WHY FW DE KLERK IS CELEBRATED BY THE ANC POLITICAL ELITE, DEMOCRATIC ALLIANCE AND BRITISH CAPITAL. writes Phapano Phasha

   According to Ken Owen who is a former editor of The Sunday Times, F.W. de Klerk was brought to the negotiating table by “the bankruptcy of a nation that had been looted until it could no longer honour its debts”? Owen goes on to argue that we “owe our liberation, really, to greed”. This is clearly true in part; however, liberation was brought about by a number of factors including internal and external struggle. Corruption, on the other hand, became the drug of choice for a regime intent on self-destruction".

As you read further you might understand why Jewish journalists such as the late Allister Sparks and Helen Zille exposed Apartheid and De Klerk and discontinued after 1994. 

It is in this context that we must comprehend that De Klerk knew that the demise of the apartheid government was inevitable and betrayed Botha  by announcing the release of Mandela, not because of his own wisdom but because his government was bankrupt as a result of looting and on the verge of collapse.

It is also critically important to understand that the ANC wouldn’t have made 1994 possible without a decisive hand of big capital led by Anglo Americans(Oppenheimers) and its equal partners in the cult of profit.

As one commentator alludes, "I could repeat it endlessly—that the ANC’s negotiated settlement was facilitated by the forces of profit and without that support, I could be writing completely a different narrative. ANC wanted to attain political power as a means to people’s liberation, but capital wanted apartheid out in order to expand reach of power by taking over control of state machinery, expand into black majority market(Urban Foundation) and to open the gates for international capital in accordance with the first wind of globalization which began to blow in the late 70s. Mandela presided over that marriage during the Codesa negotiations (in public terms) as a political priest whose towering glory in our current political scenery clearly represent the power of capital over the people".

British Capital and the ANC had a common enemy which was the apartheid regime under the leadership of Hendrik Verwoerd. An enemy of the ANC for its oppression and brutal disfranchisement of the black majority and again, an enemy of capital for its "socialist orientation" in running the country.

It is important to understand that Capital in particular English Capital was no longer comfortable with the rhetoric of Nationalists led by Verwoerd who were demanding Nationalisation of Mines and the high echelons of the economy which at the time was completely in the hands of Britain and their deployees in South Africa. It is also important to highlight that the first Mine to be owned by Afrikaners was Gencor(Now called BHP Billiton) and that was only in 1962 and it was not wholly owned but subsidised by the Oppenheimers and the decision by Oppenheimers to fund an Afrikaner mine was to dislodge Verwoerd who  in 1961 had also changed the South African currency from the British Pound to the Rand.

We must also remember that the Democratic Alliance(DA) was formed by British Jewish Randlords in South Africa and Helen Suzman was a dear close friend to the wife of Clive Menell, Irene Menell, who was Nelson Mandelas confidante that she was the "first to be approached by Mandela" to sit in the Nelson Mandela Foundation and to this day his family is part of the Foundation. To the extent that when Nelson Mandela publicly seperated from Winnie Mandela he went to stay with the Mennels. It also worth noting that Patrice Motsepe's company called Africa Rainbow Minerals is in fact Anglo Vaal unbundled in 2001 but firmly still controlled by the Menells hence Brian Menell still sits on ARM board. It was the Menells with Oppenheimers who also formed the Union NUM through Urban Training. 

So British capital planned well in advanced after the victory of the Nationalist Party in 1948 on how it will use agreeble Africans. In 1955 British Randlords  funded the Kliptown Gathering which gave birth to the Freedom Charter which was written by the likes of Rusty Bernstein and Brian Bunting and not the ANC. As British Capital continued to invest for its future they founded and Funded Mkhonto We Sizwe in 1961 to counter Poqo and help facilitate for Chief Albert Luthuli to receive a Noble Prize award the same year which saw the arrest of Robert Sobukwe who led the Sharpville protests where the ANC did not participate.

In 1963 British capital seconded the finest Jewish White Lawyers to defend the Rivonia Trialists and it was at the trial that Mandela was quoted as saying he had fought against both black and White oppression. This was two years after Sobukwe was thrown in jail and the same year that the government declared a "Sobukwe" Clause as Sobukwe was considered the most dangerous prisoner.

What followed was the banning of the ANC which saw the leadership of the ANC accommodated in London which became their second home. With the help of US Aid and a student movement called Nusas which Steve Biko rejected, British capital managed to take many young members of the ANC to school(Chris Hani speaks of this Nusas and their bursaries in his memorandum, harshly so). British capital in South Africa also managed to take many children of ANC Leaders to school at a private school in Swaziland called Waterford College. In his eulogy to Clive Menell Nelson Mandela speaks fondly of this. 

It's also critical to understand that whilst British capital heavily benefitted from apartheid they concurrently ran campaigns to end apartheid and most of the negotiations to usher in a new government took place in England at a house owned by Goldfields Mine(Cecil Rhodes) called Manor House in Somerset Oxford.

We must remember that in 1915 Afrikaners burnt down Ernest Oppenheimer house in Kimberly which was the financial capital city of South Africa. The Oppenheimers  then fled back to England to return years later.  At The time Ernest Oppenheimer was not only a Mining Rand Lord But The Mayor of Kimberly .  Oppenheimer had taken over from Cecil J Rhodes of Goldfields mines and ensured they used their political credentials to enact laws that exploited and oppressed not only the black majority but Afrikaner. At the time most Afrikaners were either illiterate or poor and many worked as labourers in the mining sector.

Therefore Hendrick Verwoerd who wanted to end British Colonialism was a threat to British capital which controlled the South African economy.

FW De Klerk and the likes of Roelf Meyer as with British capital, DA and some of the ANC, Union and UDF leaders did not fight apartheid for the common good but wanted political power to get access to the economy which they had no intention to change in order to serve the people. 

As Naomi Klein puts it South Africa was a "Democracy Born in Chains". .