November 5, 2015
A good political book is Endgame by Willie Esterhuyse, a Stellenbosch philosophy professor, and published by Tafelberg.
Esterhuyse received two telephone calls early in 1987. The first was from Fleur de Villiers who had been an Assistant Editor of the Johannesburg Sunday Times before emigrating to London. She asked Esterhuyse if he would like to become involved in talks with the ANC outside South Africa. The second call was from a man called Koos Kruger who worked for the National Intelligence Service (NIS) who had a similar proposal. De Villiers had been in contact with Rudolph Agnew, Chairman of Consolidated Goldfields, a British mining house with a long and profitable history in South Africa and Consgold had agreed to make resources and their country manor, Mells Park, available for secret talks between the ANC and Afrikaners.
Endgame is the story of the behind-the-scenes encounters between ANC leaders and a select few Afrikaners including Esterhuyse, Sampie Terreblanche, Marinus Wiechers, Wiempie de Klerk and Attie du Plessis, who consulted and obtained approval from his brother, then Minister Barend du Plessis, for participation in the talks. Barend du Plessis was responsible at the time for the National Party propaganda campaign labelling the opposition as being ‘soft’ on the ANC! The talks were crucial to the start of negotiations and the beginning of an unlikely but lasting friendship between a former Broeder and a fiery young activist and eventual President. This friendship endures unlike the Slabbert/Mbeki contact which, after Dakar, turned sour.
This first-hand account, filled with anecdotes, offers a fresh look at many South African leaders. It contains fascinating information on secret discussion in prison, what went on in PW Botha’s situation room and how the NIS tried to save South Africa from widespread violence.
Endgame is another brick in the wall of information exploring the events leading up to the democratisation of South Africa and is recommended reading for all who have an interest in our history.
Reviewed for FMR BOOK CHOICE July 2012 by Peter Soal, a former Member of Parliament and, before that, a member of the Johannesburg City Council. In September 1994, President Nelson Mandela appointed him to the Staff of the Mission of SA to the United Nations after which he retired to Cape Town where he is now a DJ on FMR 101.3.