and in 1998 Tony Blair invited Mandela to the European Summit in Cardiff, hoping his presence might shame the Europeans into opening up their markets. The European heads of government, led by Helmut Kohl and Jacques Chirac, welcomed him with thunderous applause. The British EC Commissioner, Neil Kinnock, whispered to Mandela to press for the commitment to be honored, but Mandela replied wryly: “There is no ink in their pens.” The Europeans promised an agreement by the autumn, but then postponed it once again. At last, on March 26, 1999, the European heads of government approved an agreement, which Pretoria welcomed as a “massive statement of confidence”—a few hours before Mandela’s final speech to Parliament.42