Abstract:
This article focuses on the twelve-month period between August 1989 and August 1990 which
proved to be the final year of the African National Congress’s (ANC) armed struggle against
the South African government. This period is interesting because it dramatised the central
paradox that existed throughout the ANC’s armed struggle, namely its material weakness that
was belied by its immense symbolic strength. In August 1989, the ANC’s proposals for
negotiations were accepted by African leaders, while in South Africa, F.W. de Klerk acceded
to the South African state presidency. These events considerably improved the prospects of a
negotiated settlement. However, by August 1990, the ANC and the South African government
had still not begun formal negotiations, and the bone of contention between them was the
ANC’s continued commitment to violence. This highlights the second key theme: namely, the
immense symbolic significance carried by the question of violence in the conflict. At stake was
the credibility of the ANC’s claims to be South Africa’s national liberation movement.
The ANC needed to perpetuate the notion of MK as an effective fighting force in order to
sustain its claim that negotiations had been achieved through its actions, and that it was
entering into talks on its own terms. Meanwhile for the government, these considerations
operated in reverse: it was anxious to counter the notion that the ANC had fought its way to
the negotiating table. This article will discuss how the two sides jostled over this question in
the period leading to the ANC’s unilateral suspension of its armed struggle in August 1990.
