A message from the Chair
This section was first started by Richard Bourne to give a monthly update for readers and supporters of The Round Table journal on developments leading up to the centenary celebrations of our journal (started in the Edwardian era).
Due to its popularity, it is now being continued by the new Chair of the editorial advisory board, (known since the early twentieth century as the Moot), Stuart Mole.
View the messages by selecting any of the links below:
June 2011
It was early morning in Cape Town. The sun was up and the hotel was beginning to stir. It was 19 May 1986, and apartheid still had South Africa in its malevolent grip. There were riots in the townships, a partial state of emergency and a rising clamour for greater international pressure on the regime. All this had brought a Commonwealth team to the troubled land of its former member.
After months of shuttle diplomacy, the Commonwealth Eminent Persons' Group (EPG) was close to clinching a deal - or so it thought. The prize was nothing less than a negotiated end to apartheid - and, in a matter of hours, there was to be a crucial meeting with the Cabinet's Constitutional Committee where a formal response would be given to the Commonwealth's proposals.
I checked the time - just after 5.30 a.m. - and switched on the radio. The headlines carried shocking news. During the night, South African Defence Forces had attacked three neighbouring Commonwealth countries - Botswana, Zimbabwe and Zambia. Amid the death and destruction, the message was unmistakable. Faced with a choice between negotiation and defiance, President Botha - the 'Old Crocodile' - had opted for the latter, in emphatic fashion. I quickly phoned my boss, Chief Emeka Anyaoku - then the senior-most Secretariat staffer accompanying the EPG. It was clear that our mission was at an end.
The Commonwealth had spent four months developing a 'negotiating concept'. This had involved 22 meetings with the South African Government, and three with Nelson Mandela, incarcerated in Pollsmoor Prison. It had met the Heads of all the neighbouring frontline states, the ANC leadership in exile, and leaders of the black resistance within South Africa, and with all shades of opinion. There was a mood of hope - and an expectation of change. But change - the end of apartheid - was not something the regime could yet contemplate.
Back in London, working through the night, the EPG report was drafted and approved in record time. Rushed to the printers as a Penguin Special - supposedly the fastest book ever published - it rapidly became a bestseller, supplanting "The Hunt for Red October" in popularity. Its initial print run of 55,000 sold out within a week. In all, over 80,000 copies were printed in English, and there were editions in French, Dutch, Japanese and Greek. John Mortimer described it as 'a miracle of publishing at the moment of truth'.
More significant still was the political impact of the report. Anthony Sampson called it "a document that will change history". Its message resonated around the world - in the World Sanctions Conference in Paris; in the overwhelming vote of US Congress (in defiance of President Reagan's veto); in the European Union, the Nordic countries, Japan ... and in the Commonwealth itself.
Apartheid was not to crumble for another six years. But, as John Battersby, the veteran South African journalist put it recently: "From that moment on, we saw the end in sight".
It is twenty-five years since those stirring and groundbreaking events. Memories fade, ambitions recede, and resolve weakens. But as a new Commonwealth EPG reports to Heads in October at their Perth summit, the lessons of that mission of 1986 deserve to be recalled. They include principle, vision, leadership and courage. All qualities needed today more than ever.
Stuart Mole