Business deserves thanks for role in averting SA civil war

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According to the chief negotiator for the NP, Roelf Meyer, business was the critical factor in laying the foundations in 1990/1991 for the peace deal

The pressures to end apartheid and build a new political dispensation were multi-levelled, but on one of those levels, business in this country played a significant contributing role. It and the individuals that drove it deserve wider mention.

These contributions were multi-tiered, direct and indirect. In 1976 Oppenheimer and Anton Rupert established a think-tank called The Urban Foundation to advocate reforms to improve the social conditions of black people in urban areas. The NP government viewed the foundation as too critical, and black activists categorised it as moderate and still in support of apartheid.

By the time international sanctions were imposed in the mid-1980s, business was engaging regularly with the ANC and facilitating high level meetings with the NP government, and even the security and intelligence services. In particular, after PW Botha’s Rubicon speech in 1985, far more from the business side started to get involved, perhaps because they saw the writing was on the wall.

An important consideration in this process was the homogeneous nature of SA business. In the 1970s and 1980s the major national companies were Anglo ; Rembrandt ; Liberty ; and Anglovaal . The top six companies owned over 80% of the economy in 1985. This economic clout provided considerable leverage.

 

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