The End of Apartheid

Diary of a Revolution

Robin Renwick

• Publisher: Biteback Publishing
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9781849547925
• eBook ISBN: 9781849548656
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

In 2 February 1990, FW de Klerk made a speech that changed the history of South Africa. Nine days later, the world watched as Nelson Mandela walked free from the Viktor Verster prison. In the midst of these events was Lord Renwick, Margaret Thatcher's envoy to South Africa, who became a personal friend of Nelson Mandela, FW de Klerk and Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi, acting as a trusted intermediary between them. He warned PW Botha against military attacks on neighbouring countries, in meetings he likens to 'calling on the führer in his bunker'. He invited Mandela to his first meal in a restaurant for twenty-seven years, rehearsing him for his meeting with Margaret Thatcher - and told Thatcher that she must not interrupt him. Their discussion went on so long that the British press in Downing Street started chanting 'Free Nelson Mandela'.In this extraordinary insider's account, Renwick draws on his diaries of the time, as well as previously unpublished material from the Foreign Office and Downing Street files. He paints a vivid, affectionate, real-life portrait of Mandela as a wily and resourceful political leader bent on out-manoeuvring both adversaries and some of his own colleagues in pursuit of a peaceful outcome.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Praise
• Title
• Contents
• Introduction: ‘If a political leader loses the support of his followers, it will remain only for him to write his memoirs’
• Prologue: ‘Any self-respecting terrorist has an ak-47!’
• Chapter I: ‘This time we have locked up all the right people!’
• Chapter II: ‘The greatest risk is not taking any risks’
• Chapter III: ‘Let us pray’
• Chapter IV: ‘If you want to get out of a hole, the first thing to do is to stop digging’
• Chapter V: ‘The IRA have the vote, the ANC do not’
• Chapter VI: ‘I realise you want to see a new impetus for change’
• Chapter VII: ‘The whole world will be against you – led by me!’
• Chapter VIII: ‘I am happy to request you to pass my very best wishes to the Prime Minister’
• Chapter IX: ‘You can tell your Prime Minister that she will not be disappointed’
• Chapter X: ‘After today, South Africa will never be the same’
• Chapter XI: ‘You can be Mandela and I’ll be Mrs Thatcher’
• Chapter XII: ‘Free Nelson Mandela!’
• Chapter XIII: ‘The only alternative to negotiations now is negotiations later’
• Chapter XIV: ‘We can hardly drop them on Lusaka or Soweto’
• Chapter XV: ‘We did not join the ANC to become rich; we joined it to go to jail’
• Acknowledgements
• Index
• Copyright