Prisoner 913. Riaan de Villiers

      About this book

      Riaan de Villiers

      THIS VOLUME is based on largely secret records about Nelson Mandela kept by Kobie Coetsee, Minister of Justice and Prisons, in the last phase of the apartheid regime. In this position, Coetsee presided over the last eight years of Mandela’s incarceration and his eventual release. The records effectively comprise Coetsee’s file on Mandela – ‘Prisoner 913’ – kept in his ministry.

      Coetsee removed the archive – probably illegally – when he vacated his ministry shortly before the transition to democracy. He was about to hand it to the co-author of this volume, the historian Jan-Ad Stemmet, when he died suddenly in 2000. The extraordinary story of Jan-Ad’s brief interaction with Coetsee and the rediscovery of the archive some 13 years later is told in the next essay.

      The fact that Coetsee kept a file on Mandela (and other ‘security prisoners’) is not remarkable in itself – given his portfolio and Mandela’s growing prominence, this would have been routine. However, the archive helps to reveal that Coetsee’s records far exceeded the bounds of any conventional administrative function.

      As is widely known, from 1985 onwards Coetsee took a special interest in Mandela, and eventually started secret talks with him that presaged his eventual release. This interest, and the way it played itself out, is reflected in the archive’s extraordinary scope; the vast 913 file contains a wealth of material about every conceivable aspect of Mandela’s incarceration, ranging from secret government memorandums and other documents through medical reports, letters, press cuttings, and handwritten notes to a plethora of other material.

      Rather sensationally, the archive also contains transcripts of clandestine recordings of many of Mandela’s conversations with a growing stream of visitors while in prison, ranging from foreign dignitaries and the Commonwealth Eminent Persons Group to government ministers, his lawyers, family members, fellow ‘security prisoners’, and other political role players.

      As explained elsewhere, prison warders at that time routinely made notes of visits to certain categories of prisoners, notably ‘security prisoners’. However, the archive discloses that Coetsee introduced what amounted to a second-track intelligence operation, aimed at monitoring everything Mandela and some other prisoners said or did, and utilising this knowledge to inform his own agenda as well as government strategy.

      Put differently, Coetsee used his position to become Mandela’s ‘gatekeeper’, jealously guarding access to his ‘star prisoner’, and placing himself in a position to control or influence the entire process surrounding Mandela’s incarceration and eventual release. As such, these transcripts provide a unique window on Mandela’s beliefs, motivations, strategic decisions, and the course of events at that time.

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      If the archive presents researchers with a unique resource, it also presents them with a formidable challenge. It comprises hundreds of files totalling some 13 000 pages, filed in a sprawling and untidy range of categories. Over the years, some items have become misplaced, resulting in some key documents turning up in unexpected places. Documents are typed, telexed, handwritten and photocopied, and some are very difficult to decipher.

      The archive is equally vast in scope, reflecting a range of dimensions – administrative, legal, political, diplomatic, medical and personal – surrounding Mandela’s incarceration, moving through several stages from his ‘deep’ incarceration which still held in the early 1980s through renewed prominence sparked by growing international pressure and internal unrest, to his eventual ‘open imprisonment’ and release.

      Notably, the Mandela file – simply labelled ‘913’ – is just one such composite file in the Coetsee archive. Similar, albeit less extensive, records were kept on other ‘security prisoners’, notably Walter Sisulu (Prisoner 916). (Also, while our narrative ends when Mandela walks out of prison on 11 February 1990, the secret surveillance of leading ANC figures continued for a significant period, and some of these records also appear in the archive.)

      The entire archive – or, more accurately, the whole 913 file – tells a sweeping and multifaceted story, far too big to capture in a single volume. Given this, we decided to focus on a single theme, namely the light cast by the archive on the hidden process surrounding Mandela’s impending release in the last years of his imprisonment.

      As noted by my co-author, the Coetsee archive is not complete enough to allow the development of a continuous and comprehensive narrative. Therefore, we have juxtaposed our selected material with standard accounts by two key role players, namely Mandela himself – in his autobiography Long Walk to Freedom (1994), and former President F.W. de Klerk, in The Last Trek: A New Beginning (1998), who released Mandela and set in motion the transition to democracy. Put differently, we use the disclosures in the archive to amplify their accounts, plugging the gaps where indicated. In line with these accounts, our narrative moves forward chronologically.

      In the course of developing our narrative, we also found that Secret Revolution: Memoirs of a Spy Boss (2015) by Dr Niël Barnard, head of the National Intelligence Service (NIS) at that time, became directly relevant.

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      Against this background, the archive yields some notable new insights. Without wishing to pre-empt the detailed disclosures as they arrive at their proper time in the course of our story, it reveals:

      That Mandela repeatedly offered to act as ‘facilitator’ between the NP government and the ANC, and that some of his proposals for a negotiated settlement cut across accepted ANC policy;

      That Mandela, with the collaboration of Coetsee and the Department of Prisons, launched an extensive campaign, while installed in a cottage at Victor Verster Prison, to meet as many released prisoners and other political leaders as possible, with a view to moderating their political views and strategies;

      That, from December 1989 onwards, again with the government’s knowledge and approval, Mandela began to talk to the ANC leadership in Lusaka, conveying various requests and proposals, including the terms of a proposed negotiated settlement;