Book extract: ANC Billionaires
When Anglo met the ANC in Lusaka
When a delegation of SA businessmen returned from meeting with the ANC in Zambia in 1985, they were met with howls of outrage. But both sides knew they needed each other if they were to break out of the stranglehold of the apartheid system
When South Africa’s belligerent head of state, PW Botha, spoke at the opening of the Natal National Party congress in Durban on August 15 1985, he took many by surprise. Prior to that infamous Rubicon speech, expectations were high that Botha would announce fundamental reforms of the apartheid state.
Instead, far from taking on board proposals from his cabinet colleagues regarding black representation in the executive, the future of the homelands and the release of the ANC’s Nelson Mandela, he did quite the opposite, vowing that he wouldn’t be browbeaten by his colleagues, the liberation movement or the international community. ..
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