" SOUTH AFRICA: A YEAR OF DEMOCRACY "
Address of the Deputy President of South Africa Thabo Mbeki, at the Bruno-Kreisky-Forum Vienna, August 28, 1995.
Issued by: Deputy President of SA Thabo Mbeki
Chairperson, Distinguished participants.
We feel greatly privileged to have the opportunity to address this important forum, which also takes on special significance by virtue of the fact that it is named after a distinguished Austrian and international statesperson, the late Bruno Kreisky. We thank you most sincerely for the honour you have thus bestowed upon us.
The topic we have been asked to address is "South Africa's first year of Democracy", a year which, for us as South Africans, has been one of new challenges and exciting developments, starting with the moving inauguration of Nelson Mandela as President of the democratic Republic of South Africa and the installation of the rest of the Government of National Unity.
We could not avoid remarking the fact that as we marked our first year of liberation from apartheid tyranny, the peoples of the world, and those of europe in particular, celebrated 50 years of their own emancipation from Nazi tyranny.
Many of the architects of the apartheid system in South Africa had drawn direct inspiration from German fascism and had sought both to advance the fortunes of the Nazis and to implement their terrible vision of race domination and tyrannical rule over our country as well.
As we marked our first anniversary of democracy, we hoped that our victory had helped to bring to its final close a period of history when it had been possible for racists to seize power, impose a system of racial and ethnic domination on the peoples, and engage in the crime of ethnic cleansing.
Events in various parts of the world, including Europe, Africa and Latin America would, however, suggest that our common task, to end the barbarism of the notion and practice of racial and ethnic superiority, has not yet been completed.
As a country and a people, one year after our emancipation, we continue to be confronted by the challenge of overcoming the legacy of the system of apartheid which, inter alia, imposed on our country:
In reality, it is impossible successfully to reconstruct and develop a society afflicted with so many ills, and functioning within a democratic political order, without deliberate and conscious cooperation among its main political and social players.
In our case, the stage for such deliberate and conscious co-operation was set both by the process of negotiations which resulted in an agreed process of transition to democracy, and the establishment of a Government of National Unity which drew into a coalition government the main political players identified as such by the first democratic elections of April 27th last year.
In a sense, and without underestimating the genius of our people, we can say that in this instance, as in many others necessity became the mother of invention.
To reflect on this matter properly, we might perhaps say that that genius consisted in the practical application of the philosophical principle that freedom is the recognition of necessity.
It was in the exercise of that freedom that we elected to convene an all-party conference to negotiate our transition and agreed to form a multi-party government to preside over that transition.
The necessity to proceed in this manner resulted from the fact that neither of the main belligerents in the struggle for the future of our country achieved its principal goal, of completely defeating the other.
The ruling forces of apartheid failed to defeat and destroy the movement for national liberation and democracy. For their part, the latter did not succeed to overthrow the apartheid regime and seize power from it.
This situation did not result in a stalemate. Rather, it created a new, dynamic and unstable equilibrium which necessarily had to be addressed, within the context of its own specifics, even as some among the contending forces might still pine or contend for a result which they had failed to accomplish.
It was a result of the practical expression of the latter consideration that throughout the process of negotiations, political violence in the country continued with varying intensity, and the negotiations themselves occasionally came to a halt, only to resume when it became clear that the equilibrium achieved at the beginning continued to hold.
I believe that even now, as the country develops in the context of a negotiated and agreed settlement, led by a Government of National Unity, we must expect that elements of co-operation and competition will continue to characterise the relations among the main players in our society.
This is an observation that we can quite easily substantiate from both a theoretical and an empirical basis.
We are therefore happy to advise this audience that it should not be stampeded to read crisis each time the element of competition among the leading players in our society asserts itself, even as these players continue to participate in the process of deliberate and conscious co-operation that we have spoken of.
To take this matter one step further, the argument remains yet to be substantiated as to why and under what conditions the minority parties participating in government, would find it in their interest to withdraw from government, go into opposition and deny themselves the possibility to share the accolades for the success of the process of reconstruction and development which will, inevitably, make South Africa a better place to live for all its citizens.
If we have so far been discussing questions of form, let us now turn to the important matter of content and substance.
Occupying the centre-stage in this regard are the twin concepts of reconsiliation and transformation.
What underpinned the dynamic equilibrium we have spoken of was the common realisation that no constituency or interest would benefit from a protracted struggle that would turn our country into a wasteland of destruction, poverty and insecurity.
Most of those called upon to play a role, realised that nobody could lose and everybody would gain from sharing a common nationhood and joining hands to determine a shared destiny.
Of enormous importance in this regard, was the fact that throughout the decades of its existence, the liberation movement had consistently and unequivocally espoused the principle of non-racialism and a common South African nationhood, even in the face of the harshest forms of racial tyranny and racist bigotry and insult that the apartheid system was capable of.
Taking all these factors into account, it became obvious that national reconsiliation and national unity had indeed to belong among the principal results of the resolution of the South African conflict.
Without that reconsiliation, the conflict and the war from which nobody would profit would never come to an end.
It would never be possible to embark on a programme of reconstruction and development.
Reconciliation that merely sought to reassure the former rulers by forgiving them their sins and legitimising their positions of racial privilege could never be sustained.
Similarly and as part of the process of reconciliation, we have thought it important that human rights abuses that occurred during the struggle should be exposed and acknowledged.
Accordingly, a Truth and Reconciliation Commission will be established to discover the truth about these abuses, enable those involved to obtain amnesty and those affected to receive reparation.
We believe that in this way we will avoid the possibility of people seeking vengeance against those who persecuted them and create a climate for the healing of wounds and true conciliation among those who were enemies.
But that reconciliation had also to be situated within the context of a vigorous process of transformation.
As an example, political reconciliation among the contending political forces could only be achieved on the basis of the transformation of the political order, creating the conditions in which the formerly disenfranchised could participate as equals in the new dispensation, while the formerly enfranchised lost their exclusive control of political power.
If you consider the breadth and depth of the transformation project on South African society as a whole, then you will understand the enormity of the challenge we face to transform South Africa into what our constitution describes as a non-racial and non-sexist country.
This is so because that process of transformation must encompass everything else in addition to the political, including the economy, the public service, the security organs of state, education and the social services, the language issue, access to resourcs for the promotion of arts and culture, and so on.
In this regard, consider a few statistics. The income differential between Whites and Africans in our country remains in the range of 8 to 1. More than 80 per cent of the economy is controlled by the whites, who constitutes 13 per cent of our population.
Between 8 and 9 million Africans are classified as destitute. Only 30 per cent of African women participate in the formal economy, with the majority trapped in poverty and destitution.
To change all this is going to take a gigantic effort of national will and application. If these conditions are not addressed, if the people's dream for a better life is deferred for ever, then surely must we expect that at some point in future, South Africa will be torn apart by a major and catastrophic racial explosion.
It should therefore be clear why we describe reconsiliation and transformation as twin elements of our process of recontruction and development.
Transformation requires that all the major constituencies in our country should join hands in conditions of peace and stability to bring about the changes, especially the deracialisation of our society, which are themselves the necessary prerequisites for true and permanent peace and stability.
That investment in transformation itself creates the conditions for the true and permanent reconciliation we will attain when, by ceasing to define ourselves in politics and economics in terms of race, colour or ethnicity, we finally make a break with the past of three centuries of colonialism and apartheid when race and colour were a fundamental and all-encompassing condition of existence.
In a sense, what we have said so far encapsulates our experience one-and-quarter-years after our liberation.
Fifteen months after our first democratic government was installed, we are proud to say that the democratic centre continues to hold, driven by a common desire to lead our country through its transition in conditions of stability.
We are now preparing to hold local government elections in the greater part of the country, to put in place the third and last tier of democratically elected government. We view this as being of critical importance both with regard to the objective of bringing government as close as possible to the people and ensuring effective socio-economic transformation that will impact directly on the people.
The structures of local government that will be created have also been designed to ensure inclusive representation of all racial groups in each locality taking into account the reality that we still carry with us the racial patterns of human settlement which were imposed on the country through the application of the apartheid concept of group areas.
Once more, we are determined to ensure that these elections take place in conditions of peace and the absence of intimidation so that the administrations that emerge are accepted as legitimate and representative of the will of the people.
The process has also continued to put in place institutions of the democratic order that will further entrench and strengthen the democratic system.
These include historically new institutions such as a Constitutional Court, a Human Rights Commission and the Office of the Public Protector.
Legislation is also being processed which will create a Gender Commission and a Youth Commission to ensure that we deal effectively with the two important questions of the emancipation of women and youth development.
The transformation of the public service, including the security organs, is also moving apace, addressing in particular the questions of race and gender imbalance within the management echelons of this service as well as the reorientation of the public administration so that it serves the people rather than act as an instrument for their oppression.
A distinct feature of the practice of democracy in the country has been the serious attempt to involve the people in governance as an expression of what has been described as a people-driven process, to help ensure that we achieve and maintain a national consensus with regard to all major elements of our transformation.
In this regard, we should mention the establishment of a statutory body called the National Economic Development and Labour Council, which brings together government, labour, business and the NGO sector in an organ which helps to develop policy on the major socio-economic issues facing our country.
As part of the same process of seeking national consensus and involving the people in governance, all major pieces of legislation have been subjected to extensive public scrutiny through consultations carried out both by the executive and the legislature.
In this regard, mention should also be made of an "Open Democracy Bill" that will soon be tabled to ensure the greatest possible access of the public to government information, both as a means of protecting the rights of the individual and enabling the people to impact on the process of governance.
It is also important to mention here that the national parliament also sits as a Constitutional Assembly. Fifteen months after the formation of the new government, we are well on our way towards the formulation and adoption of a new constitution to replace our current interim one.
Once again, in this regard, we have sought to encourage the ordinary people to make their own inputs so that the final product enjoys the greatest possible legitimacy, particularly given the fact that here we are dealing with the fundamental law of the country.
Undoubtedly, one of the greatest challenges we have faced in this period has been the implementation of programmes that would impact directly on improving the quality of life of the people by way of the creation of new jobs, provision of housing, expanding primary health care, supplying clean water especially in rural areas, and so on.
Success in this regard rests on three principal pillars, these being the capacity of the government to generate the necessary resources, the willingness of the private sector to participate in the provision of these resources and the institutional capacity actually to implement policy.
We do not have time to dwell on the detail of this matter, save to say that fifteen months on, we are in a better position to achieve greater progress than has been the case to date.
This is not to say nothing has happened, as various programmes have already been started including the provision of free health care for mothers and children, school feeding, a public works programme and the supply of clean water.
Similarly, the period we are talking about has seen positive developments with regard to the economy, including the growth of fixed investment, increased inflows of foreign capital and a limited advance towards the creation of new private sector jobs.
Of great importance has been a sustained interest by the international investor community in the South African economy as well as significant confidence in the future of the country, exemplified in part by two successful government bond issues and investment ratings issued by US and Japanese rating companies.
We believe that it is also important that we remind ourselves of the location of South Africa in the region of Southern Africa and the African continent.
Our region, for many years affected by wars of liberation, civil wars and a campaign of aggression and destabilisation by apartheid South Africa, is moving towards establishing peace for itself.
The last country in the region in which the guns have finally been silenced is Angola. Our region as a whole is keenly interested that the Angola peace agreement be implemented in full as soon as possible.
Among other things, we look forward to the completion of the deployment of UNAVEM personnel to assist the government and people of Angola finally to bring peace to a country which has suffered greatly as a result of armed conflict which has persisted for over two decades.
The point should also be made that the region of Southern Africa is also characterised by the establishment of democratic systems in all our countries, with successful multi-party elections having taken place in at least 7 countries in the region in the last 18 months, the next one being due in Tanzania in October.
The countries of the region continue to strengthen the relations among themselves in various areas, including the political, economic and security fields. Even as we speak, a summit meeting of the 11 member states of the Southern African Development Community is taking place in South Africa, hosted by President Mandela.
The processes bode well for the region which has already been able to take joint action to begin clearing the considerable number of illegal weapons that are available in various countries and to deal with the problem of drugs that are being brought into the region from various parts of the world.
One of the important events that has occurred in the period since our liberation was the beginning of discussions between the SADC and the EU in a conference held in Belgium where the question of region-to-region co-operation between these two entities.
The period since the liberation of South Africa has confirmed the importance of Southern Africa in terms of making a contribution to ending what has been described as "Afro-pessimism", according to which the larger part of the continent is seen as an area afflicted by endemic conflict, permanent underdevelopment and military rule.
The reality of the region is that it is transforming itself into a zone of peace, building stable democratic systems, positioning itself productively to exploit its considerable human and natural resources and organising it self to make a contribution to the challenge of peace, democracy, development and stability in the rest of our continent.
We firmly believe that this country, which, for decades, took sides in favour of independence and democracy in Southern Africa, will continue to maintain its interest and involvement in our country and region because here is concentrated a process of development in which you, as Austrians are surely interested - namely,
One year after its own emancipation, South Africa is proud to play its own humble role in these developments and looks forward to your support in the struggle to sustain the miracle of the transformation, not only of South Africa, but our region as a whole.
Thank You.