Release and Negotiations

February 11, 1990

On February 2, 1990, President F.W. de Klerk stunned the world by unbanning the ANC, the South African Communist Party, and other organizations, and announcing Mandela's imminent release. Nine days later, Mandela walked out of Victor Verster Prison before a global television audience.

De Klerk's motivations were pragmatic as much as moral. International sanctions were crippling the economy. The security establishment could no longer contain the uprising. The Cold War's end had removed the communist threat that had justified Western tolerance of apartheid. De Klerk calculated that negotiating from a position of relative strength was better than waiting for collapse.

CODESA and the Negotiated Revolution

The Convention for a Democratic South Africa (CODESA) began in December 1991, bringing together 19 parties. The negotiations were anything but smooth. In June 1992, the Boipatong massacre — where 46 people were killed in a township attack that many blamed on security forces — nearly derailed talks. Mandela withdrew from negotiations and accused de Klerk of complicity.

Behind the scenes, right-wing Afrikaners and Zulu nationalists under Mangosuthu Buthelezi threatened to boycott or violently disrupt any settlement. The assassination of ANC leader Chris Hani in April 1993 nearly plunged the country into civil war. It was Mandela — not the president — who went on national television to calm the nation.

The final agreement established a transitional government of national unity and set elections for April 1994. Mandela and de Klerk shared the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize, though their relationship was fraught with mutual distrust.