this and probably told Mandela about it, but he never mentioned it or raised any objections. This was probably because Mandela was aware that he was not the elected leader of the ANC and did not have a mandate to conduct discussions with government representatives. As a result, Barnard argues, the taped conversations might have been an insurance policy that would enable him at a later stage to show which undertakings he had made, and which not.
Barnard claims that, ironically, the surveillance strengthened their mutual trust. During a few conversations at the cottage, Mandela took his arm and said: ‘Let’s go outside and talk under the tree.’ But the tree was also bugged. ‘When we got there, I looked up at the branches and said: “Let’s rather talk elsewhere in the garden.” He smiled, and we walked away together.’
While inconsistent in some respects, this passage seems to confirm that NIS recorded two kinds of conversations – those between Mandela and the government working group (including Barnard), and conversations between him and other visitors. However, it also suggests that this was done by NIS alone. Barnard must have known that at least some of the conversations were also being taped by Coetsee’s surveillance system within the prisons service. Why he does not acknowledge this is unclear.
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On 18 July 2012 the Rivonia trialist Denis Goldberg, who spent 22 years in Pretoria Central Prison, and other members of the Ex-Political Prisoners’ Association commemorated Mandela Day by planting trees outside the cottage at Victor Verster Prison. Goldberg and the other former prisoners were taken on a tour of the cottage by Warrant Officer Jack Swart, Mandela’s personal chef during that time. During the tour, Swart pointed out a hole in a tree where a microphone had been placed to record Mandela’s ‘every conversation’. He also showed the visitors a small room just off the kitchen which, he said, was the only room in the house which was not bugged.2
Talking to a reporter, Goldberg expressed concern about several aspects of South Africa’s post-apartheid order. However, he added that anyone who said South Africa should have righted itself in the 18 years since the first democratic elections in 1994 was mistaken. ‘They didn’t read history. History takes time. Sadly, 18 years is nothing.’3
1
Let the games begin …
‘All that is required of Mandela now … is that he should unconditionally reject violence as a political instrument. This is, after all, a norm which is respected in all civilized countries of the world …’
ON THURSDAY, 31 January 1985, State President P.W. Botha announced in parliament that the South African government was prepared to consider Nelson Mandela’s release from prison, provided he was prepared to renounce the use of violence for political ends.
While this was less well known, the government had made numerous offers to release Mandela in previous years.1 However, all of these hinged on him accepting release to the ‘Republic’ of Transkei, which would have amounted to a tacit recognition of the apartheid homelands system, and isolated him from his own movement as well as resurgent political resistance in ‘white’ South Africa.
At that stage, the Transkei was governed by K.D. (Kaiser) Matanzima, Mandela’s nephew, who had decided to collaborate with the homelands system. He offered Mandela a comfortable home, but also undertook to ensure that Mandela would ‘abide by the law’. In this setting, Mandela would have been marginalised to the point of becoming a forgotten man, which – for a time – is clearly what the authorities (and probably Matanzima) wished to achieve. For these reasons, Mandela consistently rejected these offers, or simply did not respond.
Botha’s statement in parliament attracted widespread attention, both because it underscored that, amid mounting international pressure and rising internal unrest, Mandela had become a far greater political problem, and also because it meant the government had given up on trying to persuade him to accept release to the Transkei.
By then, Mandela had been incarcerated for more than 20 years. This included a period he describes, in Long Walk to Freedom, as ‘The Dark Years’ during which he and fellow ‘security prisoners’ endured brutal conditions on Robben Island, and a subsequent period he describes as ‘Beginning to Hope’ in which conditions on the Island improved and he and others began to enjoy greater contact with the outside world. This period ended in 1982 when he and four other prominent ‘security prisoners’ – Walter Sisulu, Ahmed Kathrada, Raymond Mhlaba and Andrew Mlangeni – were abruptly moved from Robben Island to Pollsmoor Prison, a maximum security prison on the Cape Peninsula.
In sharp contrast with their conditions on the Island, they were installed in a penthouse on top of the main prison building, comprising a large room with four properly made beds, and separate ablution facilities. (Previously, they had slept on mats on their cell floors.) It was connected to a large outside terrace where they were allowed out during the day. No reason for the move was provided, However, Mandela and his colleagues believed the authorities were attempting to ‘cut off the head of the ANC on the island by removing its leadership’.2
Nevertheless, the food was much better; they were permitted a fairly wide range of newspapers and magazines, and were also given a radio (which, to their regret, only received local stations and not the BBC World Service). Mandela started a vegetable garden on the terrace, in oil drums cut in half that were supplied by the prisons service. In May 1984, he received the first ‘contact’ visit from his wife, Winnie, his daughter Zenani (known as Zeni), and a granddaughter during which he could hug them for the first time in 21 years.
Given their improved connections with the outside world, Mandela and his colleagues were aware that the anti-apartheid struggle was intensifying, that new grassroots political movements – including the United Democratic Front (UDF) – were being formed inside the country, and that the ANC was experiencing a ‘new birth of popularity’. Also, countries across the globe were beginning to impose economic sanctions on South Africa.
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In this context, there were other indications that the process surrounding Mandela had begun to accelerate. On Monday, 21 January, just ten days before Botha’s statement in parliament, a prominent British and European politician, Lord Nicholas Bethell, was allowed to interview Mandela in Pollsmoor Prison. Bethell had a standing interest in human rights issues, and had been petitioning the South African government for permission to visit Mandela for a long time. However, after many months of routine refusals, it had become expedient to allow Bethell to interview Mandela.
A member of the Conservative Party, Bethell was a staunch anti-communist who had campaigned against human rights abuses in the Soviet Union. He was the first foreigner to be allowed to visit Mandela in prison, and the first person allowed to publish an interview with him. Put differently, this was the first time that Mandela’s views would be placed on public record in 22 years.3
Bethell’s account of the interview was published at length in the British Mail on Sunday six days later, on 27 January 1985. It went on to receive global media coverage – notably because it contained what were thought to be the first public comments by Mandela on prospects for negotiations with the NP government, including the conditions under which the ANC would suspend its ‘armed struggle’.
The Coetsee archive contains both typed and handwritten transcripts of their conversation. Revealingly, Bethell told Mandela that he had seen Kobie Coetsee earlier that morning, and would see him again later the same day. This points to the conclusion that Coetsee (and presumably P.W. Botha) had allowed Bethell to interview Mandela and publish the results in order to achieve several interrelated objectives. The first was to gauge Mandela’s current stance on the renunciation of violence; the second, to discredit the ANC by displaying its commitment to ‘terrorism’ to the international community; the third, to
