The Downing Street Years (91 page)

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.

In fact, the UN did authorize the South Africans to use their forces. But it was all legal. Though there were many casualties, a full-scale confrontation was avoided, assembly points were designated to which SWAPO units reported to be escorted back across the border with their arms by UN forces, a new cease-fire was agreed — and this now held. That autumn SWAPO won the elections for the Namibian Constituent Assembly and Mr Nujoma became President — in which capacity he thanked me when I was at the United Nations in September 1990 for my intervention. In fact, I had held no brief for SWAPO. But I did believe that only with the issue of Namibia sorted out could there be peaceful change in South Africa. I had been the right person in the right place at the right time.

But my activities in black Africa had little impact on ‘Commonwealth opinion’. Nor, it seemed, did changes in South Africa itself.

I had always felt that fundamental reform would never take place while P. W. Botha was President. But in January 1989 Mr Botha suffered a stroke and the following month was succeeded as National Party Leader by F. W. de Klerk, who became President in August. It was surely right to give the new South African leader the opportunity to make his mark without ham-fisted outside intervention.

The 1989 CHOGM was due to take place in October in Kuala Lumpur, hosted by Dr Mahathir. I went there with a new Foreign Secretary, John Major, and a renewed determination not to go further down the path of sanctions. I also tried to raise the sights of those present to the great changes which were taking place in the world around them. Introducing the session on the ‘World Political Scene’ I drew attention to the momentous changes occurring in the Soviet Union and their implications for all of us. I said that there was now the prospect of settling regional conflicts — not least those in Africa — which had been aggravated by the international subversion of communism. Throughout the world we must now ardently advocate democracy and a much freer economic system. I secretly hoped that the message would not be lost on the many illiberal, collectivist Commonwealth countries whose representatives were present.

But the debate on South Africa brought out all the old venom. Bob Hawke and Kenneth Kaunda argued the case for sanctions. I intervened to read out a letter I had recently received from a British company which had invested in pineapple-canning in South Africa, but found its export markets in the USA and Canada cut off by sanctions and had therefore been forced to close, putting 1,100 black and 40 white South Africans out of work. That was the only sense in which sanctions ‘worked’. I also quoted figures to show that Britain’s share of South African imports and exports had fallen further over the last eight years than that of the rest of the Commonwealth, adding that our share had largely been picked up by Japan and Germany. I pointed out that Britain was providing substantial help for black South Africans, their education, their housing, rural projects, refugees from Mozambique and aid to the ‘front line’ states. We were assisting ‘Operation Hunger’ which provides meals for millions of poor South Africans. By contrast, the aim of many others at the CHOGM seemed to be to multiply the number of those who were hungry.

By now I was quite used to the vicious, personal attacks in which my Commonwealth colleagues liked to indulge. John Major was not: he found their behaviour quite shocking. I left him back in Kuala Lumpur with the other Foreign ministers to draft the communiqué while I and the other heads of government went off to our retreat in Langkawi. While I was there my officials faxed through a text which the Foreign ministers apparently thought we could all ‘live with’. But I could only live with it if I also put out a separate unambiguous statement of our own views. I had it drafted and sent back to John Major in Kuala Lumpur. Contrary to what the press — almost as
eager for ‘splits’ as they were for describing Britain’s ‘isolation’ — subsequently alleged, John was quite happy to go along with issuing a separate British document and made some changes to it, which I agreed. I suspect that he had had his fill of Commonwealth diplomacy already. The issue, however, of our separate document prompted howls of anger from the other heads of government. At the session of CHOGM at which Dr Mahathir reported on the retreat at Langkawi Bob Hawke intervened to protest about what Britain had done. Brian Mulroney followed this up. It was, in fact, clearly planned. They arrived at the meeting together and signalled to each other before Bob Hawke spoke. I replied by saying that I owed nobody an explanation and was astounded that anyone should object to a nation putting forward its own viewpoint. They had put forward their views in speeches and press conferences and Britain had as much right to free speech as they did. That ended the discussion.

In South Africa as 1990 opened the movement which I had hoped and worked for began. There were indications that Nelson Mandela would, after all the years of pressure, not least from me, shortly be released. I told our ambassador, Robin Renwick, that I would welcome the chance to see President de Klerk at Chequers if he visited Europe in the spring. I told the Foreign Office — who did not like it one bit — that as soon as Mr Mandela was freed I wanted us to respond rapidly by rescinding or relaxing the measures we had taken against South Africa, starting with the relatively minor ones which rested with us alone and did not have to be discussed with the European Community.

On 2 February 1990 President de Klerk made a speech which announced Mr Mandela’s and other black leaders’ imminent release, the unbanning of the ANC and other black political organizations and promised an end to the state of emergency as soon as possible. I immediately went back to the Foreign Office and said that once the promises were fulfilled we should end the ‘voluntary’ ban on investment and encourage the other European Community countries to do likewise. I asked Douglas Hurd — now Foreign Secretary — to propose to other Community Foreign ministers at his forthcoming meeting with them an end to the restrictions on purchase of krugerrands and iron and steel. I also decided to send messages to other heads of government urging practical recognition of what was happening in South Africa.

In April I was briefed by Dr Gerrit Viljoen, the South African Minister for Constitutional Development, on the contacts between the South African Government and the ANC, now effectively led once
more by Mr Mandela. I was disappointed by the fact that Mr Mandela kept repeating the old ritual phrases, arguably suitable for a movement refused recognition, but not for one aspiring to a leading and perhaps dominant role in government. The South African Government was formulating its own ideas for the constitution and was moving towards a combination of a lower house elected by one-man one-vote with an upper chamber with special minority representation. This would help to accommodate the great ethnic diversity which characterizes South Africa, although in the long run some sort of cantonal system may be needed to do this efficiently.

By the time that President de Klerk set off for his talks with European leaders in May, discussions with the ANC had begun in earnest. I was also glad that the South African Government was paying due regard to Chief Buthelezi, who had been such a stalwart opponent of violent uprising in South Africa while the ANC had been endorsing the Marxist revolution, to which some of its members are still attached.