Indispensable Traitors : Liberal Parties in Settler Conflicts 9780313010996, 9780313317743

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INDISPENSABLE TRAITORS

Recent Titles in Contributions in Comparative Colonial Studies Imperialism and Colonialism: Essays on the History of European Expansion H. L. Wesseling The Racial Dimension of American Overseas Colonial Policy Hazel M. McFerson Meeting Technology’s Advance: Social Change in China and Zimbabwe in the Railway Age James Zheng Gao U.S. Imperialism in Latin America: Bryan’s Challenges and Contributions, 1900–1920 Edward S. Kaplan The Kingdom of Swaziland: Studies in Political History D. Hugh Gillis The Bringing of Wonder: Trade and the Indians of the Southeast, 1700–1783 Michael P. Morris Policing Islam: The British Occupation of Egypt and the Anglo-Egyptian Struggle over Control of the Police, 1882–1914 Harold Tollefson India: The Seductive and Seduced “Other” of German Orientalism Kamakshi P. Murti The Betrothed of Death: The Spanish Foreign Legion During the Rif Rebellion, 1920– 1927 Jose´ E. A´lvarez Britain’s Sterling Colonial Policy and Decolonization, 1939–1958 Allister Hinds Mixed Blessing: The Impact of the American Colonial Experience on Politics and Society in the Philippines Hazel M. McFerson, editor Law and Justice in Post-British Nigeria Nofi nso Okereafofi ezeke

INDISPENSABLE TRAITORS Liberal Parties in Settler Conflicts Thomas G. Mitchell

Contributions in Comparative Colonial Studies, Number 44

GREENWOOD PRESS Westport, Connecticut • London

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Mitchell, Thomas G., 1957– Indispensable traitors : liberal parties in settler conflicts / Thomas G. Mitchell. p. cm.—(Contributions in comparative colonial studies, ISSN 0163–3813 ; no. 44) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0–313–31774–7 (alk. paper) 1. Conflict management. 2. Ethnic conflict. 3. Colonization. 4. Liberalism. 5. Political parties. 6. Progressive Federal Party (South Africa). 7. Alliance Party of Northern Ireland. 8. Merets (Political party) I. Title. II. Series. HM1126.M59 2002 303.6'9—dc21 2001041874 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available. Copyright  2002 by Thomas G. Mitchell All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, by any process or technique, without the express written consent of the publisher. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2001041874 ISBN: 0–313–31774–7 ISSN: 0163–3813 First published in 2002 Greenwood Press, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881 An imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc. www.greenwood.com Printed in the United States of America TM

The paper used in this book complies with the Permanent Paper Standard issued by the National Information Standards Organization (Z39.48–1984). 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Contents

Acknowledgments

vii

Acronyms

ix

1

Introduction

1

2

Origins and Expansion

17

3

Leadership and Policies

49

4

Internal Settlements

87

5

Conservative Settler Parties

105

6

The Final Settlement

125

Afterword

141

Bibliographic Essay

147

Index

151

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank the staff of the Linen Hall Library in Belfast for its assistance in researching the history of the Alliance Party. I would also like to thank the many members and leaders of the Alliance Party who agreed to be interviewed by me. These include party leader Sean Neeson; party president Phillip McGarry; elections analyst and now chairman Stephen Farry; David Alderdice and David Cook, former lord mayors of Belfast; Speaker John Alderdice; and Assembly Members Sean Close and Eileen Bell; and members Gerry Lynch, Oliver Napier, Joe Hendron, and Glynn Roberts. Sam Cushnahan was very cooperative in providing material on his brother John’s period of leadership and reasons for leaving. I would like to thank the Ernest Oppenheimer Memorial Trust in South Africa for financing my travel to and from South Africa in 1990, originally to write a biography of Frank Martin. Although this biography was never published, this did allow me to collect a great deal of information on the Democratic Party during its transition from being the Progressive Federal Party (PFP). I would like to thank the library staff of the Africana collection of the University of Natal for allowing me access to the Indaba papers and their generous assistance. I would also like to thank Radley Keyes, Roger Burrows, Ray Swart, Peter Gastrow, and Rodney Haxton of the PFP and many former members of the New Republic Party for generous interviews that gave me information on the relations between the two main opposition parties in Natal and their relations with Inkatha. The Frank Martin family (primarily his daughters) was also very generous in introducing me to many of these figures from the NRP and in providing me with hospitality in South Africa during my stay there. Oscar Dhlomo was gen-

viii

Acknowledgments

erous in his time in allowing me to explore the relations with the PFP and the Indaba negotiations. I would also like to thank the Natal Newspapers for allowing me to freely photocopy newspaper articles from their research files in exchange only for replacing the copy paper. I would like to thank Heather Staines and Jennifer Debo of Greenwood Press for guiding this book through the editing process.

Acronyms

ISRAEL/PALESTINE CRM

Citizen’s Rights Movement, aka Ratz—party founded in 1973 by Shulamit Aloni and the main party within Meretz.

IDF

Israel Defense Forces—the Israeli Army, which includes the Air Force and Navy.

MK

Member of Knesset—Israeli parliamentarian.

PLO

Palestine Liberation Organization—Palestinian “official” liberation movement; founded in 1964 in Jerusalem and taken over by Arafat in 1969 on behalf of the fedayeen organizations.

NORTHERN IRELAND APNI

Alliance Party of Northern Ireland—liberal nonsectarian party founded in 1970, usually known simply as Alliance.

BCC

Belfast City Council.

DUP

Democratic Unionist Party—founded by Ian Paisley in 1971, to the right of the Ulster Unionists.

IRA

Irish Republican Army—split between the Official and Provisional wings in 1970; usually refers to the Provisional wing.

LAW

Loyalist Association of Workers.

MLA

Member of the legislative assembly.

NICRA Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association—existed between 1967 and 1969.

x

Acronyms

NILP

Northern Ireland Labour Party—nonsectarian social democratic party that existed from the 1920s to 1979.

NIO

Northern Ireland Office—the British government department running Northern Ireland, located in Stormont outside Belfast.

NIUP

Northern Ireland Unionist Party—founded by Cedric Wilson as splinter from UKUP in 1999.

NUM

New Ulster Movement—pressure group that helped form Alliance.

PUP

Progressive Unionist Party—political wing of the UVF during the 1990s and 21st century.

RUC

Royal Ulster Constabulary—Northern Ireland’s police force.

SDLP

Social Democratic and Labour Party—nationalist party created in 1970 in order to serve as the opposition at Stormont.

UDA

Ulster Defence Association—largest Protestant paramilitary force, the Ulster Freedom Fighters is its military wing.

UDP

Ulster Democratic Party—political wing of the UDA.

UKUP

United Kingdom Unionist Party—founded by Robert McCartney in North Down in 1995, split in 1999 with its remaining MLAs forming the Northern Ireland Unionist Party.

UPNI

Unionist Party of Northern Ireland.

UUP

Ulster Unionist Party—aka Official Unionist Party, the mainstream unionist party in Northern Ireland.

UUUC

United Ulster Unionist Council—group formed from DUP, UUP, and Vanguard in 1974 to contest the February 1974 parliamentary election with agreed candidates.

UVF

Ulster Volunteer Force—Protestant paramilitary group founded in 1965; comparable to the IRA.

RHODESIA/SOUTH AFRICA ANC

African National Congress—main “official” liberation movement; founded in 1912, became the ruling party in 1994.

AZAPO Azanian People’s Organisation. CP

Centre Party—small liberal party in Rhodesia from 1968 to 1977.

DP

Democratic Party—successor to the PFP; founded in 1989, merged with National Party in 2000 to form the Democratic Alliance.

HNP

Herstigte Nasional Party (Reconstituted National Party)—splintered from the NP in 1969, practically finished after 1987.

IDASA Institute for a Democratic Alternative for South Africa—liberal bridge-building group founded in 1987 by Frederik van Zyl Slabbert. MDM

Mass Democratic Movement—successor to banned UDF and COSATU during 1989 and 1990.

MP

Member of parliament.

Acronyms

xi

MPC

Member of provincial council.

NDM

National Democratic Movement—PFP splinter group that existed briefly in 1988–89 before merging with PFP to form DP.

NP

National Party—ruling white settler party in South Africa.

NRP

New Republic Party.

NUE

National Unifying Front—electoral pact of the Centre Party and Rhodesia Party for the 1977 election.

PAC

Pan-Africanist Congress of Azania—splinter group from ANC; recognized as an official liberation movement by the Organization of African Unity.

PFP

Progressive Federal Party—merger between Progressive Reform Party and a splinter faction of the United Party in 1978; it became the leading liberal party in South Africa.

PP

Progressive Party—splintered from United Party in 1959, merged with Reform Party to form PRP in 1976.

RAP

Rhodesian Action Party—right-wing splinter group from the RF that lasted from 1977 to 1979.

RF

Rhodesian Front—ruling white settler party in Rhodesia from 1964 to 1980; all white MPs came from the RF.

RP

Rhodesia Party—moderate settler party during the 1970s.

SACP

South African Communist Party.

SADF

South African Defence Force—South African military.

SWAPO South West Africa People’s Organisation—official liberation movement of Namibia; became government in 1990. UDF

United Democratic Front—internal legal wing of the ANC, founded in 1983 as an alliance of anti-apartheid groups; banned in 1988.

UP

United Party—later renamed itself the New Republic Party (NRP).

ZANU

Zimbabwe African National Union—main liberation group in Rhodesia; became ruling party in Zimbabwe in 1980.

ZAPU

Zimbabwe African People’s Union.

1

Introduction

It is common wisdom that the Vietnam War was won “on the streets of America.” In guerrilla wars the crucial prize in the war, or “center of gravity” to use Clausewitz’s term, is public opinion among the native population. There is a struggle for the “hearts and minds” of the population between the guerrillas and the government. In colonial wars or superpower interventions this is taken one step further with the guerrilla leadership and its international allies also battling for the “hearts and minds” of the metropole’s or intervening power’s population. If the war becomes too costly in either financial terms or in human costs the population will turn against the war. But what about in colonial wars where the colonial population is not thousands of miles away from the colony but present in the colony itself with its very future at stake? This is the case in colonial conflicts that occur in settler colonies. In dependent settler colonies the settlers do not usually have much say as to whether or not the war is continued or under what terms peace is concluded. At most, if the colonial power is a democracy like Britain or France, they can lobby in the capital and possibly exercise their rights through representatives elected to the national parliament in London, Paris, or Brussels. In the case of dictatorships such as Portugal, Spain, or Germany before World War I, they do not even have this recourse. But in the case of independent settler colonies, such as Rhodesia, Northern Ireland (before 1972), Israel, or South Africa, the settlers determine how long the fighting continues. In all but the Northern Irish case, the settlers supplied the soldiers and arms for the war effort. They had their own parliaments in Cape Town, Jerusalem, and Salisbury. Even in the case of Northern Ireland, locally recruited paramilitary police provided security up until

2

Indispensable Traitors

August 1969 and the settlers exercised control through their provincial parliament at Stormont outside Belfast. Although the settlers did not control the war effort in Northern Ireland, London was unwilling to divest itself through simple withdrawal from the province as the republicans demanded. Primarily because the settlers constituted—and still do—a majority within the province and to force them out of the United Kingdom might be seen as a denial of their right to self-determination under international law. In these settler societies the range of political options is not wide. Rhodesia was a virtual one-party state with only one party electing representatives to parliament in Salisbury between 1965 and 1980, South Africa had only two or three parties represented in parliament from 1910 to 1994 with only the National Party represented in government from 1948 until 1994; Northern Ireland, like Rhodesia, was a pseudo one-party state with the Ulster Unionist Party (also known as Official Unionists) in power from 1921 to 1972 and constituting a majority in every provincial assembly elected under direct rule from 1972 to 1998. Only Israel had a vigorous multiparty democracy throughout its history with multiple parties in government. But even in Israel, the governing coalitions were always led by the same party from 1948 to 1977: Mapai/Labor Party. Liberal parties are a battleground between the interests of the two sides in a native settler conflict.1 They attempt to both mediate between the two sides and allow the settlers to live peacefully in a situation in which they are either a minority or the natives are a significant minority involved in an ethnic conflict with the majority. Liberals tend not to see the conflict as a zero-sum conflict between civilization and chaos or between colonialism and freedom fighters but between two competing ethnic groups. Liberals attempt to restructure society on a basis that emphasizes individual as opposed to group rights. The natives attempt to influence the settlers through the liberals, and the liberals attempt to influence both sides. The challenge to liberals is to break through the siege mentality of the settler society to the extent necessary to have an impact on the debate within the society and to influence decision making. If liberals never took power in any of these settler colonies, why bother to write about them? Why should the author spend his time and effort or the readers waste their time reading about parties which never achieved power? This author is convinced that in at least two of the settler conflicts, South Africa and Northern Ireland, the liberals played a significant role for which they have never received real credit. By demonstrating the possibility of successful negotiations with black parties through the KwaZulu/Natal Indaba in 1986, the Progressive Federal Party eventually influenced the thinking of the National Party. This thinking was further influenced by the strong showing of the Democratic Party in the 1989 election, six months before President F. W. de Klerk announced his revolutionary reforms that eventually resulted in majority rule four years later. Unfortunately in her memoirs, longtime Progressive member of parliament (MP) Helen Suzman does not even mention the Indaba. Probably because her memoirs tend to be highly personal and she, as a deputy from the Transvaal Province,

Introduction

3

was not involved in the Indaba. In Northern Ireland the Alliance Party (APNI) played a significant role in the final week of negotiations for the Good Friday Agreement as well as providing many of the basic ideas for the power-sharing structures called for in the agreements. In most books on Northern Ireland politics, Alliance is allowed only a few passing references in which nothing of significance is said about the party or its policies except that it is nonsectarian. In Padraig O’Malley’s The Uncivil Wars: Ireland Today, the party is given a record three pages. When I researched my previous book, Native vs. Settler: Ethnic Conflicts in Israel/Palestine, Northern Ireland, and South Africa, I found that only three academic dissertations—one of them an undergraduate work devoted solely to the party’s founding—had been devoted to the party. No commercial work had been published on the Alliance Party. In my book I devoted my longest chapter to the liberal parties, but I still had to cut a significant amount of material due to the length limits imposed by the publisher. I was forced to cut any significant discussion of the Indaba. My publisher has generously allowed me to publish a second book dealing with the liberals, including the material from the first book, the material that was cut, and new material added to fill out the book. The remainder of this chapter analyzes the failures that proceeded the successful liberal parties. The next chapter examines the origins and growth of the successful liberal parties: Alliance, the Progressive Federal Party/Democratic Party and Meretz in Israel. The third chapter deals with the leadership and policies of the parties, which are interrelated. After that is a chapter dealing with internal settlements: the power-sharing executive in Northern Ireland in 1974 and the Indaba in 1987. The fifth chapter is a discussion of the conservative parties in the settler societies and the roles they play. This chapter is not intended for the parties themselves, for they are much more familiar with the parties that they have to deal with than any outsider could ever be. This is for the outsider and for those from other emerging democracies who might have to deal with similar parties in their own societies. The sixth and final chapter discusses the role of liberal parties in the final settlement and the issues involved in reaching a final settlement. This book has three purposes: (1) to set the record straight as to the role of liberal parties in the resolution of the conflicts in Northern Ireland and South Africa. Israel is not as extensively covered because the liberal party is only a decade old and has had less effect than the liberals in the other two societies; (2) to hopefully provide useful suggestions for the parties in Northern Ireland and Israel where the conflicts are still continuing, although no longer in military terms between the main antagonists; and (3) to provide guidance to liberal democratic parties in the newly emerging democracies of the Balkans and Central and Eastern Europe where ethnic conflicts exist in their own societies. Hopefully, this book can either serve as a guide or at least provide suggestions on growth strategy, policies, and conflict resolution. Countries that could benefit from these lessons include the successor states to the former Yugoslavia (Bosnia, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, and Serbia),

4

Indispensable Traitors

Hungary, Slovakia, Romania, Ukraine, and the Baltic States. Although none of these states is a settler society involved in a native-settler conflict, all have actual or potential ethnic conflicts. The Baltic States and Ukraine are similar to South Africa in that they are states with settler populations in which the natives now rule. All have to deal with the problem of Russian settlers who settled during the Soviet period (or before) and who have failed to assimilate. In Central Europe there is the problem of significant Hungarian minority populations in Slovakia, Serbia, and Romania. In the Balkans there are sizeable ethnic minority populations of Albanians, Croats, Greeks, Muslim Slavs, and Serbs. The ruling elites made up of former Communists behave much like the ruling elites of Zionist Jews, British unionists, and Afrikaners in Israel, Northern Ireland, and South Africa. Milosevic justifies his foreign adventures much as the National Party justified its adventures throughout the subcontinent and the Likud justified its adventures in Lebanon. The chapter on policies should be read as an introduction to consociationalism (power-sharing) rather than as a substitute for a book on the subject. Consociationalism is a complex subject that can not be done justice to in a book on this subject. Rather, this book provides examples of the attempted implementation of consociational ideas in situations in which ethnic conflicts have been waged along military lines.

THE FAILURES The secret of surviving as a liberal party in a settler society is to carefully match policy to circumstances and never get too far out in front of the electorate. Liberal parties do not succeed until there is a perceived threat to the status quo which indicates to a substantial minority of the electorate that the status quo is no longer viable. Until the status quo is put into question, the vested interests of the settlers, in terms both of survival and economic exploitation of the natives, will outweigh moral considerations except for a small minority. Thus the liberals are dependent on either substantial urban unrest or insurgency or external circumstances which are deemed to be harmful to the status quo. The liberals must walk the fine line of providing a different policy which it can be argued is acceptable or negotiable with the nationalists, but without being identified with them. In Southern Africa there is an Afrikaans term, kaffir boetie, which literally means kaffir brother, or roughly means “nigger lover.” It is the equivalent in Israel of referring to a Jew as an Arab—it implies that he is a traitor. Objective circumstances therefore dictated that liberals could not be successful in South Africa before 1962–63 when the first insurgency broke out. This was quickly defeated before the next election in 1966, by which time things were quite quiet again. This successful show of the efficacy of military force was in fact harmful to the liberal cause as it tended to assure whites that things were under control. The next major outbreak occurred in 1976 and the following year the liberal Progressive Federal Party (PFP) became the official opposition. In

Introduction

5

the 1981 elections the PFP did even better after the African National Congress (ANC) began a major insurgency in June 1980. In Rhodesia, objective conditions began with African interparty faction fighting in the townships in the early sixties. But the liberals and moderates were still supporting Edgar Whitehead’s United Federal Party. And these fights never really spread into the white cities where they would become a matter of concern to the average voter. With the first guerrilla incursions in 1967, objective conditions were more conducive to the creation of a new liberal party. But the failure of those first mass infiltrations was not helpful to the liberals. In Northern Ireland there was no real insurgency until 1969. The border campaign of 1956–62 was restricted to the border and had no real support in the cities. It had largely collapsed by 1959 and so was not a factor in elections. This left the status quo intact until the civil rights marches of late 1968 and 1969 reopened the ethnic conflict in Northern Ireland. This led to the introduction of British troops and the collapse of Stormont some thirty-one months later. Only with the introduction of direct rule and a new franchise system were conditions ripe for a liberal party to flourish. The existence of a moderate nationalist party in the form of the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) made the liberals job much easier. In Israel, although the Arab question in terms of dealing with the Arab threat dominated Israeli politics since 1948, there was no perceived credible peace partner among the Palestinians until December 1988, after the elections in November, when the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) finally declared that it was willing to recognize Israel and negotiate with it for peace. Before this Zionist parties had a hard time convincing the Jewish electorate that the PLO was a suitable alternative to Jordan or annexation as a solution to the problem. THE LIBERAL PARTY 1953–68 The first part of South Africa to have its own functioning legislature was the Cape Colony in 1852. Between 1852 and 1910, when the Union of South Africa was created, a liberal or progressive tradition was molded in the Cape Colony. It began with a number of liberal, independent newspaper editors in the Eastern Cape and the activities of a few missionaries and writers. From 1850 to 1870 there was even a small Afrikaner liberal movement, which, however, was soon swept aside by the birth of Afrikaner nationalism in the Cape in the early 1870s.2 The Cape liberal tradition reached its peak in the two decades before Union, when a number of liberals created the Progressive Party (PP), which under the leadership of John X. Merriman even ruled for a time. The Progressive Party alternated in power with the imperialists led by Cecil Rhodes. The liberals were for equality before the law, both with the Afrikaners and with the blacks.3 This was modified in certain instances, such as in regard to liquor, which led Pierre van den Berghe to state that “while Cape liberalism bore some of the trademarks of its British origins, it quickly acquired a heavy dose of colonial paternalism

6

Indispensable Traitors

when it took root in South African soil.”4 Whereas Rhodes, while befriending the Afrikaner Bond in the Cape, was willing to attack their fellow Afrikaners in the Transvaal by organizing the Jameson Raid in December 1895 as an attempt to foment a revolution in Johannesburg. The Progressives opposed British imperialism against the Afrikaners, as they had against the Zulu War in 1879. The Progressives opposed Rhodes’ activities in Rhodesia and his attempts to deprive Africans in the Eastern Cape of the franchise. The Union destroyed the liberal tradition as blacks were restricted to the franchise in the Cape and the illiberal Afrikaners outnumbered the English-speakers, among whom the liberals were often a minority. South African liberals next had a party in May 1953 when the Torch Commando, a white ex-servicemen’s movement and pressure group organized by a few liberal notables including war hero Adolph “Sailor” Malan to oppose National Party attempts to deprive the coloreds of their franchise, gave birth to two new political parties. One was the Union Federal Party, which was based in Natal and was led by a political figure who had threatened to split off from the United Party in the thirties. It wanted a devolution of power to the province and was a front for the Natal separatists.5 It quickly faded away after winning a third of the votes in Natal but failing to capture a single seat.6 The other was the Liberal Party whose basic principle was nonracialism. The Liberal Party stayed in existence for fifteen years until it voluntarily disbanded after multiracial political parties were outlawed. During that time it had to contend with police harassment, bannings, and betrayal from within its own ranks from those who violated its principle of nonviolent action. Its only parliamentary representatives were the Native Representatives who represented Africans in exchange for their removal from the Cape voter’s roll in the 1930s. In 1955 the Liberal Party had two representatives in the House of Assembly and two in the Senate. The Liberals never won a single white election, although in 1958 its candidate polled 23 percent in the Sea Point constituency in Cape Town and in 1961 won 24 percent in the Hillbrow constituency in Johannesburg. In 1953 it polled 30 percent in some municipal districts in Johannesburg.7 In 1954, a white member, Jock Isakowitz, was banned. In 1961, one white member and one African, Patrick Duncan and Joe Nkatlo, were banned. In 1964, deputy leader Peter Brown was banned; his banning order remained in effect for a decade—long after the party had dissolved. Brown had earlier been detained in 1960.8 Banning is a “humane” form of house arrest which prohibits someone from being quoted, published, attending public meetings, or meeting with more than one other person at a time. It was a means of silencing one’s opponents without having to fill one’s jails. It was much more successful with liberals who obeyed the law than with violent opponents who did not. The party’s leaders during the sixties were Alan Paton, a novelist and biographer of liberal Afrikaner politician and cabinet minister Jan Hofmeyer, and lawyer Peter Brown. After 1960 its ranks were flooded by Africans whose own parties, the liberation movements, had been banned. It started to change from

Introduction

7

being a liberal party to being a social democratic party. The party’s biggest claim to fame was its advocacy of a nonracial franchise which after 1960 became advocacy of universal adult franchise. At its peak in 1961 it had a paid membership of 5,000. Another academic puts the peak figure at 7,000, of whom 3,000 were white.9 He referred to it as “the party of the intelligentsia.”10 Its membership was drawn from educated, salaried, and free professionals rather than from businessmen and it had no support from the business community.11 The business community was supporting the United Party in the fifties and the Progressive Party in the 1960s.12 Members of the party formed ties with both the ANC and Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC). Patrick Duncan, who had been a parliamentary candidate in 1959, left in 1961 to join the PAC in exile. He became its ambassador in Algiers because he spoke French. It was a strange journey from a nonracial party to a party that exemplified racialism if not racism, but Duncan was very antiCommunist and disliked the influence that the South African Communist Party (SACP) had in the ANC. He ended up dying of cancer in exile in Algiers.13 Duncan was interesting in that he was the son of the very establishment Sir Patrick Duncan, the British governor–general in South Africa during the 1930s. Emigration, bannings, and arrests bled the party of its key personnel. After 1964 it was becoming no longer viable just in organizational terms, let alone in electoral terms. In the early 1960s a number of white Liberals formed the African Resistance Movement which set off a number of bombs including one in the Johannesburg central train station in 1964 which killed a woman. After their arrests all the saboteurs were promptly expelled from the party.14 The existence of the African Resistance Movement and Duncan’s presence in Algiers allowed its opponents to lump it together with the African nationalists, which was political suicide for the party. In 1962, Justice Minister (and future Prime Minister) John Vorster accused the PAC and the Liberals of collaborating to create Poqo, a grassroots terrorist organization which terrorized the Cape Province in the early sixties. From 1961 until its demise in 1968 it was also competing with the Progressive Party for votes in urban areas. This meant possible vote splitting. This is something liberal parties cannot afford. There was no room for two parties left of the United Party (UP), which was one of the reasons why the Progs and the Reform Party merged in 1976 (see chapter two). Both of those parties then had several MPs. It is much worse when two parties are competing for parliamentary representation and have only one MP between them. The Liberal Party had little in the way of publicity. During the fifties the English press supported the United Party; during the sixties it supported the UP and the Progressive Party. The only independent media supporting the Liberals was Contact, which was an independent newspaper owned by Patrick Duncan and which ran a regular column by Alan Paton and Peter Brown. Duncan controlled the editorial content of the paper and Paton could only influence it by

8

Indispensable Traitors

threatening to withhold his column. After Duncan went into exile in 1961 there was no longer any newspaper supporting the Liberals.15 RHODESIA: THE CENTRE PARTY AND THE RHODESIA PARTY 1968–77 The Centre Party was established in August 1968 by a number of young professionals who wanted to organize a liberal alternative to Smith’s Rhodesian Front (RF). The party’s platform called for an end to racial discrimination, advancement on merit, a qualified franchise, and the rule of law. Its first leader was a doctor from the town of Que Que (KweKwe today), Morris Hirsch, who quit in a huff after four months when he was outvoted. He was replaced by Salisbury (Harare) lawyer Nick McNally.16 The Centre Party (CP) was very similar to the principles of the Progressives in South Africa. Its first contest was the June 1969 referendum on the republican constitution. Despite the Centre Party attracting the support of Major General Sam Putterill, the commander of the Rhodesian armed forces from 1965 to 1968, the constitution passed with 75 percent support and eight out of ten voters voted in favor of a republic. Ten months later there was a general election in April 1970. The GP ran sixteen white candidates led by a Karoi farmer, Pat Bashford, and eight Africans. It won seven African seats and no European seats. Only 8,300 Africans voted out of a population of five million. Four alternative, who were more establishment figures, had been suggested as possible party presidents in place of Bashford. Bashford was unselfishly willing to step aside, but the candidates all refused to take on Ian Smith.17 In 1969 the CP commissioned the local subsidiary of an international public relations firm to do a survey of political images and attitudes in Rhodesia. The conclusion was that “Smith has an exceptionally fine image, the answer in fact to a PR man’s prayer.” Bashford, by contrast, came off as “devious, ineffective, unpopular, unreliable and not very acceptable.”18 This was because he challenged core white beliefs rather than confirming them and playing on them. The successive losses had reduced the CP to a “mere talking shop, incapable of thwarting Smith and the RF.”19 White farmers who supported the CP in opposition to the RF could be isolated and ostracized in professional farmers’ associations and in their communities. This confined its rural support to a handful of brave farmers. In 1971 Smith negotiated a settlement of independence with British Prime Minister Lord Home, which would have left the whites in power through the end of the century and well into the next. But the settlement was contingent upon a testing of African opinion finding it acceptable. The Centre Party campaigned in favor of the Smith–Home agreement and its African MPs found quite negative reaction to their stand in rural areas. The African National Council was organized to serve as a front organization for the banned Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) and Zimbabwe African People’s Union (ZAPU) in

Introduction

9

organizing opposition to the agreement. The ANC was headed by Methodist Bishop Abel Muzorewa, a novice to politics.20 In August 1972, opposition forces came together to form the Rhodesia Party (RP), a name borrowed from an earlier party of the twenties and thirties. The party was formed to campaign for a settlement with the nationalists but wanted nothing to do with the liberal nonracialism of the CP. Rhodesia’s guerrilla war began in earnest a few days before Christmas 1972 with an attack on a farm in northeastern Rhodesia. The Rhodesian government took a number of measures, including collective punishment, against the African population in areas where the guerrillas operated. The RP, headed by spokesman Allan Savory, a territorial officer with extensive expertise in guerrilla warfare, criticized the government’s conduct of the war. The RP gained its only parliamentary representative when Allan Savory defected from the RF in 1973. His former colleagues demanded that he resign his seat and contest it in a by-election as all RF candidates had pledged to do. In 1973 the RP called for negotiations with the ANC. This resulted in Smith conducting negotiations with Muzorewa for ten months and making only minor concessions to the Smith–Home agreement. Muzorewa signed an agreement that was then rejected by the ANC leadership.21 The high point of the liberals in Rhodesia was in the election of July 1974 when they failed to win a seat. In one constituency, the Salisbury suburb of Highlands North, however, they outpolled the RF candidate but split the vote between a CP candidate, a RP candidate, and Savory running as an independent. In February, during a by-election campaign, Savory had called for an all-party conference with the liberation movements participating. This led to the RF candidate winning with nearly a three-to-one margin. Savory resigned from the party leadership, which he had shared with Morris Hirsch—the former CP leader—and a prominent farmer until the latter two left in October 1973. In June he said that if he had been born black he would probably be a guerrilla. This forced his resignation from the party. But Savory ran for the one winnable seat and the party opposed him with its own candidate out of spite. The CP nominated housewife Diane Mitchell, who is best known as the author of a guide to African politics. By then the CP had been reduced to a handful of friends and relatives, most of them women. Savory managed to win 25 percent of the vote.22 In June 1975 the RP produced its major policy document, “the Plan,” which called for a five-year transition to majority rule with foreign intervention and constitutional safeguards. The Plan foresaw many of the features of the 1979– 80 transition to majority rule, other than the time period, but was ignored by the government, and most whites were not even aware of its existence. During 1974–75 four RP delegations met with Ian Smith and a number of RP members went on fact-finding missions to the Frontline States—particularly Zambia— and the external nationalists.23 The final electoral campaign of the Rhodesian liberals was in August 1977. In May 1977 the CP and the RP decided to unite to avoid a repetition of the

10

Indispensable Traitors

Highlands North election. They formed the National Unifying Force (NUF) with Savory as its leader. The NUF collected the usual suspects—Savory, McNally, Mitchell—and a few new ones. It decided to contest eighteen seats in order to deny the government an absolute majority. The NUF failed to win a single seat, but did beat the right-wing Rhodesian Action Party (RAP) in half of the sixteen seats where both parties stood, and outpolled the latter 10.6 percent to 9.3 percent in the seats it contested. It won only about 5 percent of the white vote overall, however, compared to 85 percent for the RF.24 The election was fought on the question of black majority rule. The NUF supported majority rule as inevitable, the RAP declared it a catastrophe to be avoided at all cost, and Smith evaded the question while asking for a mandate. Earlier in the year, RF whip Des Front had led a group of ten RF MPs out to form the RAP. Smith used the election to eliminate this group so that he could make reforms as a prelude to negotiations with Bishop Muzorewa and Ndabaningi Sithole for an internal settlement. Rhodesian whites chose to trust in “good ol’ Smitty.”25 The final service of the Rhodesian liberals was for Morris Hirsch to deliver a lecture to a PFP group in Johannesburg in 1978 on the lessons of Rhodesian liberal politics. The PFP managed to avoid some of the Rhodesian mistakes, even if Frederik van Zyl Slabbert at times resembled Allan Savory. The Rhodesian liberals suffered from several disadvantages. First, there was no ethnic split as in South Africa that could serve as a base for a party. Second, the electoral system made all but a handful of seats unwinnable—all of these being in Salisbury. Third, Smith was a charismatic leader whom the whites trusted to represent their interests. Fourth, the liberals never managed to establish a single leader who could unite them in a single party and energize them the way Slabbert, Zach De Beer, and Tony Leon did in South Africa and Oliver Napier and John Alderdice did in Northern Ireland. Fifth, the liberals were fighting denial on the part of the settlers. Until 1976 the war appeared to be winnable, largely through the efforts of the Central Intelligence Organization to disrupt the guerrillas’ rear through dirty tricks. In June 1976 the Rhodesians began cross-border raids into Mozambique to attack guerrilla camps there. In August 1977, whites could still pretend that the raids would kill enough guerrillas to make the war winnable: Smith was happy to tell them this and they were happy to believe it. ULSTER 1961–70 During the 1960s, there was a tiny nonsectarian party in Northern Ireland, the Ulster Liberal Party that held the university seat at Stormont from 1961–69. The electorate for this seat consisted of students and faculty at Queen’s University in central Belfast. The party had ties with the British Liberal Party, but was not just its Ulster branch. The woman MP who won in 1961 and 1965 was unable to do much in parliament. She was not Northern Ireland’s Helen Suzman.

Introduction

11

In February 1969, four members of the Ulster Liberal Party, including Vice President Oliver Napier, formed the New Ulster Movement (NUM) as a liberal political pressure group (a “ginger group” in British English) with the cooperation of other liberals. The exit of Napier and his colleagues led to the prompt collapse of the Ulster Liberal Party, after it first expelled him within seventytwo hours of the launch of NUM.26 Before Alliance, there was one nonsectarian party in Northern Ireland: the Northern Ireland Labour Party (NILP) which was a social democratic party. The NILP had two periods when it was strong: in the forties during the war and afterwards and in the mid-sixties. From 1943 to 1950 the NILP held the West Belfast Westminster seat, which was then held by Republican Labour from 1966 to 1970, and the SDLP from 1970 to 1983. The NILP’s representation in the Stormont parliament varied from one seat to four (out of fifty-two) with an average of just under two. In the Senate its strength was between zero and two with an average of one. This was because the traditional British first-past-thepost electoral system kept the NILP isolated in a few ghettoes like West Belfast, East Belfast, and Derry. When the troubles reemerged in 1969, the NILP quickly disintegrated as its working-class electorate divided along sectarian lines. The NILP was quickly reduced to a single Stormont seat in 1970 and dissolved in 1979. Its successor was the Workers’ Party, which, however, was Marxist rather than social democratic.27 ISRAEL: THE INDEPENDENT LIBERALS, MOKED AND SHELLI 1973–84 Israel had two longtime liberal parties, the Liberals and the Independent Liberals or Progressives that were at one time a single party, the General Zionists. The former party is a more conservative free market oriented party. They are comparable in the West with the British Conservative Party, the American Republican Party, or the Australian Liberals. The Independent Liberal Party, which started as the Progressive Party until they joined with the Liberals in 1961 to form the General Zionists, was closer to the British Liberal Party, the Alliance Party, or the South African Progs. The Independent Liberals split off four years later when the majority of the Liberal Party voted to join with Herut to form the Gahal electoral bloc. It was an urban-based party with most of its support coming from professionals of Central European origins: those who immigrated, or whose parents immigrated, from Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary starting in the 1930s. The party was represented in the Knesset from 1961 to 1981 with it usually having from three to six seats. It was a reliable coalition partner in Labor coalitions from 1965 to 1981. It supported a moderate line on foreign policy. Its main role was to defend civil rights from encroachment by the religious parties and its presence in successive coalitions helped to keep the National Religious Party moderate until after the Yom Kippur War. The Independent Liberals participated in the first Rabin government in 1974 to

12

Indispensable Traitors

1977 and thus helped to take the first major step in the peace process by supporting the Sinai II interim agreement with Egypt. The party gradually suffered from attrition among its electorate going from five seats in 1965 to four in the next two Knessets to only one in the Ninth Knesset in 1977. The Independent Liberals succumbed in 1977 to a combination of the gradual aging of its traditional electorate and defections to Shulamit Aloni’s Citizen’s Rights Movement and Yigael Yadin’s Democratic Movement for Change. Reduced to a single seat in 1977 it had disappeared by the next election. The party then joined the Labor Alignment and was represented by a single representative in the Eleventh Knesset.28 The first real dovish party in Israeli politics was antiestablishment journalist Uri Avineri’s HaOlam HaZe—Koh Hadash (This World—New Force) party with one seat in the Fifth Knesset in 1965 and two seats in 1969. Avineri’s journal HaOlam HaZe was a unique combination of pornography and political commentary that appealed to free-thinking Israelis. Avineri advocated a moderate foreign policy and after 1967 a return to the 1949 armistice lines and peace with the Palestinians. He was truly ahead of his time by about twenty years. After the 1969 election the party split into two antagonistic factions and failed to win a single seat in 1973.29 In 1973, Moked (focus) was formed by the merger of the Zionist Communist Party (Maki) with another faction. It advocated a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza as well as socialist policies domestically. Moked remained a lonely opposition party. In 1976, however, it merged with Avineri’s faction of HaOlam HaZe and was joined by former Labor Party general secretary Aryeh Eliav to form Mahaneh Sheli. Sheli, an acronym standing for Peace for Israel and Equality for Israel, also means mine in Hebrew.30 The party was led by former hawk turned dove, Major General Mattiyahu Peled. He was supported by military historian Colonel Meir Pe’il, and Saadia Marziano of the Black Panthers, an Oriental Jewish protest movement. It won two seats and then became involved in a controversy when one of its two members of Knesset (MK) refused to give up his seat after two years in accordance with a rotation agreement signed earlier. This led Aryeh Eliav to quit the party in 1979 when he failed to receive his promised seat. Sheli met with moderates from the PLO such as Issam Sartawi (who was assassinated in 1982 in Portugal). This helped to ensure its demise by the next Knesset when it failed to win the 1 percent support necessary for representation.31 Shulamit Aloni formed the Citizen’s Rights Movement (CRM) after being refused a safe seat on the Labor list because of opposition from Golda Meir. She was absent from the Knesset from 1969 to 1973. Aloni campaigned for rights for secular Israelis and separation of synagogue and state. The new party won three seats. It became part of Rabin’s coalition along with the Independent Liberals but left shortly afterwards when the National Religious Party joined the government. In 1977 the party was reduced to a single representative, Aloni, who remained its sole Knesset member until 1984 when it again won three seats.

Introduction

13

It was shortly thereafter joined by a fourth member, Yossi Sarid, who had defected from the Labor Party to protest its formation of the government of national unity with the Likud. Eliav had briefly been a member of the party in the mid-seventies after he left the Labor Party, but he left over the issue of contacts with the Palestine Liberation Organization.32 From its founding in 1978 until the formation of Meretz, the main focus for the liberals was in the umbrella peace organization Peace Now. Peace Now was founded in March 1978 after three hundred reserve officers sent a letter to Prime Minister Menachem Begin imploring him not to waste the opportunity for peace with Egypt out of a love for territory. The letter was made public in the press and meetings were held in major cities to form a pressure group. Thus, its origins were similar to those of the New Ulster Movement. The group organized a massive rally before Begin left for Camp David, urging Begin to be flexible and bargain for peace. It spent the time following the conclusion of the peace treaty with Egypt protesting settlement activity on the West Bank as being prejudicial to the peace process. Peace Now virtually faded away until the Lebanon War when it came back to protest the war and the Sabra and Shatila massacres. Following the implementation of the Kahan Commission in early 1983, Peace Now faded away for nearly five years until the beginning of the Intifada. Peace Now was organized as a mainstream movement encompassing all those opposed to the expansionist policies of the Likud and in favor of peace with the Palestinians. Its supporters voted for Labor, Mapam, Ratz, and Shinui, but the party closest to Peace Now was Ratz. With the addition of Yossi Sarid in 1984, Mordechai Virshubski from Shinui, as well as Dedi Zucker and Mordechai BarOn from Peace Now, the CRM became the foremost peace party.33 In the summer of 1988, Peace Now publicly engaged in dialogue with the PLO. It had held talks with individuals within the PLO since its founding, but always in secret. By 1988 it was past worrying about embarrassing the Labor Party. Peace Now had consistently called for Israel to negotiate with “representatives of the Palestinians,” meaning both Jordan and the PLO, for years. When King Hussein renounced any responsibility for the West Bank in July 1988 it was clear that this meant the PLO. In October 1989 Peace Now opened its first national office in Tel Aviv and hired one full-time and three part-time employees to man it.34 Peace Now had diaspora chapters in the major Jewish communities of Britain, Canada, the United States, and possibly other countries. The affiliates managed to attract the support of influential figures in the diaspora Jewish leadership. In January 1990 the International Centre for Peace in Tel Aviv organized a World Jewish Leadership Peace Conference. The organization prevailed upon Shimon Peres to be the main speaker. Following his speech, Shulamit Aloni spoke and was very critical of Peres for refusing to be “the leader of the peace camp.”35 For twenty-one years, from 1967 to 1988, the de facto Palestinian policy of the Labor Party was based on the Allon Plan or “territorial compromise,” a version of the Jordanian Option. It called for returning the populated regions of

14

Indispensable Traitors

the West Bank and Gaza to Jordan while retaining the Jordan Valley, the Etzion settlement bloc, and the Ein Gedi region bordering the Dead Sea. This was really a nonpolicy because Jordan refused to negotiate on either the basis of the Allon Plan or the Dayan Plan or “functional compromise” which would have let Jordan administer the West Bank while Israel remained in charge of security. Jordan wanted a return to the 1949 armistice lines with East Jerusalem included. This was possible because the PLO officially talked in terms of a “stages strategy” or destroying Israel in stages by using any territory returned in a peace settlement as a base for future attacks on Israel. This played on Israeli fears and images of the Arabs as untrustworthy, fanatical, and dangerous. When the PLO was a leading actor in the opposition to Camp David and Israel’s peace with Egypt, this reinforced the image of the PLO as radical and extremist. A lost war in Lebanon and the Intifada would be necessary to make the Israeli electorate open to a message based on negotiations with the PLO and a Palestinian state.

NOTES 1. On native settler conflicts, see Thomas Mitchell, Native vs. Settler: Ethnic Conflicts in Israel/Palestine, Northern Ireland and South Africa (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2000). 2. See Andre du Toit, “The Cape Afrikaners’ Failed Liberal Moment 1850–70” in Jeffrey Butler, et al., eds., Democratic Liberalism in South Africa: Its History and Prospect (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University, 1987), pp. 35–63. 3. Rodney Davenport, “The Cape Liberal Tradition to 1910” in Butler, op. cit., pp. 21–34. 4. Ibid., and Pierre van den Berghe, ed., The Liberal Dilemma in South Africa (New York: St. Martin’s, 1979), p. 8. 5. Davenport, op. cit., p. 365. 6. Ibid., pp. 392–93. 7. Douglas Irvine, “The Liberal Party, 1953–68” in Butler, op. cit., pp. 116–33. 8. Ibid., pp. 124, 132. 9. Pierre van den Berghe, “The Impossibility of a Liberal Solution in South Africa” in van den Berghe, op. cit., p. 56. 10. Ibid., p. 64. 11. Ibid. 12. Harry Oppenheimer of Anglo-American was sitting in parliament as a UP MP in the fifties. Later he was a leading patron of the Progs. Afrikaner businessmen of course supported the NP. 13. See C.J. Driver, Patrick Duncan 1918–67 (London: Heinemann, 1980). 14. Irvine, op. cit., p. 121. 15. Irvine, op. cit., p. 130. 16. Peter Godwin and Ian Hancock, Rhodesians Never Die (Oxford: Oxford University, 1993), p. 73. 17. Ibid., p. 71; Martin Meredith, The Past is Another Country: Rhodesia, UDI to Zimbabwe (London: Pan, 1980), pp. 64–65. 18. Godwin and Hancock, p. 71.

Introduction

15

19. Ibid., p. 74. 20. Meredith, pp. 75–86, 89. 21. Ibid., pp. 131–32; Godwin and Hancock, op. cit., pp. 99–100. 22. Godwin and Hancock, pp. 110–12. The guide is Mitchell, Who’s Who in Rhodesian African Politics (Salisbury, Rhodesia: Salisbury, 1977). The book went through several editions. 23. Ibid., pp. 124–25. 24. Ibid., pp. 203–4; Meredith, op. cit., pp. 308, 313. 25. Ibid. 26. Interview with Oliver Napier, July 1998. 27. John Harbinson, The Ulster Unionist Party 1882–1973 (Belfast: Blackstaff, 1973), pp. 97, 107–28, and Appendix A. 28. Susan H. Rolef, Political Dictionary of the State of Israel (New York: Macmillan, 1987), p. 156. 29. Ibid., p. 139. 30. Mahaneh means camp in Hebrew; Sheli was both an acronym for shalom l’Israel and shevion l’Israel. 31. Ibid., p. 206. 32. Ibid., p. 66. The name can also be translated as Civil Rights Movement. 33. The author was a student activist in Peace Now from its formation in 1978 until he left Israel in 1980. Colin Shindler, Ploughshares Into Swords? (New York: I. B. Tauris, 1991), pp. 205–7. 34. Ibid., pp. 208–9. 35. Ibid., p. 214.

2

Origins and Expansion

Liberal parties, in order to be successful and escape the fate of the Rhodesian liberals or the Liberal Party of 1953–68, must establish a minimal level of public support and parliamentary representation in order to be able to accomplish their goals. In a proportional representation system this equates to between 5 and 10 percent of the vote. This can usually be accomplished by dominating certain sectors which make up the electorate: in Israel the kibbutzim and high-income residential neighborhoods; in Ulster the middle-class urban areas. In a traditional first-past-the-post system, this amounts to several different constituencies, preferably neighboring, so that the party can have a solid geographical bloc. Ulster’s electoral system combines some of the features of the old South African and the Israeli systems, meaning that both these countries’ experiences are partially relevant to it, and its experience is partially relevant to the other two. The liberals best ally or worst enemy is usually the press. The press can serve as a publicity agent for the party by covering its activities, interviewing and profiling its members of parliament and leaders, and examining its policies. It can also doom a party by ignoring it. In settler colonies, with the notable exceptions of Israel and Northern Ireland after 1972, the electronic media is usually controlled by the ruling party which uses it to discredit its opponents and publicize its view of reality. That leaves only the press as a counter. In South Africa the Afrikaans press was also dominated by the National Party (NP), leaving only the English press for the opposition. Initially almost all the English press favored the United Party, with only the Rand Daily Mail supporting the Progressives. As the Progressives expanded and the United Party was shown to be impotent, so did the list of papers supporting the Progressives editorially.

18

Indispensable Traitors

THE PROGRESSIVE PARTY During the 1950s the United Party (UP), the official opposition since 1948, became a “me too” party in that it basically advocated a kinder, gentler apartheid rather than a genuine alternative to apartheid. Its criticism was more in the spirit in which the NP implemented apartheid rather than in the policy itself. When Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd first introduced his Bantustan scheme with its necessity to give white land to the homelands, the United Party saw an opportunity to attack the NP from the right. It was attacked for giving away too much land to the blacks. This was the last straw for a group of a dozen MPs, eleven white MPs and one of the Native Representatives. Afraid that they were about to be expelled from the UP, they stormed out of the party’s annual conference, resigned from the party, and formed the Progressive Party.1 After consulting with their constituency committees, which mostly backed them, they decided not to resign from their seats. The Progressive Party (PP) was formed over the failure of the United Party to back constitutional reform, with the Progs advocating an entrenched constitution with a Bill of Rights, an independent judiciary, and entrenched federal rights for the provinces.2 For the next two years they were a principled opposition to the NP during the state of emergency in 1960 and the referendum on the republic. The Progressive Party was the only party to oppose the state of emergency and the banning of the ANC and the Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC). The PP also opposed South Africa leaving the Commonwealth and becoming a republic.3 In the 1961 election, only Helen Suzman among the white representatives retained her seat in the House of Assembly. For the next thirteen years she was the party’s only representative in parliament. Although she was never party leader, she had to do most of the party’s work on her own. She researched and wrote her own speeches, visited blacks in prison, met with victims of apartheid laws, and many other tasks. She also took the animosity of the NP’s leadership for being the only effective opposition to their policies in parliament. She credits her survival in parliament to the effectiveness and hard work of her election agent, Max Borkum, and the “superb organization” of the Progressive Party. The 1961 Houghton election campaign was an outstanding example of superb organization which overcame the hostile climate towards the Progressive Party for having “split the organization.” Max [Borkum] had predicted the result with uncanny accuracy—only 12 votes fewer than the 564 majority I obtained.4

In all Suzman fought six campaigns in her parliamentary career and was unopposed three times. The next several elections remained fairly close.5 Public opinion went sharply to the right as a result of the Sharpeville massacre and the subsequent armed struggle by Umkhonto Wesize (MK) and Poqo in the early 1960s. Liberal Party members were attacked by white thugs when they held public meetings in Johannesburg on the city hall steps.6

Origins and Expansion

19

Academics differ on whether or not to consider the Progressive Party and its successors a true liberal party. Some considered it as being solidly within the Cape liberal tradition.7 Others saw it as being a party which contained some liberals, but was not necessarily a liberal party itself.8 Whereas, others saw it as being to the right of the liberal tradition, “the Progressive Party is a reembodiment of nineteenth century Cape Liberalism with a strong dash of paternalism.”9 This was especially true during the latter part of the seventies when the Progressive Party was forced to trim some of its principles in order to attract members from the collapsing United Party. Helen Suzman wrote of her difficulties with Harry Schwarz, who was the leader of the Reform Party before joining the Progressive Party in 1976 to make it the Progressive Reform Party. Schwarz became the party’s spokesman on defense matters and he was too supportive of the South African Defence Force (SADF) for Suzman’s taste.10 Schwarz had been the leader of the United Party in the Transvaal Provincial Council before splitting off to form the Reform Party in 1975. The Reform Party brought four additional MPs to the Progs. FROM PROGRESSIVE PARTY TO PROGRESSIVE FEDERAL PARTY In 1974, hard work and dissension in the United Party led the Progs to make their first breakout. Helen Suzman had given notice in 1974, that if she were the only MP elected for the party, she would resign. Colin Eglin was confident that he could win in Sea Point as he had lost by only 239 votes in 1970. Frederik van Zyl Slabbert wrote that Eglin told him there was little chance of winning the seat in Rondebosch, but he just wanted to keep the UP busy in the adjoining constituencies to divert its resources. Eglin did not sound like he expected any major breakthrough in the Johannesburg region. Slabbert was simultaneously being wooed by the Young Turks of the UP as a candidate and was about to join when Eglin approached him. About halfway through the campaign, Slabbert got the feeling that he might actually win. He credits Neill Ross and a few others with the real work in the campaign.11 In the general election, in addition to Suzman’s reelection, they gained an additional three seats in Johannesburg, followed by two seats in Cape Town. Two of the three Johannesburg seats were won by new stars: Rene de Villiers, the recently retired editor of the Star, the main English newspaper in Johannesburg, and Gordon Waddell, an executive with Anglo-American. Shortly afterwards a by-election gave the party a third seat in Cape Town for a total of seven in parliament. Alex Boraine won the Pinelands seat, which Eglin had held until 1961, by only thirty-four votes after the original UP candidate died in a plane crash during the general election campaign.12 The winners included Colin Eglin, the party leader since 1971, who was elected in Sea Point in Cape Town and Frederik van Zyl Slabbert, the next party leader, also from Cape Town. Slabbert was a former sociology professor at Cape Town and Witwatersrand universities

20

Indispensable Traitors

and was fluent in both English and Afrikaans.13 Bilingualism is an important asset in a country with two official languages with the government being made up of people from the other language group. Fluency in Afrikaans allowed the members to follow NP speeches in parliament, read the Afrikaans press, and campaign in Afrikaner areas. The merger with the Reform Party in 1976 gave the party a solid base in the Southern Transvaal along with the toehold in the Western Cape. The 1974 election was the day before a military coup in Lisbon which led to Portugal giving independence to its African colonies. By then, Lisbon had lost control of Guinea Bissau in West Africa and of northern Mozambique but could have continued to rule in Angola and southern Mozambique for years if the will to fight on had been there. By the next election in 1977, with the beginning in earnest of the border war in Namibia and the expansion of the war in Rhodesia, it was obvious that South Africa no longer was living behind a zone of buffer states. The repression of urban unrest in the second half of 1976 at the cost of about a thousand black lives coincided with the secret intervention in Angola which included the use of South African conscripts outside of South Africa who were not volunteers. Conservatives in the Reform wing of the party backed a strong defense. The traditional Progs fought for a minimal defense restricted to South Africa and security based on reform and negotiation. In 1973, Harry Schwarz took over the Transvaal leadership of the United Party. This quickly led to a split between the Young Turks—who would become the Reform Party—and the Old Guard. In January 1974, Schwarz held a “personal meeting” with Mangosotho Buthelezi in Mahlabatini, KwaZulu and they agreed on a five-point declaration which was much closer to Prog policy than UP policy. The Natal UP leader, Radclyffe Cadman, who lived less than a hundred miles from Mahlabatini, was not even aware of the meeting. The declaration caused the split in the party later that year. The Reform Party had four MPs, a senator, and ten members of the provincial council in the Transvaal, making it the official opposition in the Transvaal Provincial Council.14 It was clear that there was no room for two parties to the left of the UP and that the Reform Party was just a placeholder until a merger could be negotiated with the Progs. The Reformists regarded the Progs as a bunch of impractical “do-gooders” while the latter regarded Schwarz as a prima donna. The Reform Party wanted the new party to have a completely new name, whereas the Progs insisted that Progressive be the dominant part of the new name. The only hitch in the merger was when Schwarz insisted on a leadership position for himself in the new party after the Reformists had insisted earlier that they had no such demand.15 The Progs fought four important by-elections over an eight-year period, starting in the spring of 1976 when Harry Pitman won in a three-way contest for Durban North. The Nationalist candidate was Denis Worrall who ran a proapartheid ticket, taking enough votes away from the UP candidate to allow Pitman to win by 374 votes. The MPs in the caucus took time off to canvass

Origins and Expansion

21

the constituency and many Members of Provincincial Council (MPCs) and city councillors came from Johannesburg to canvass. The by-election helped to cement the bonds between the two formerly separate parties. The campaign was managed by Neill Ross, the party’s secretary general. Ross was a former Liberal who had joined the Progs in 1959 and was their chief election strategist. Pitman was an attorney who was involved in many high profile trials of black opposition figures.16 In October 1976 the opposition parties (minus the Afrikaner Herstigte Nasional Party [HNP] naturally) began holding a series of talks about a possible realignment of the opposition. The PRP was represented by Colin Eglin and Max Borkum (Suzman’s election agent), who met with Sir De Villiers Graaf and Cadman of the UP and Theo Gerdner of the Democratic Party. In the spring the talks finally broke down over principles. In August 1977, Japie Basson led a small group of four MPs and a senator into the Progs and the party was renamed the Progressive Federal Party (PFP). The United Party had split into three factions: the South Africa Party on the right with three MPs, the New Republic Party, and the Basson group. Basson was made caucus leader.17 In 1977 the party had its next major breakthrough, the biggest in its history. The United Party decided to merge with the Democratic Party, a paper party located in Natal. The only thing it inherited from the Democrats was one member of the provincial council in Natal.18 Less than a month after the merger the former leader of the Democratic Party, Theo Gerdner, publicly withdrew his support for the new party.19 The PRP had held talks with the UP about a merger but could not agree on a common platform as the UP was still unwilling to take a principled stand against apartheid. In a foolish error the UP gave up its biggest asset—its name—and renamed itself the New Republic Party (NRP). The name reflected its desire for a new republic with a multiracial parliament with four racially organized chambers. This plan had been designed by MP Mike Mitchell of Natal in 1975 and reflected the UP’s first real stab at an alternative policy to apartheid.20 But it was no real alternative. By changing its name, the United Party forced knee-jerk opposition voters to make a conscious choice between the PFP and the NRP.21 In the November 1977 election the NRP was reduced to ten seats—nine in Natal and one in the Eastern Cape—and senators from the Orange Free State and Transvaal. When the senate was abolished in 1980 the NRP truly became the Natal Republic Party. The PFP won seventeen seats, including its first seat in Natal in a regular election when Ray Swart won in Durban. Pitman abandoned his Durban North seat to run in Pietermaritzburg and lost, as did the new PFP candidate in Durban North, but Swart won in Musgrave where he beat NRP leader Cadman by only 141 votes. It expanded its presence in both Johannesburg and Cape Town. Judge Kowie Marais, who had presided over the opposition merger talks, joined the PFP and was elected in Johannesburg North.22 Zach de Beer was elected back to parliament. Because of the decimation of the United Party, the PFP now became the official opposition with the privileges due from that position.23 Cad-

22

Indispensable Traitors

man became Natal administrator, an appointed position, and was replaced as leader by Vause Raw. The PFP considered the NRP to be a thoroughly racist party, but preferable to the NP.24 The PFP proposed to the NRP an agreement by which the former would stand aside in all by-elections in Natal in exchange for the NRP standing aside elsewhere in South Africa so that each party could have a straight shot at the NP rather than splitting the opposition anti-National Party vote. But the NRP was desperate to break out of Natal so that it could claim to be a national party. The three parties engaged in a series of by-elections from 1977 to 1980 which left the NRP totally discredited after its leader, Vause Raw, made extravagant claims of support and predicted wins in areas that the party had no chance in. The PFP picked up its first NP seat in a by-election in the Johannesburg constituency of Edenvale in November 1979. This was the second important byelection. The seat had been a United Party seat up until 1977 when it was won by the NP with a majority of 871. The PFP won with a majority of 1,162 in 1979.25 The English-speaking press then wrote the first of many obituaries for the NRP. In an editorial, the Sunday Tribune (Durban) pointed out that, “[i]t won Edenvale despite the efforts of the NRP—and the NRP lost Eshowe [in northern Natal] despite the absence of PFP candidates.”26 The writer declared “all the others merely spectators with little to contribute” in the battle between the PFP and the NP.27 In fact, the NRP won only two elections in its eleven-year existence: in East London City in October 1980 when a former MP from East London North ran against the incumbent who had defected to the PFP; and a safe provincial council seat in Natal, South Coast, in July 1979.28 Following the East London byelection, the third crucial by-election, and another by-election in Simonstown which the NP won after the NRP stood down, the two opposition parties “declared war” on each other. The PFP accused the NP and the NRP of making a deal to defeat their common enemy. The NRP won in East London with a 1,352vote majority and admitted that 1,100 of the votes came from the NP, whereas the PFP put the figure considerably higher. These by-elections destroyed the possibility of an election deal between the two parties for six years.29 In August 1980, Vause Raw announced that the NRP was broke outside of Natal.30 The East London by-election was probably funded by the Natal party. The NRP then went on to lose its East London seat to the NP in the 1981 general election the following year with the NRP and PFP splitting the opposition vote and outpolling the NP winner.31 The strategy of the PFP was simple: the English-speakers were the people most open to change, most ready to support a liberal agenda, but they first had to destroy the conservative United Party and its successors. In order to have a secure electoral base from which to advocate change, the PFP first had to capture the urban English-speaking areas. The PFP did not seriously devote its efforts to pursuing seats in the rural “platteland” regions of the Northern Cape, Transvaal, and Orange Free State or in Namibia which had five seats in parliament.

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23

Instead the party restricted its efforts to urban seats with an educated middleclass electorate on the Witwatersrand (Johannesburg and suburbs), Cape Town, Eastern Cape, Durban, and Pietermaritzburg. By-elections allowed the party to concentrate its resources in a single constituency with volunteers coming from the surrounding area to canvass. The party had a phenomenal mail vote tracing system. It would use friends and relatives of anyone who had moved to trace them. If they had not yet reregistered in another district, the party would have them vote in the by-election by postal vote. The only PFP member in the Natal Provincial Council, Rodney Haxton elected in 1981 from Pinetown, credits the postal votes for his win in a narrow victory by only sixty-nine votes.32 The party also managed to win eventually with candidates who lost in previous general elections but built up name recognition in a constituency. Several of the winners in 1974 and 1977 were the original founding MPs from 1959.33 This allowed the PFP to make dramatic leaps forward in a particular region from one election to the next. The general election of 1974 allowed the Progs to break through in Johannesburg and in Cape Town. In 1977 it consolidated its position in those two cities and broke through in Durban. In early 1980 NRP Pietermaritzburg South MP Gerrie de Jong switched to the PFP. In 1981 it consolidated its position in Natal by winning an additional two seats in Durban, and broke through in Pietermaritzburg with two seats and in Greytown with one; and broke through in the Eastern Cape with two seats in Port Elizabeth and one in Albany.34 In 1981 it won a total of twenty-seven seats. Slabbert averaged three to four meetings a day during the election campaign and was hoarse by the end of the campaign. He became used to fourteen-hour days and returning to his hotel room to catch a shower, the news, and go to bed.35 In February 1980, Robert Mugabe won a stunning victory in the Zimbabwe liberation election. This was a double warning of the dangers of an internal settlement in which little of substance was granted to blacks and that South Africa’s defense perimeter had shrunk from the Zambesi to the Limpopo River. In another decade it would also be moved south in the west from the Cunene to the Orange River. The NRP lost two of its seats, reducing it to eight—seven in Natal. Its token Eastern Cape seat changed from East London to King William’s Town, which was located in the borders region between Ciskei and Transkei and was scheduled to lose land to Ciskei as part of the homeland consolidation scheme. This was also an important issue in Natal with many areas due to lose land to KwaZulu. In the Eshowe by-election the NRP attacked the NP from the right and used swart gevaar (black peril) tactics.36 But this issue had no play outside of Natal except in King William’s Town. The remaining homelands were located in the Transvaal, with two small portions of Bophutatswana in the Orange Free State and Northern Cape. This was the area being fought over by the Conservative Party, HNP, and NP. An English-speaking party like the NRP did not have a chance there. The next six years saw a simultaneous fight between the NRP and PFP for

24

Indispensable Traitors

the allegiance of the Natal electorate while the two cooperated in forging an alternative to the government’s homeland consolidation scheme for KwaZulu. MIT political scientist and Africanist Robert Rotberg had participated in the Quail Commission report on independence for Ciskei. The Commission recommended against independence and in favor of a consociational solution merging Ciskei with the borders area of King William’s Town and Queenstown. The recommendation was ignored by the homeland’s leader who accepted independence, but was taken up by the sugar industry in Natal as a possible solution for Natal. From 1982 to 1985 the PFP was most active in opposing the NP’s plans for a new constitution. The government held a white referendum on the new constitution in November 1983. The PFP, along with the Conservatives and the HNP—but obviously for different reasons—urged a no vote while the NP and NRP supported a yes vote. Slabbert met with many editors from the leading newspapers urging them to come out in favor of a no vote. But nearly all supported a yes vote as they felt it was a step in the right direction and they felt uncomfortable siding with the Conservatives. Some papers even refused to run ads against the constitution.37 The business community also supported the new constitution.38 Many of the PFP’s voters in 1981 defected to the yes campaign in 1983. With a 70 percent poll, two-thirds of voters voted yes.39 With those who voted PFP in the 1981 election the figure was actually 70 percent, compared with 76 percent for the NRP and 80 percent for the NP, so the PFP, in spite of the leadership’s urging, still voted for the constitution in aboveaverage numbers. But this is misleading because the HNP/Conservative voters all voted no.40 If the average of those parties whose voters voted yes was made, it would probably be close to 78 or 79 percent. Those who voted for either the PFP or the NRP in 1981, voted no in the referendum, and then voted for one of the two parties again in 1987, amounting to only 7 percent of the total vote in 1987. A further 10.2 percent voted for the PFP in 1981, voted yes in the referendum, and then again voted for the PFP in 1987. This compares with 3.4 percent of the PFP that voted yes in 1983 and then voted for the NP in 1987. With the NRP the percentage of defectors was 5.5 percent. These percentages are of the total electorate in 1987 and not of the parties’ voters. The PFP ended up with about one-fifth of its 1981 voters defecting to the NP, whereas the NRP lost about three-fourths of its voters.41 The PFP had been concerned that this defection could become permanent with them voting for the NP. The PFP also competed for office at the local and provincial levels. Starting in the 1970s it became a presence on the Johannesburg City Council. Later it came to hold the balance of power on the city councils in Johannesburg, Cape Town, and Durban. But traditionally local candidates ran on an independent rather than a party basis. It also held a number of seats in the Cape and Transvaal Provincial Councils. In Natal it did not do as well, as many people who voted for the Progs (and the Nationalists) for parliament voted for the NRP for the provincial council because of the skilled job that the party did in running the

Origins and Expansion

25

provincial government. This was under the leadership of Frank Martin, senior member of the executive committee from 1974 to 1986. Rodney Haxton was the sole PFP member of the Natal Provincial Council from 1981 to 1986, when the council was abolished. But under the South African constitution of 1910, the provincial councils had rather limited powers and South Africa was a unitary state with devolved power to the provinces rather than a true federal state. The PFP won 19 percent of the total vote in 1981 for a total of twenty-seven seats compared to the HNP’s 14 percent and zero seats. This was triple the 6.4 percent that it averaged in the twenty-one constituencies it contested in 1974. The Progs overtook the United Party in the polls for the first time in August 1975; they were about even at 11 percent apiece in September 1976 when the Soweto uprising was taking place. In June 1979 they again came close with the PFP at 14 percent and the NRP at 12.5–13 percent. In August 1981 the PFP peaked at about 22 percent. Between February 1981 and October 1985 the PFP averaged between 17 and 20 percent in the polls.42 In late 1983, there was a vacancy in the Pinetown constituency when the PFP incumbent, Harry Pitman, suddenly died from a heart attack. The NP had announced that it would stand aside so that the NRP could have a straight shot at the seat. This was partially a payoff for the NRP’s parliamentary caucus supporting the NP in the referendum and on a number of issues over the past three years. The NRP did not have a real candidate for the seat, so it was forced to nominate Frank Martin to run as its candidate in the February 1984 by-election. Martin was the senior member of the party’s provincial council caucus and, as the senior member of the executive committee, the de facto “prime minister” of Natal. Martin did not really want to win as it would mean giving up his position as senior member of the provincial executive, so he did very little campaigning. He was out of practice in any case as his Pietermaritzburg council seat had been a safe seat for a decade. Martin basically limited himself to a couple of campaign rallies to fire up the volunteers. His campaign manager told the author that Martin was “the laziest candidate I have ever seen.”43 PFP Natal leader Ray Swart did polling in the constituency, on the orders of Slabbert with the poll being conducted by Lawrence Schlemmer, and found that education was a key concern of many voters. So he found a former teacher who was the secretary of the Natal Teachers’ Association, Roger Burrows, “[a] virtual unknown quantity outside education circles at the time of his nomination in December” and ran him as the candidate.44 Burrows was surprised that Swart wanted to run him and not a high profile candidate. Burrows campaigned very hard with the PFP canvassing every residence in the constituency. Swart would return from parliament on weekends to campaign and phone canvass from his Cape Town office in the evenings.45 There was a group of NP supporters canvassing on behalf of Martin on a “private basis.”46 A “senior NP spokesman” said that Martin would get NP votes but not money nor organizing help.47 Nine days before the election, the Daily News’ senior political reporter wrote that “the NRP . . . should have an easy win

26

Indispensable Traitors

in the Pinetown by-election.”48 In the election Burrows won narrowly, largely on the strength of the postal vote. A week before the election it was reported that he led Martin by more than 1,000 postal votes with the final margin being 880 votes.49 Martin also blamed his loss on many of his supporters staying home because it was announced that South Africa’s most wanted ordinary criminal, a man named Stander, had been captured by the FBI in the United States.50 In the Sunday Tribune before the election, Slabbert had written an editorial dubbing the NRP “the Nats B team.” He wrote that the NRP was incapable of mounting a principled opposition to the NP. In fact he questioned the NRP’s ability to mount any type of opposition to the NP. It is certain that there is not a single constituency left in this country—not even in Natal— that the NRP can win purely with its own genuine support . . . Therefore, without the active support and collusion of the governing National Party, the NRP cannot hope to bring back another member of the opposition. This is simply another way of saying that the National Party determines the fortunes of the NRP as an opposition. Or, to put it quite bluntly, the Government can choose its opposition in this respect.

The NRP leader in his accompanying editorial called the PFP “probably the most ineffective opposition with which the country was ever saddled.”51 The afternoon Daily News said that the “result has delivered a body blow to the New Republic Party from which it is unlikely to recover.”52 The Pinetown by-election, the last of the crucial by-elections, led to fresh defections from the NRP. A month after the election two former NRP senators from the Cape, one of them the former Cape provincial leader, joined the NP.53 In October 1984, three NRP MPs including NRP provincial leader Ron Miller defected to the NP. During the Pinetown campaign he had vehemently denied that the NRP was the “NP’s Second Team.” But he had stated that the party had abandoned “confrontation politics” for “consensus politics.”54 Analysts noted that this left the party with fewer MPs in Natal, its only base, than the other two parties. Pretoria announced at the end of May 1985 that the provincial councils would be scrapped in a year and replaced with appointed multiracial provincial governments. This would destroy the NRP’s last remaining base of support. For most voters the party’s raison d’etre was to provide good government for Natal. This also led the NRP’s only non-Natal provincial councilor, Pat Radue, to join the NP.55 In May 1987 he ran against the NRP’s sole remaining non-Natal MP, Pat Rogers, and beat him.56 In both November 1982 and January 1984 NRP leader Vause Raw had to deny rumors in the press that the party planned to merge with the NP. It was easy for him to deny because Raw never would have joined the NP.57 At the end of October 1985, an NRP candidate came in dead last in a multicandidate race in a by-election in Port Natal with only 550 votes. The candidate lost his deposit, coming in behind the NP winner, the PFP candidate, a former NRP independent, and a Conservative.58 Natal leader Derrick Watterson admit-

Origins and Expansion

27

ted that the party had “served its time.”59 PFP Natal leader Ray Swart called on the NRP to disband.60 This demonstrated that the NRP had no real popular support in Natal going into the Indaba. This was a foreshadowing of the NRP’s results in 1987. A final crucial by-election in a negative sense was the Newton Park byelection in Port Elizabeth in 1985. The party had won a seat in Port Elizabeth in 1981, and economic conditions were in its favor: both the cost of living and white unemployment was increasing. But the NP ran on a swart gevaar ticket that accused the PFP of being “soft on security” and “against the police” and only favoring blacks. The vote was affected by the activities of Molly Blackburn in the investigation of the Kwa Nobuhle killings at Uitenhage. Slabbert wrote, “The Newton Park by-election showed quite clearly that the more effective the PFP’s protesting and mediating role became, the more threatened its electoral base would be—particularly in constituencies where it was necessary to win to achieve a “balance of power” between the government and the growth of the right-wing.”61 This meant that its stream of by-election victories was ended with the elimination of the NRP in 1987. Following Slabbert’s surprise resignation the PFP reappointed Eglin as party leader from 1986 to 1988. Because both the PFP and NRP supported the Indaba proposals agreed upon in November 1986, they formed an electoral pact to contest the May 1987 general election. This was with the two parties deciding who would run on the basis of who held the seat or had done the best in the 1981 general election. The PFP had its sights on forty-three seats that it considered realistic possibilities. But it was unable to retain its existing number, let alone expand on it. The pact worked well for the PFP, with it losing only one net seat in Natal—the party lost both its Pietermaritzburg seats to NP defectors from the NRP but picked up a seat in Durban North—where the pact basically applied. The NRP’s Natal Provincial Council caucus had lost half its members to the NP as a result of the pact.62 The NP found seats for all of these defectors to contest, so that in many seats there were races between two former NRP members, one running on an anti-Indaba ticket and the other on a pro-Indaba ticket. The former NRP members ran on a platform of preserving petty apartheid with a very swart gevaar racist campaign.63 Rodney Haxton had predicted this defection during a debate on the Buthelezi Commission’s Report in the Provincial Council in 1982.64 The main issue in the 1987 election nationally was the “unrest” and the swart gevaar or black peril. The NP painted the PFP as being puppets of the ANC. This was absurd considering that the PFP opposed both the armed struggle and sanctions. The NP’s election slogan was “Reform Yes, Surrender No” and it positioned itself as the centrist party between the two extremes of the PFP and the Conservatives. The main thing that the analysts and journalists were concentrating on was a trio of independent candidates: Wynand Malan, the sitting NP MP for Randfontein and the most liberal member of the NP caucus; Denis Worrall, the former

28

Indispensable Traitors

South African ambassador to Britain who resigned in January 1987; and Afrikaner businesswoman Esther Lategan. Malan was handily reelected. Originally Worrall wanted the PFP to step aside on his behalf in Durban North, but Swart refused and advised him to run in Port Natal against NP Natal leader Stoffel Botha, who had rejected the Indaba. But Worrall decided to go after an even bigger prize. Worrall, who deliberately ran against Constitutional Development Minister Chris Heunis, in the Cape seat of Heldeberg rather than in a safe seat, lost by a razor thin margin of thirty-nine votes. Lategan, running in an adjoining constituency, lost but with a good show. The PFP lost seven seats reducing its total to twenty. The Conservatives picked up twenty-two seats, all in the Transvaal. The NRP was reduced to one seat in Mooi River, the result of vigorous campaigning by the candidate and his former PFP opponent serving as his election agent.65 South Africa remained a three-party system, as it had been since 1974, with the NRP being replaced by the Conservatives.66 The PFP polled 15 percent of the total vote, compared with 26.5 percent for the Conservatives and 52 percent for the NP. The HNP polled 3 percent compared to the NRP’s 2 percent; in 1981 the comparable figures were 14 percent and 7 percent.67 One reason why so many NRP voters defected in 1987 is that the son of former United Party leader Sir De Villiers Graaf, David Graaf, ran as an NP candidate in a Cape Town constituency. This allowed many NRP voters to believe that the NP had moved to the point where it was basically the same as the old United Party, which was probably true, and so they could vote for it with a clear conscience.68 What is even more interesting is that of the fifteen multi-constituency regions that the 1983 referendum vote was organized into for reporting purposes, four regions reported an absolute zero vote for the PFP in the 1981 election and another two had less than 2,000 votes. For the NRP the figures were five regions with zero votes and two with less than 2,000 votes. For the PFP these areas were all in the Transvaal, Orange Free State, or Northern Cape; for the NRP they were not only in the Transvaal, Orange Free State, and Northern Cape, but in parts of the Eastern Cape as well.69 When we look at the 1987 totals by referendum region, we see that the PFP received zero votes in only two regions and less than 2,000 votes in a further three, whereas the NRP received zero votes in seven regions and less than 2,000 votes in a further three and just over 2,000 in a fourth. The PFP had over 10,000 votes in eight regions: Cape Town, Durban, East London, Johannesburg, Germiston, Pietermaritzburg, Port Elizabeth, and Pretoria. These are the same eight regions as in 1981. It had over 50,000 votes in three regions: Cape Town, Durban, and Johannesburg compared to only two regions in 1981—Cape Town and Johannesburg. In 1981 the NRP had over 10,000 votes in four regions, with over 50,000 in one—Durban; in 1987 the NRP had over 10,000 votes in only one region—Durban with 17,224 votes. This means that the major effect of the election in Natal in 1987 was that the PFP actually picked up votes from former NRP voters, even if most of those

Origins and Expansion

29

voters voted for the NP. Elsewhere the PFP lost votes or stayed basically even, except in Cape Town where it gained 5,200 votes.70 To put this in perspective, the NP had more than 10,000 votes in all of the fifteen regions in both elections, and had more than 50,000 votes in five regions in 1981 and in seven in 1987. There was not a single region in which the PFP outpolled the NP. The HNP and National Conservative Party of Connie Mulder, the former information minister who left the NP after a scandal in the late 1970s, did not get zero votes in any region in either 1981 or 1987. They received less than 2,000 votes in zero regions in 1981 and in only four regions in 1987. The Conservative Party did not have a single region with less than 5,000 votes in 1987. Thus, it would appear that PFP support was much more concentrated in a few urban areas than was far right support.71 There were some specific reasons for the PFP’s poor performance. The UDF was very anti-system politics. It had organized the boycotts of the colored and Indian elections in September 1984. In order to fall in with United Democratic Front (UDF) policy, many English-speaking students, who were supporters of the UDF, also boycotted the 1987 elections. This affected seats in Cape Town, Johannesburg, Durban, Pietermaritzburg, Albany, and Port Elizabeth. Student disturbances on English-speaking campuses also caused a lower vote for the PFP in seats in Cape Town, Johannesburg, and the Albany constituency in the Eastern Cape.72 PFP workers claim that the NP also outspent the PFP by three to five times in each constituency. The PFP was also put at a disadvantage by a lack of volunteers due to the greater number of women working during the 1980s.73 The PFP was also hurt by a higher rate of emigration among its voters. Young English-speaking professionals would be more likely to emigrate than older voters, Afrikaners, or workers. In fact, one joke had it that PFP stood for Packing-for-Perth because so many PFP supporters had emigrated to Australia. And one of the PFP’s new Afrikaner MPs, Van Resburg, had defected from the party at the end of the last parliamentary session before the election and accused the PFP of being “soft on security” and “unpatriotic.”74 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY The biggest result of the election was a reshuffling of the left–center opposition. The PFP and independents replaced the NRP and PFP. Soon after the election, Denis Worrall had a falling out with Wynand Malan, caused mainly by Malan’s continued movement leftward. Once he broke with Afrikanerdom and the NP he felt free to move rapidly leftwards, left of the PFP.75 The Independent Movement broke up into two parties: the National Democratic Movement (NDM), which consisted of Malan, Lategan, and two defecting Natal PFP MPs—both Afrikaners; and the Independent Party of Worrall, which contained many former NRP supporters after that party formally disbanded in March 1988. The National Democratic Movement was formed in October 1987. In early 1988 PFP national organizer Ken Andrews started holding discussions with both Ma-

30

Indispensable Traitors

lan and Worrall about greater cooperation in the form of either an election pact or a merger. The talks did not get anywhere until late 1988 because Worrall needed to consolidate his own party and was waiting for the NRP to disappear. Part of the problem was the relationship to black politics. Even though the NDM’s Pierre Cronje and Peter Gastrow had both participated in the Indaba for the PFP, that party was oriented towards the UDF. Malan wanted to emphasize extra-parliamentary politics. He was opposed to having anything to do with the two new houses of parliament while Worrall was oriented towards Inkatha. In fact, Worrall resigned from his ambassadorship explicitly because of the NP’s rejection of the Indaba. Worrall wanted to emphasize building a solid electoral base within white politics. Worrall also wanted to line up Indian members and compete for seats in the Indian House of Delegates and possibly the colored House of Representatives as well. The PFP was torn down the middle, with most of its remaining Natal structure supporting Inkatha, whereas in other regions it was oriented towards the UDF. Its parliamentary old guard, led by Helen Suzman and Harry Schwarz, sided with Worrall. The danger was that the feuding between the two independents could tear the PFP down the middle.76 The other big issue was one of egos and spoils. Worrall’s Independent Party had no seats but lots of support in the public opinion polls; the NDM was just the opposite. A fourth group involved in the discussions was the so-called “Fourth Force” consisting of Afrikaner intellectuals led by the leading Afrikaner journalist Willem de Klerk, brother of the NP cabinet minister and Transvaal leader, F. W. de Klerk. Swart characterized this group as being “a handful of individuals with no electoral support.” Worrall’s Independent Party had only 2,500 members, the NDM had only 1,500 members, and the PFP had 40,000 members at the time of the merger.77 De Klerk and Rugby board chairman Louis Luyt mediated the talks among the four groups. They agreed on a common set of principles but not on a leader. In April 1989 the new Democratic Party was launched at a convention in Johannesburg attended by about 1,500 people. But not a single representative of the UDF bothered to show up, leaving Inkatha chairman Oscar Dhlomo as the sole representative of extra-parliamentary forces.78 The compromise solution for leadership was to have a collective leadership consisting of the three leaders of the merging parties. Helen Suzman and Swart were both annoyed with Zach de Beer for not insisting that he be the sole leader as he was bringing so much more to the merger than the other two parties. This failure to bargain hard may have been the result of a malaise which set in following the 1987 setback.79 On May 1, 1989, the Democratic Party took its first major decision when it decided to allow Jan van Eck to join the party. Van Eck was a former PFP MP who had resigned from the party to become an independent. The Democrats also allowed three former Labour Party members from the colored House of Representatives to join the party. The party was promptly written off by UDF supporters because of its dabbling in black politics in the tricameral parliament

Origins and Expansion

31

and refusal to support majority rule in a unitary state as opposed to a federal state.80 The new party established a national council of twenty-one members which included: the three leaders, two members from the parliamentary caucus, and four members from each of the three founding parties and from the “fourth.”81 The party had essentially two components: the old PFP and defectors from the Afrikaner/NP establishment. The NDM was a combination of the two, and the Independent Party and fourth force were defectors. The PFP purposely diluted its strength in the new party to help make Afrikaners feel more at home. For the 1989 election the Democratic Party (DP) produced a sixteen-page bilingual document, The Democratic Party: a government in the making. On page two it declared boldly that “We are going for power.” Such optimism had not been seen since the Alliance Party in the early 1970s. It set forth the basic policies of the party, including the pledge to double the police force and provide a rational economic policy. The final page, in smaller print, lists: five beliefs of the DP; nine principles of the DP; a twelve-point policy program complete with a four-point economic policy; and a three-point program of action. The principles and first policy points are basically the same as the PFP’s seven principles with the addition of the statement that “the State has an important role in the development and upliftment of all South Africans.” The three points of the program of action are worth quoting: • Develop strong power bases in Parliament and in other representative bodies. The objective is to gain control. • Extend interaction with groups and individuals, whether or not they share our goals, so as to promote negotiation, settlement, compromise and reconciliation. • Develop a broad front for peaceful co-operation, relations, joint strategies, and alliances with organizations both within and outside Parliament which are pursuing the same objectives.

Essentially it was the strategy of the PFP, except that the PFP never really believed that it would gain control of the parliament or any second-tier governments (except for possibly the Natal Provincial Council once the NRP collapsed). The PFP pursued the last point through the National Convention Alliance and Indaba election pact.82 In January 1989, P. W. Botha had a stroke and was forced to take a few months away from his duties in order to recover. In early February 1989 he sent a letter from the hospital to the caucus resigning as NP leader. F. W. de Klerk was elected party leader. The NP passed a resolution demonstrating its desire to reunite the offices of president and party leader, which strengthened de Klerk’s position in his battle with Botha. In April 1989, Botha announced that he would not seek reelection as state president. In August he resigned with illgrace shortly after meeting with Nelson Mandela. During the course of 1989

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Indispensable Traitors

four cabinet ministers announced their plans to retire at the end of the current term. Elections were called for September 6, 1989.83 The Mass Democratic Movement (MDM) staged a civil disobedience campaign during the election campaign which was reminiscent of the ANC’s 1952 defiance campaign which Mandela had organized. The campaign provoked a brutal reaction from the police which received much of the international media attention. The black opposition reported twenty-nine blacks killed with the police admitting to twelve. Scores more were wounded. Police gassed Archbishop Desmond Tutu after he got blacks to call off a demonstration in Cape Town.84 This resulted in a campaign that was under less than optimal conditions for the NP. The NP fought the campaign on a support for reform, however, it did attack the PFP for being soft on security or a puppet of the ANC as it had in 1987. A prominent NP campaign poster showed Wynand Malan meeting with Joe Slovo of MK abroad. The NP specifically campaigned on the theme of not negotiating with terrorists.85 The NP ran its least confident campaign in decades. The Democrats, in contrast, had a strong slate of security candidates including a former general.86 The black unrest tended to take support away from the NP on both ends: it made conservatives support the Conservatives and moderates support the Democrats. The Democrats gained fourteen seats over 1987 for a total of thirty-three, its highest total ever, but one less than the combined total for the PFP and NRP in 1981. The Democrats received 70 percent of the English-speaking vote, but only 5 percent of the Afrikaner vote for a total 21 percent share of the electorate. They doubled their number of seats in Natal to ten, almost doubled it in the Transvaal from six to eleven, and by one-third in the Cape to twelve seats. The National Party received 55 percent of the Afrikaner vote, 25 percent of the English-speaking vote, for a total share of 48 percent or less than half for the first time in thirty years and a loss of twenty-seven seats. The Conservative Party received 40 percent of the Afrikaner vote, 5 percent of the English-speaking voters, for a total of 31 percent and thirty-nine seats. The Conservatives broke out of the Transvaal into the Orange Free State and Northern Cape.87 In the aftermath of the elections, de Klerk interpreted the results as a mandate from 70 percent of the electorate for further reform. He added the NP vote and the Democrats’ vote to arrive at this number.88 De Klerk’s older brother, Afrikaner journalist Willem de Klerk, wrote a biography of his brother in which he discussed the role of the Democratic Party in his brother’s conversion. Various pioneers had created the right political climate for F. W. de Klerk. . . . [T]he old Progressive Federal Party, and especially its successor, the Democratic Party, as well as Hendrickse’s Labour Party and Buthelezi’s Inkatha, had made substantial contributions to the leap of February 2, 1990. Although never really a threat in elections, they had functioned as the government’s conscience by charging and condemning, by identifying with the cause of the disenfranchised black masses, and by unmasking discrimination with deadly accuracy. . . . Theirs was a lonely and thankless task, performed with great dignity.

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33

For the National Party the founding of the Democratic Party early in 1989 was undoubtedly an unsettling development. . . . What caused apprehension in the National Party was the interest shown in the Democratic Party by the so-called “fourth power”—the enlightened Afrikaners . . . It was feared that large numbers of English-speakers might desert the National Party, because the Democratic Party was much more acceptable to them than the equally hidebound old Progressive Federal Party. One could well say that leftist opposition factions paved the way for F. W. de Klerk. Their clout was not in their voting power but in the logical force of their argument that a non-racial democracy was the only solution for South Africa.89

On February 2, 1990, President F. W. de Klerk totally altered the political landscape of South Africa by unbanning the liberation movements and the Communist Party, freeing Nelson Mandela, and announcing an ambitious program of reforms to end apartheid.90 The Democrats enthusiastically welcomed de Klerk’s speech and pledged support for his reforms in parliament. The Conservatives, of course, found it anathema. Initially the Democrats were at a loss for how to react. The NP had invaded their political space and they faced the danger of going the way of the NRP if they did not react appropriately. The DP continued to contest by-elections against the NP. After the party finished dead last in a by-election in Natal in September, the DP and the NP made an election pact that basically froze the status quo. Both would support whichever party had previously held the seat if there was a by-election in a constituency. This ensured the continued survival of the Democrats and their continued support for de Klerk’s reforms. For almost two years after de Klerk’s famous parliament speech, the Democrats were in disarray. Malan eventually dropped out of politics in 1990 after he was given the choice of quitting the DP or the Broederbond, and his two fellow NDM MPs, Pierre Cronje and Peter Gastrow, ended up joining the ANC along with Jan van Eck and other MPs. They campaigned for the right to belong to both parties and eventually were forced to quit, becoming the ANC’s first MPs in the white parliament. Zach de Beer became the leader of the Democrats in his own right, this made easier by the collapse of the NDM wing.91 The DP campaigned for a yes vote in the whites-only referendum which was held on March 17, 1992. The yes vote was 68.6 percent with an 85 percent poll.92 In the liberation election of April 1994, the Democrats received 1.7 percent of the popular vote for the national parliament giving it ten MPs. In municipal elections the following year, the Democrats received 3.25 percent of the national vote to elect sixty councillors. The process of growth continued in a series of municipal by-elections in the Cape Town area and KwaZulu–Natal.93 The Democrats have been experiencing a steady growth since 1994, which in 1998 has become meteoric. The February 1994 polls showed the party with only 1.1 percent support nationally, this increased by 50 percent by the election two months later. Support for 1995 averaged 1.5 percent, followed by an average of 1.7 percent in 1996. The following year this average had increased by 25

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percent to 2.1 percent support. By February 1998, it had doubled to 4.2 percent and in July 1998 more than doubled again to 10 percent. This is better than a 500 percent growth rate in two years!94 According to a MarkData poll conducted in July 1998 by Professor Laurence Schlemmer, the DP had 10 percent support compared with 10.7 percent for the NP, 8.4 percent for Inkatha Freedom Party, and 6.5 percent for the United Democratic Movement.95 The survey also revealed that the DP was the largest party among Indian voters, beating the NP by 1 percent with 32.4 percent support. The DP was the biggest party among white voters with 46 percent support compared with 24.6 percent for the NP. In the Western Cape, the DP’s support was at 20.4 percent, just 2 percent below the ANC, and 10 percent below the NP in the NP’s main province. In three of South Africa’s nine provinces, the Western Cape, Northern Cape, and KwaZulu–Natal, the DP held the balance of power; in a fourth, Gauteng, it was the second largest party. The DP was bigger than the NP in the Eastern Cape and was within 1.1 percent of the NP in the Orange Free State.96 What was occurring in 1998 was essentially a repeat of what happened in the seventies and eighties with the United Party. The Democrats started out as even a smaller force in 1994, following the liberation election, than the Progressives were in 1974 after the breakout election. While it will take the Democrats longer to become the official opposition, five years instead of three, the NP was collapsing much faster than the United Party did. The United Party took about ten years to collapse, from the defection of Harry Schwarz and the creation of the Reform Party in 1975 to the Port Natal by-election. The United Party collapsed by provinces: first in the southern Transvaal in 1974–75, then in the Cape in 1977, and then in Natal in 1984–85. In 1998, as in 1977, in 1981, and in 1989, the Democrats have no realistic prospects of ever taking power. What they aspire to is the status of official opposition, which they obtained on June 2, 1999, in the first post-liberation election with 9.6 percent of the vote compared to 8.6 percent for Inkatha and only 7 percent for the New National Party—just over one-third of what it received in 1994! The Democrats quintupled their parliamentary representation.97 The NRP collapsed because it became the “Nats B team” in the words of Frederik van Zyl Slabbert. The PFP took advantage of this. Because the Democrats under Leon have been as vigorous an opposition as the PFP under Eglin and Slabbert, and the NP has gone from being an “ANC Team B” to being a confused opposition, it will lose its status. The same thing happened to the NRP. As the former NP secretary for Natal said of the NRP in January 1987, “the NRP hasn’t had a policy for so long they’ve forgotten what it is to have one.”98 THE ALLIANCE PARTY OF NORTHERN IRELAND Oliver Napier, from the Ulster Liberal Party, and Robert Cooper, a defector from the Ulster Unionists, were appointed as joint chairmen of the political

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subcommittee of the New Ulster Movement (NUM), which had been founded as a political pressure group at the beginning of 1969. Neither Cooper nor Napier were content to serve as researchers coming up with proposals. As political animals they wanted to create a new political party. On December 30, 1969, a meeting of NUM branches took place at the Woodlands Hotel to consider the launching of a new political party. NUM Chairman Brian Walker and his vice chairman were utterly opposed to the creation of a new political party. A committee of six was chosen to examine the feasibility of the launch of a new party: four pro- and two antiparty. The tentative launch date was set as Easter 1970.99 A NUM member, David Corkey, running as an independent in a by-election in South Antrim as an independent received 25.7 percent of the vote in a fourway race. The Alliance Party was launched three days later on April 21, 1970.100 Alliance used NUM membership lists to canvass and gain new members. By May 15, 1970, there were twenty-eight local Alliance branches.101 According to Oliver Napier, between 95 and 99 percent of NUM’s members left it to join Alliance.102 Alliance decided not to contest the 1970 Westminster election in the summer of 1970 as it was unready. Within the first three years of Alliance’s existence, eleven NUM executive members had left to join Alliance.103 NUM quickly transformed itself into a think tank, transforming its constitution in October 1970 to preclude involvement in electoral politics. It had to consolidate many branches in order to continue as many of the members had left to join Alliance.104 NUM continued on as a think tank through the 1970s, publishing a number of pamphlets on different subjects dealing with the administration in Ulster. NUM ceased to exist in 1978 as politics had reached a stalemate. NUM had a peak membership of some 8,000, this being in its first eighteen months of existence.105 One academic observer noted that Alliance has had two main periods of growth. The first was what he termed the “creation period” from 1970 to its first election in June 1973. He further subdivides this period into the first year of its existence, April 1970 to April 1971, and the period of “officialization” from February 1972 to June 1973.106 A journalist reported that six months after the party’s founding, all except ten Stormont constituencies were covered by branches.107 Six months later at its first anniversary it had a viable party organization in forty-three out of fifty-two Stormont constituencies. It lacked organization in West Belfast, South Armagh, South Tyrone, and Derry, but canvassing had begun in parts of the Falls in West Belfast.108 The party became officialized in February 1972 when three Stormont MPs joined the party. They were Phelim O’Neill, a former Unionist cabinet member and Terence O’Neill’s cousin; independent unionist Robert McConnell; and Tom Gorley, an independent nationalist and former member of the Nationalist Party. The second period was following the signing of the Anglo–Irish Agreement in November 1985.109 The creation of Alliance was the last major defection from the Unionist Party until Brian Faulkner led his supporters out in January 1974 to form the Unionist Party of Northern Ireland. But Faulkner was dead within three years and his

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party with him. His supporters returned to the Ulster Unionists rather than joining Alliance. In 1970 there were an average of 326 new members joining each month; the following year this was reduced to 227 per month, and then in 1972 it shot up to 464 a month. In 1973 it went back down to 194 a month. From 1974 to 1985 the new members averaged in double figures, with less than 50 joining per month in every year except two and in those two only 51 and 53. In 1986, monthly new members joining averaged in triple figures again, at 183, but from 1987 to 1993 they were again back in double digits, but above 50 for every year except 1988 when the average was 46.110 In May 1993, 53.6 percent of party membership was in Belfast, which contained 40.7 percent of the electorate in Northern Ireland. North Down contained 8–10 percent; Coleraine and Lisburn contained 6–8 percent; Ards, Carrickfergus, and Newtonabbey, between 4 and 6 percent each; Antrim, Down, Larne, Limavady, Derry, Fermanagh, and Omagh between 2 and 4 percent each; and less than 2 percent each in the other eleven electoral districts.111 Basically, this means an arc around Belfast Lough from Carrickfergus to Bangor, and the Belfast bedroom communities of Antrim and Lisburn. The party was also competitive in portions of the West during the 1970s, particularly in Derry, but the hunger strike in 1981 destroyed this by polarizing public opinion in Catholic areas. Although the self-description and academic description of Alliance is nonsectarian, most nationalists regard it as unionist, as do many Ulster Unionists. Nearly everyone describes it as middle class. Its electorate is very similar to that of the PFP—Democrats: young, educated, middle class, urban. Before Alliance there were two voting blocs in Northern Ireland: unionist and nationalist. Alliance created a third sector: the nonsectarian bloc. Alliance had a monopoly on this sector until about 1981 when the Official Irish Republican Army transformed itself into the Workers’ Party. The Workers’ Party was only competitive at the council level, not being strong enough to elect anyone to the assembly or to parliament. This party may have taken a few votes away from Alliance in West and North Belfast in council elections, but it basically competed with Sinn Fein and the loyalist parties for working-class votes. It was only with the creation of the Women’s Coalition in 1996 that Alliance had a real competitor for middle-class votes in the nonsectarian sector. Until 1996, Alliance was competing with the SDLP and the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) for their soft voters. Catholic middle-class voters who did not agree with the party’s boycott of the 1982 assembly would sometimes vote for the Alliance in districts in which it was competitive. Likewise, unionist middle-class voters who disagreed with the obstructionist tactics of the main unionist parties following the Anglo–Irish Agreement would vote for Alliance. The Alliance Party became the party of good government and innovative ideas in Counties Down and Antrim just as the New Republic Party had been the party of good government in Natal. Alliance, like other parties in Northern Ireland, competes for offices at four

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levels: the local district council level, the provincial level, the Westminster level, and the European parliament level. Alliance has only won seats at the lower two levels. Northern Ireland has only three seats in the European parliament, which like the local and provincial elections are held on the basis of proportional representation–single transferable vote (PR–STV). Normally two candidates are elected on the first count: a unionist, normally Ian Paisley of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), and a nationalist, John Hume of the SDLP. The third seat goes to another unionist, usually from the UUP. If this arrangement were to change, due to the retirement of either Hume or Paisley or both, the beneficiary would probably be another member of the party from which the existing member retires. If a demographic shift caused more nationalist than unionist votes to be cast, Sinn Fein might benefit. But Alliance, as the fifth largest party, does not have a realistic chance of ever having a European seat. It has polled between 4 and 7 percent of the vote in European elections precisely because many of its voters realize this and do not want to waste their votes.112 The Westminster parliamentary elections are the only elections in the North, since the fall of Stormont in 1972, to be held on the first-past-the-post system. The Westminster elections are dominated by four parties: the UUP, the DUP, the SDLP, and Sinn Fein. Alliance does not have enough supporters within any single constituency to win. In the May 1979 Westminster election, Oliver Napier came within nine hundred votes of winning the East Belfast seat.113 The party’s total vote in 1979 nearly doubled from its performance in 1974. In 1992 John Alderdice came in second with 29.7 percent of the vote in East Belfast.114 Many Alliance supporters will vote for either UUP or SDLP candidates in Westminster elections because they do not want to waste their votes by voting for candidates who they think cannot win. Since 1979 Alliance has polled between 8 and 12 percent of the vote in Westminster elections, with the former figure being more typical.115 But if the Westminster elections were to be contested on the same PR-STV basis as other elections, Alliance expects to win two seats. Alliance election analysts have done the math and in several elections have “won” two seats on a PR-STV basis.116 But unless Alliance can convince London to change the electoral system just for Northern Ireland, proportional representation (PR) of any type is unlikely to become a reality for Westminster elections. Since Stormont was prorogued in 1972, provincial-wide elections have been held for an assembly or convention or forum on five occasions: in 1973, 1975, 1982, 1996, and 1998. The first three elections were held on the basis of seventyeight seats: six seats for each of the thirteen Westminster districts. The last two elections were held for 108 seats: six seats for each of the eighteen Westminster districts since Ulster was given additional seats in 1983. In the first three elections the party’s performance was between 9 and 10 percent of the vote for eight, eight, and ten seats respectively.117 In the first three elections the twentysix successful Alliance candidates were elected in seven constituencies: the four Belfast seats, the two Antrim seats, and North Down.118 In the latter two elec-

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tions it was 6.5 percent both times for seven and six seats respectively. In 1996 the party won only five constituency seats and two “topped up” seats. The five constituency seats were: East Belfast, South Belfast, East Antrim, North Down, and Strangford. Party election analysts called the results “disappointing in several respects” but “nowhere near as bad as the media sought to portray them.”119 Analysed in terms of Westminster constituencies, the party polled over 10 percent in six areas.120 In June 1998 Steve McBride lost the South Belfast seat to the second SDLP candidate by about two hundred votes.121 The six seats which were won were: East Belfast, North Down, Strangford, East Antrim, South Antrim, and Lagan Valley.122 But picking up South Antrim and Lagan Valley more than made up for the loss in South Belfast. Since 1973 when the first Assembly was elected, until 1998 when the latest one was elected, assemblies have only actually sat for nine out of the twentyfive years. The first Assembly lasted until the collapse of the power-sharing executive in May 1974, then the Convention lasted for about a year from 1975 to 1976. Then there was a six-year gap until another Assembly was elected, which sat for four years (without nationalist participation). Then there was a decade without provincial government until the Forum was elected in June 1996. This means that Alliance is usually dependent on the councils as a showcase for its policies. The only trouble with this is the limited power of the councils. Their authority was once described as consisting of the three B’s: bins, bogs, and burials (trash and garbage collection, sewage, and licensing funeral parlors). In Alliance’s very first election in May 1973, it won sixty-three seats (out of 526) with 13.7 percent of the vote, with seats on twenty of the twenty-six councils. Fifteen of the new councils could not be controlled by a single party, and in ten of those, Alliance prevented that. Those were: Belfast, Carrickfergus, Down, Londonderry, Newry, North Down, Craigavon, Ards, Omagh, and Strabane. Alliance had won “only a few seats short” of the figures expected.123 In the next council elections four years later the party had its peak performance: 14.4 percent of the vote for seventy seats, but with seats on only seventeen councils compared with in 1973.124 Sidney Elliott, the leading election analyst in the province, summed up the results of the 1977 local elections. The highly fractionalised party system still persists but four main parties stand out from the main political tendencies. . . . The Alliance party dominates the middle ground and improved its position over previous elections. NILP has reached probably its lowest level ever.125

In 1981 the party’s share of the vote shrunk to 8.9 percent for only thirtyeight seats on fourteen councils.126 Fortnight’s postelection analysis saw the unionist vote being split on class lines with the middle class voting for Alliance and the Official Unionists and the working class voting for the DUP. It argued that Catholic Alliance supporters and socialists simply stayed home.127 Vote

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percentages were way down from 1977, not only in the West but throughout the province including Belfast. In two districts in Belfast where the party polled better than 30 percent in 1977, it polled in the 20s in 1981. In 1977 the party polled 17.4 percent as an average between all eight districts in Belfast. In 1981 the figure was 12.4 percent. But the vote actually increased in ten districts. In 1985 this again shrunk to 7.1 percent for thirty-four seats on ten councils; this was the nadir of local council Alliance performance. But Alliance received nearly 25 percent first preference votes in Carrickfergus and 26.3 percent in North Down. The party polled over 10 percent first preference votes in: Ards (12.4), Belfast (11.5), Castlereagh (18.8), Larne (16.3), Lisburn (11.0), and Newtownabbey (10.3).128 In 1989 the vote share again shrunk to 6.8 percent but for thirty-eight seats on fourteen councils. Near Belfast was the best region, with the Alliance vote in Belfast slipping under 10 percent. The vote actually increased in Ards, Castlereagh, and Newtonabbey, but fell in North Down due to the presence of the Conservatives and also marginally in Lisburn.129 In 1993 the vote rose to 7.6 percent for forty-four seats on fourteen councils.130 In 1997 the vote once again shrunk to 6.5 percent for forty-one seats on twelve councils.131 But these latter seat totals are not as good as they look: in 1985 the number of seats increased to 566 (from 526) and increased again in 1993 to 582. So, if we look just at the percentage of seats won, this has increased from 11.97 in 1973, to 13.30 in 1977, and then almost halved to 7.22 in 1981, and then 6.00 in 1985, rising to 6.71 in 1989, and again in 1993 to 7.56, with a slight shrink to 7.04 in 1997.132 Sydney Elliott and F. J. Smith noted that “APNI experienced the sharpest fall in fortune—from 70 seats in 1977 to 38 in 1981.”133 What has happened is that almost all of the seats West of the Bann River were lost in 1981 during the hunger strike and never recovered.134 Alliance has also lost seats in nationalist areas of Belfast. Outside of its traditional Assembly areas, the party also wins seats in Coleraine (3) and Omagh (1).135 Erwann Bodilis explains this distribution as follows: [T]he areas where the Alliance is the most popular coincide with areas where tension is reduced by the sharing of wealth which proves its theory about the necessity to ease the economic situation of the region so as to bring general relief to the whole population. The religious factor plays an important role as well. Again let’s take the fourteen “best” associations to show that no less than ten of them are peopled with an overwhelming Protestant majority (seven have a majority over 40%) which means that a clear religious domination provides for ideal conditions for the growing of moderation and, to some extent, of the APNI.136

There are, of course, alternative explanations for this same data. It could be that the Catholic Alliance vote in these areas is for the most moderate, least

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objectionable of what nationalists perceive as a group of unionist parties. In half of the 1998 Alliance Assembly constituencies there were no nationalists elected. In the other three only one nationalist candidate, always from the SDLP, has been elected in each constituency.137 The Protestant Alliance voters are receiving enough Catholic votes to elect one member per constituency. But because for the first time the SDLP has begun running candidates in all districts in order to increase its overall share of the nationalist vote vis-a`-vis Sinn Fein, Alliance is losing its Catholic electorate to the SDLP. Since 1982 it has not been able to elect a candidate in West Belfast, nor in North Belfast. If it loses South Belfast permanently, this will restrict it to East Belfast within the capital. In 1979 future party leader John Cushnahan described the geographic nature of the party. “The Alliance vote is to a large extent concentrated in the East of the Province, particularly in the urbanized areas. The same feature is constant in the West although our vote is significantly smaller as our highest polls are recorded in the largest towns.”138 He gives two explanations for this. First, rural populations are more conservative and resistant to change. Secondly, in the West, the balance is so even between the two tribal camps that each is going for victory.139 This squares with Bodilis’ explanation. During the 1970s the nonsectarian electoral sector was theoretically between 15 and 20 percent of the vote, and Alliance came close to capturing all of it in the 1977 local elections. In 1981 that was reduced to about 10 percent because of the escalating tensions that resulted from the hunger strike, which the party captured all of in the 1987 Westminster election (sorry, no prize for that!). In areas where Sinn Fein has been strong since 1982, moderate Catholic voters have tended to vote for the SDLP or even join it in order to stop Sinn Fein. Since 1992, as a result of the rise in sectarian murders in the early 1990s and the rise of Sinn Fein, the nonsectarian sector may have shrunk to about 8 percent. Alliance has to share that sector with the Workers’ Party and now with the Women’s Coalition. In the seven elections of the 1990s the Alliance has averaged 6.85 percent, which increases to 7.30 if the European election of 1994 is excluded. Following the Assembly election of 1998, Alliance election analyst Stephen Farry made the following observations: This election was not a good one for Alliance. We achieved a respectable six seats, but the party had realistically hoped to win 8 or 9 seats. We obtained 6.5% of first preferences, but only 5.5% of the seats. With a little luck and shifts of a few hundred votes, we could have picked up anything from 7 to 9 seats. By contrast, in the 1982 Assembly Election, Alliance won 13% of the seats on 9% of the vote. Compared to 1996 . . . our vote increased in 7 constituencies. The most dramatic increases occurred in East Antrim and Foyle. Furthermore, we topped the poll in both Lagan Valley and East Antrim. But in other areas, the vote slipped—quite dramatically in some areas.

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Alliance’s percentage share of the Northern Ireland vote has been in steady decline in recent years. Our core vote is now 6.5%. . . . Tribal voting has persisted. People seem to be putting their faith in the representatives of their “side” to “make the Agreement work” and to fight for them and provide stability. . . . Very few Unionists and Nationalists actually gave any preference to a candidate from the other “side”: less than 15% of UUP and SDLP voters gave any subsequent preference vote to each other. Inside our centre ground, we are becoming relatively more Protestant in the breakdown of our support. . . . Positively, 1 in 5 of our voters this time did not vote for us in the 1997 General Election. Negatively, 1 in 4 of the people who voted for us last year, voted for other parties this time. Elsewhere, this election provided the breakthrough for the NIWC, a competitor for our centre ground votes. . . . On the Nationalist side, Sinn Fein continues to make inroads against the SDLP, who in turn move into our former heartlands. We are in a similar position to the Liberal Democrats in the 1989 European Election when they only polled 5% to the Greens 15%, or the Democratic Party in post-Apartheid South Africa.140

Many of the Alliance leadership that I spoke with seemed to me to be in a state of denial regarding Alliance’s future. They predicted great things in 5 to 10 years time when people stopped being tribalist. This ignores the experience of other internal conflicts elsewhere, where conflict transformation rather than conflict resolution takes place. In Africa, tribal conflicts persist and whites cease to be the side in a conflict in former settler colonies only by giving up all aspirations to political power or a political role. In Western Europe it was continuing religious conflict which necessitated the creation of the measures which Arend Lijphart has termed consociational. In Austria and the Netherlands these conflicts did not even involve ethnic differences but only religious and ideological ones. After studying Alliance’s situation the only cure I could suggest was marketing Alliance to voters as a nonsectarian unionist party. That is a unionist party which has had three (out of five) Catholic leaders during its existence. My thinking was that many Protestant voters agreed with Alliance’s policies but were only willing to vote for parties that labeled themselves unionist. The party has a much greater potential to win Protestant than Catholic voters, and would have to change its policy regarding the constitution in order to sell itself to nationalists. But when I proposed this, both Catholics and Protestants told me that it would lose Protestant as well as Catholic members without gaining any appreciable unionist support.141 My thinking was based on a remark by former leader Alderdice in one of his conference speeches: “In a curious sense, in Northern Ireland voting is not about democracy, it is about tribal identification. You vote for your lot because they are your lot not because you even agree with what they say but because you are identifying with them.”142 Alliance’s other problem is publicity. Academic Padraig O’Malley sums up the thinking of many Alliance members on why they lack media coverage: “In

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Northern Ireland moderation, in whatever guise, when it does express itself, tends to be ignored—somehow it is equated with dullness, not sense.”143 Coverage of Ulster politics in the media is similar to that of American presidential politics during the primary season: it seems more appropriate to a horse race than to a public issue. It centers on the parallel rivalries for control of the two sectarian communities. The center is ignored, possibly because the Workers’ Party has never really been much competition for Alliance. Possibly with the appearance of the Women’s Coalition since 1996, and its dramatic increase in support in 1998, there is enough of a horse race to win media coverage. If Alliance and the Women’s Coalition could play up their rivalry in public they might be able to win media attention and thereby widen the center camp so that both would benefit. This does not preclude their cooperation on policy in the Assembly or in the local councils. MERETZ In 1984 as a result of a stalemate and near tie at the polls between the two largest parties, a government of national unity was formed in Israel. This caused the junior party in the Labor Alignment, Mapam, to quit the Alignment. In 1984 prominent Labor Party member Yossi Sarid quit Labor in protest of the unity government and joined Shulamit Aloni’s Citizen’s Rights Movement (CRM). Mapam, the CRM, and Shinui then became Labor’s satellite parties—equivalent to the Likud’s settler parties—available to support Labor in its own coalition if it wanted to abandon the Likud. In 1990 Peres attempted to do that by forming a government with the satellites and a religious party but the religious party, Shas, backed out of the deal. Shamir then formed a right-wing coalition, the most nationalist in Israeli history. The three satellite parties represented a range of domestic policies but were united in wanting to end discrimination against Israeli Arabs and make peace with the Palestinians and Arab states. Mapam was a democratic socialist party, Ratz was a social democratic party, and Shinui was a liberal party. Ratz was founded in 1973 by Shulamit Aloni after Golda Meir and the Labor leadership prevented her from getting a safe seat because of her independence. This led her to join with a prominent feminist, Marcia Friedman, to form Ratz.144 Every Israeli party has a one-, two-, or three-letter code which voters use when voting. Most parties use either their first letter or a short word. RZ, pronounced Ratz, means run(s) in Hebrew. Before 1988, Ratz normally received between two and four seats in the Knesset, with Shinui polling about the same. Mapam had been assigned every seventh seat on the joint Alignment list, which meant that it normally got six or seven seats, when most analysts thought that it would only receive two by itself. In the election in late November 1988, the Citizen’s Rights Movement received a record five seats; Shinui lost one seat to revert to two; and Mapam, running on its own for the first time in decades, got three seats.145 In the 1989

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local elections the three parties ran as federated coalitions around the country.146 Mapam then joined with the other two to form Meretz. Meretz means energy in Hebrew and was formed by adding the “M” of Mapam to the “RZ” of the Citizen’s Rights Movement’s electoral symbol to form Meretz. Meretz’s major issues during the campaign were religion and state and peace with the Arabs. Ratz was a hard-line secular party representing the 21 percent of the Israeli electorate that was totally secular.147 The first election in which it ran as a bloc, in June 1992, Meretz received twelve seats with 10 percent of the vote. This was only 1 percent better than the three parties received collectively in 1988, but the vote sharing that came with unity led to two more seats.148 This made it the third largest party. Like the Democratic Movement for Change, out of which Shinui emerged in 1977, Meretz received about three-fourths of its votes from Ashkenazi Jews—those of European descent.149 Meretz could be accused of pursuing its domestic agenda while in government at the expense of its foreign policy goals. The pursuit of secularism may have cost the Labor Party votes in 1996 and made the difference between Netanyahu and Peres being prime minister. It was blamed for Labor’s loss by some: “Undoubtedly, the Alliance between Labor and Meretz in the previous government contributed greatly to Labor’s defeat in 1996.”150 Anti-Meretz feelings served to mobilize religious voters in 1996. Among its own traditional voters, some of the floating left vote deserted Meretz and returned to Labor. The former received only 31 percent of the kibbutz vote compared to 36.9 percent in 1992, and it lost 5 and 7 percent off its previous share of the vote in two upper-class suburbs.151 By 1996 Meretz was viewed as part of the establishment and so did not benefit from the anti-establishment vote. In June 1996 Meretz returned to the opposition, after only four years in power, with nine seats. In 1996, thirteen women competed for safe places on the list. Two were elected in June out of only nine in the Knesset.152 It has very vigorously opposed the policies of Benyamin Netanyahu’s Likud-led government which has backtracked on the Oslo accords for two years until it signed the Wye Memorandum in late October 1998. In Israel, parties compete at only two tiers of government: the national (the Knesset) and the local. Meretz is most competitive at the former level and in this way resembles more the PFP than Alliance. But in the municipal elections of November 1998 Meretz nearly doubled its total number of councillors from forty-three to eighty.153 Peace Now activist Dedi Zucker lost in his bid to secure a safe seat on Meretz’s list for the 1999 elections, but Israeli Arab Husseina Jaffar was elected to the tenth spot on the list. When elected she became the first Arab woman to serve in the Knesset. The calculation was that she could bring enough Arab votes to the party to not only ensure her election but possibly that of another MK as well.154 But Meretz only received enough votes for ten seats, up one seat from 1996.

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NOTES 1. Helen Suzman, In No Uncertain Terms: A South African Memoir (New York: Alfred Knopf, 1993), pp. 40–50. 2. “Democratic Party History,” Democratic Party on the DP’s Internet Web site (www.dp.org.za). 3. Ibid., pp. 52–54. 4. Suzman, p. 60. 5. Ibid., p. 61. 6. Irvine, p. 123. 7. This is the position of Butler et al. 8. Hamish Dickie–Clark, “On the Liberal Definition of the South African Situation,” in van den Berghe, p. 49. 9. van den Berghe, op. cit., p. 64. 10. Suzman, op. cit., p. 176. 11. Frederik van Zyl Slabbert, The Last White Parliament (Johannesburg: Jonathan Ball/Hans Strydom, 1985), pp. 8–9; Ray Swart, Progressive Odyssey (Cape Town: Human & Rosseau, 1991), p. 125. 12. Slabbert, p. 87. 13. Ibid., pp. 168–70. 14. Swart, op. cit., pp. 120–21, 128. 15. Ibid., pp. 129–34. 16. Ibid., p. 137. 17. Ibid., p. 142; Slabbert, op. cit., p. 61. 18. The member frankly told me this in 1990. 19. Sunday Tribune, Durban, July 24, 1977. 20. This is based on discussions held with former members of the NRP held in Natal in 1990. 21. Swart, op. cit., p. 143. 22. Suzman, op. cit., p. 176; Swart, op. cit., pp. 144–45. 23. Suzman, op. cit., pp. 187–88; interview with Ray Swart in 1990. 24. This is based on an interview with PFP Natal leader Ray Swart in October 1990. 25. Daily News, Durban, Nov. 8, 1979. 26. Sunday Tribune, Nov. 11, 1979. 27. Ibid. 28. Daily News, July 6, 1979. 29. Daily News, Oct. 27, 1980; Sunday Tribune, Nov. 2, 1980. 30. Sunday Tribune, Aug. 23, 1980. 31. D. J. van Vuuren et al., eds., South African Election 1987 (Pinetown, South Africa: Owen Burgess, 1987), p. 428. 32. Ibid., p. 448. 33. Colin Eglin in Sea Point in 1974, Zach de Beers in Parktown in 1977, Ray Swart in Musgrave in 1977. 34. Ibid., pp. 426–32. The Musgrave seat was abolished and replaced by the Berea seat which Swart won and the party picked up the Durban Central seat. 35. Slabbert, op. cit., p. 70. 36. Sunday Tribune, Nov. 4, 1979.

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37. Schrire, p. 60. 38. Heribert Adam and Kogila Moodley, South Africa Without Apartheid (Berkeley: University of California, 1986), p. 71. 39. Schrire, op. cit., p. 59. 40. D. Laurie, “Mathematical Models for Election Analysis and their Application to White South African Politics in the Period 1981 to 1987,” in van Vuuren, op. cit., p. 259. 41. Ibid. 42. See Mitchell, pp. 454–55. 43. 1990 interview. 44. Sunday Tribune, Feb. 5, 1984. 45. Swart, op. cit., pp. 167–68. 46. Natal Mercury, Feb. 9, 1984. 47. Natal Mercury, Jan. 20, 1984. 48. Daily News, Feb. 7, 1984. 49. Natal Mercury, Feb. 10 and 16, 1984. 50. Ibid. His capture was the main headline rather than Martin’s loss. 51. Sunday Tribune, Feb. 12, 1984. This account is based on research conducted by the author in 1990 for a biography of Martin which was never published. I interviewed Roger Burrows, Martin’s election agent, and many of Martin’s former NRP colleagues about the race. 52. Daily News, Feb. 16, 1984. 53. Daily News, Mar. 13, 1984. 54. Daily News, Feb. 1 and Oct. 3, 1984. 55. Sunday Tribune, May 12, 1985 and Natal Witness, May 30, 1985. 56. van Vuuren, op. cit., p. 407. 57. Daily News, Nov. 2, 1982 and Jan. 31, 1984. 58. Sunday Times, Nov. 3, 1985, and an interview with independent candidate Dave McNaught in 1990. 59. Ibid. 60. Daily News, Oct. 31, 1985. 61. Frederik van Zyl Slabbert, The Last White Parliament (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1987), p. 179. 62. Natal Witness, Jan. 19, 1987; David Welsh, “The Ideology, Aims, Role and Strategy of the PFP and NRP,” in van Vuuren, et al., op. cit., p. 94. 63. This is based on interviews with Frank Martin’s supporters and his opponent, Cliff Matthee, in 1990. 64. He had predicted that within five years half of those rejecting the report would wind up in the NP. When asked about this by the author in 1990, Haxton said it was obvious that it would occur. 65. Swart, op. cit., p. 189. This is based on interviews conducted with former NRP supporters in 1990. 66. Schrire, op. cit., pp. 95–97. 67. Laurie, op. cit., p. 257. 68. Welsh, op. cit., p. 95. 69. Laurie, op. cit., pp. 256–57. 70. Ibid. 71. Ibid.

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72. Welsh, op. cit., p. 96; and discussions in Natal in 1988 and 1990 with PFP officials and academics. 73. Ibid., pp. 95–96. 74. Ibid.; Swart, op. cit., p. 189. The author heard this joke in South Africa in 1988. 75. In this he resembles Israeli President Ezer Weizman who was a Herut/Likud member for years, but who, after forming his own party and then joining Labor, went quickly to the left. 76. See Mitchell, op. cit., pp. 466–68. 77. Swart, op. cit., p. 200. 78. Mitchell, op. cit., pp. 468–69. 79. Suzman, op. cit., p. 266; Swart, op. cit., pp. 193, 200. 80. Mitchell, op. cit., pp. 470–71. 81. Ibid. 82. The Democratic Party: A Government in the Making (Cape Town: Democratic Party (DP), no date). 83. Schrire, op. cit., pp. 111–14. 84. Newsweek, Sept. 18, 1989. 85. David Ottoway, Chained Together (New York: Times Books, 1993), p. 102. 86. Schrire, op. cit., p. 127. 87. Schrire, op. cit., pp. 128–29. 88. Ibid., p. 132. 89. Willem de Klerk, F. W. de Klerk: The Man in His Time (Johannesburg: Jonathan Ball, 1991), pp. 101–05. 90. Ibid., pp. 160–75. 91. Marina Ottoway, South Africa: The Struggle for a New Order (Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, 1993), pp. 81–82. See chapter three’s section on the Broederbond on Malan. 92. D. Ottoway, op. cit., p. 200. 93. Ibid. 94. Douglas Gibson, “Poll: DP Set to be Official Opposition,” dated Aug. 21, 1998, Democratic Party Web site. 95. Ibid. The United Democratic Movement was founded by General Bantu Holomisa and Roelf Meyer following the 1994 elections. 96. Ibid. 97. Associated Press, “ANC Trails in KwaZulu Province,” New York Times Online, June 6, 1999; Suzanne Daley, “South Africa: The Voters Realign the Opposition,” New York Times, June 6, 1999. 98. Financial Mail, Jan. 30, 1987. 99. P. H. McMillan, The New Ulster Movement and the Formation of the APNI (Belfast: Queen’s University Honors Thesis, 1984), pp. 15–19. 100. Ibid., pp. 26–27. 101. Ibid., pp. 38–39. 102. Interview, August 1998. 103. McMillan, op. cit., pp. 41, 44. 104. Ibid. 105. Ibid., p. 17. 106. Erwann Bodilis, The Alliance Party of Northern Ireland 1970–93: Twenty-Three

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Years of Combat for Peace and Progress (France: Universite´ de Bretagne Occidentale MA Thesis, 1994), p. 24. 107. Barry White, “The Alliance Party,” Fortnight, Oct. 23, 1970, p. 11. 108. Calvin Macnee, “The Politics of Alliance,” Fortnight, April 16, 1971. Fifteen. 109. Bodilis, op. cit., p. 24. 110. Ibid., p. 23. 111. Ibid. 112. Stephen Farry, “Alliance Share of the Northern Ireland Vote 1973–98,” an internal Alliance document dated June 28, 1998. 113. John Cushnahan, The History and Development of the Alliance Party: A Centre Party of Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland (Belfast: Alliance Party of Northern Ireland (APNI), April 1979). 114. Bodilis, op. cit., p. 84. 115. Farry, op. cit. 116. In at least 1979, 1987, and 1992. 117. 9.2%, 9.8%, and 9.3%, Farry, op. cit. 118. Bodilis, op. cit., p. 78. 119. Nicholas Whyte and Stephen Farry, “Don’t Believe Everything that You Read in Other Papers: The Forum Elections Analysed,” Alliance News, June/July 1996. 120. Ibid. 121. Alliance News, July/August 1998, p. 5. 122. Ibid., p. 1. 123. Farry, op. cit., Belfast Newsletter, June 14, 1973. 124. Farry, op. cit.; Bodilis, op. cit., p. 68. 125. Sidney Elliot, “The Local Government Elections,” Fortnight, May 27, 1977. 126. Farry, op. cit.; Bodilis, op. cit., p. 68. 127. Fortnight, May 1981. No date on copy made in Linen Hall library. 128. Alliance News, 1985. No date on copy from Linen Hall library. 129. Sydney Elliott and F. J. Smith, The District Council Elections of 1989: A Computer Analysis (Belfast: Blackstaff, 1990), p. 27. 130. Ibid. 131. Farry, op. cit.; Allan Leonard, “1997 Local Government Results,” an Alliance internal document, August 7, 1998. 132. Alliance News, June/July 1981, p. 6. I averaged the figures given. 133. Sydney Elliott and F. J. Smith, The District Council Elections of 1981 (Belfast: Blackstaff, 1982), p. 34. 134. Interview with Stephen Farry, July 1998. 135. Leonard, op. cit. 136. Bodilis, op. cit., p. 27. 137. Media Pack: The Northern Ireland Assembly (Belfast Northern Ireland Office [NIO], 1998). 138. Cushnahan, op. cit., p. 5. 139. Ibid. 140. Stephen Farry, “Room for Growth,” Alliance News, July/August 1998, p. 5. 141. This was a standard question I posed to all of my interviewees. 142. Party Conference Speech, March 1997. 143. O’Malley, p. 398.

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144. Asher Arian, The Second Republic: Politics in Israel (Chatham, NJ: Chatham House, 1998), p. 139. 145. Ibid., pp. 117, 136, 139. 146. Daniel Elazar and Shmuel Sandler, eds., Israel at the Polls 1992 (London: Rowman & Littlefield, 1995), p. 9. 147. Ibid., p. 10. 148. Ibid., p. 10. 149. Arian, op. cit., p. 220. 150. Elazar and Sandler, op. cit., pp. 10, 58. 151. Ibid., p. 67. 152. Ibid., p. 188; Arian, op. cit., p. 86. 153. Jerusalem Post Electronic Edition, Nov. 11, 1998. 154. Ha’Aretz and Jerusalem Post, both Feb. 10, 1999.

3

Leadership and Policies

Once we go beyond looking at objective independent variables for the success of a liberal party such as size of the settler population, franchise system, ethnic divisions, and the state of the insurgency, we must look at subjective factors. The most important of these are the quality of the party leadership and the quality of its policies. The Rhodesian liberals were especially deficient in the former and did not develop a great range of policies, instead concentrating purely on those related to the conflict. The South African Liberal Party failed in spite of good leadership due to objective factors. The South African liberals, Alliance, and Meretz have all had quality leadership. The Progs/Democrats and Alliance have each had about five leaders over a forty-year period for the former and a thirty-year period for the latter. Meretz has had two leaders over a seven-year period. The policies that the parties have developed deal with a whole range of subjects from civil rights, to policing, to economics, to welfare, etc. None of the parties is a one issue party. I will concentrate in this chapter on describing their policies most relevant to the conflict at hand, that is, those dealing with constitutional issues, defense and security, and foreign affairs. For Western outsiders, the liberals provide many ideas for final settlement proposals. This is particularly important when foreign mediation is involved as in Rhodesia, Northern Ireland, and Israel. The liberals can also be relied upon to provide a good analysis of the thinking of the main settler parties.

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ELECTORAL CONSIDERATIONS AND POLICY There is a major difference between the settler colonies of Southern Africa where the whites are a minority—a small minority—and Northern Ireland and Israel where the dominant groups are the majority of the population. In South Africa, as in Rhodesia and the other settler colonies in Africa, the whites owe their high standard of living to the exploitation of blacks who were deliberately disadvantaged under apartheid. The National Party created a system of Bantu education that was aimed at preparing Africans only for menial manual labor jobs. Colored and Indian education was often not much better. Under apartheid blacks entering the “white areas” from the homelands had only seventy-two hours in which to find a job before they became illegal. This gave blacks little bargaining power. Numerous regulations governed black businesses. White workers readily understood that it was not just their “natural superiority” that led to their higher standard of living. White workers voted for parties that promised to implement and preserve racial discrimination. The liberals were supported by voters that did not fear economic competition with blacks. These voters had education and economic skills in addition to manual labor or some manual skills. But liberals had to worry about advocating policies which would imperil whites physically by backing armed struggle by the liberation movements or backing economic sanctions which would affect the economy that white professionals were dependent on. In many ways the liberals saw themselves as mediating between whites and blacks. To support armed struggle or economic sanctions would be to become identified with one side—the side which could not vote for them. Both Northern Ireland and Israel have/had lesser forms of discrimination against the subordinate group. In Ulster this took the form of job and housing discrimination. Much of this discrimination has been eliminated under direct rule since 1972. The unionist working class may have suffered from lower rates of unemployment than did the nationalists, but the difference in standard of living for those employed is fairly minimal. It is certainly less than the cost of the conflict in terms of perpetuating unemployment, low wages, and injury and death. In Israel the conflict is not primarily about the civil rights of Arabs within Israel, but a national conflict between Israelis and non-Israeli Palestinians living in the occupied territories and diaspora. In Northern Ireland and Israel the main problem that the liberals have to worry about is being perceived as too soft and naive. THE PROGRESSIVES Initially the Progressive Party’s position on the race issue was in favor of a qualified nonracial franchise similar to that which had operated in Cape Province prior to Union in 1910. This was known as the Molteno Plan and had become the Progs policy in 1961 and remained their policy until 1978. This was

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at a time when Alan Paton and the Liberals were running on the basis of universal franchise. The Molteno Plan called for two classes of franchise, A and B, with the A franchise restricted to those with a certain level of education or annual income. The two franchises would then be weighed differently when electing members of parliament—it was a complicated system. It had been developed by a former colored representative, Donald Molteno, who had been an MP from 1936 to 1948.1 Molteno had opposed the formation of the Liberal Party in 1953, arguing that it was premature and that an association would be a better idea. But he joined the party and was a member for four years before resigning in 1957. He chaired the Molteno Commission on constitutional reform which included blacks.2 The party’s first major exposition of its policy was the book Safeguard Your Future, coauthored by Molteno and Zach de Beer in 1961. It went through several editions.3 The Progs by the mid-seventies felt that its franchise policy was elitist and outdated. The Balugha Conference (see below) was the first step in formulating a new constitutional policy. For the thirteen years of Suzman’s solo performance, the main emphasis was on exposing the failures of apartheid. Suzman posed at least 2,262 questions during those years and made 885 major speeches. This was all done with only a single researcher for staff and no speechwriter. Suzman learned to write speeches while listening to parliamentary debates. Suzman also intervened on behalf of numerous victims of apartheid and government policy. She was the only MP to visit Robben Island and other prisons to observe prison conditions. She visited Mandela five times in prison even though she applied annually starting in 1967. In many ways, Suzman’s main job as MP was to serve as an MP for all those without the vote in their dealings with government.4 In 1978 Frederik van Zyl Slabbert was put in charge of a committee in the party charged with reviewing the PFP’s franchise policy. He recommended that the party adopt a universal adult franchise based on proportional representation as its position and the party accepted that. That same time period saw the government’s parliamentary Commission of Inquiry on a new constitution. The PFP’s four representatives on the Commission were Colin Eglin, Japie Basson, Dave Dalling, and Slabbert.5 The following year Slabbert succeeded Colin Eglin as party leader. Suzman wrote that she was not sure if Slabbert would stay with the party as he had applied for the vice-chancellorship at the University of Cape Town. She also wanted to reward Eglin for his achievements in overseeing the party’s growth.6 Slabbert remained the party leader until February 1986 when he and Alex Boraine suddenly resigned from the party and from parliament. This was the most innovative period of the party in terms of policy development. In 1979, Slabbert and Cape Town political scientist David Welsh coauthored a book on consociationalism, Strategies for Sharing Power.7 The book basically described the theories of Dutch–American political scientist Arend Lijphart who had developed his theory on power-sharing from examining four Western European cases in the twentieth century: Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands, and

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Switzerland. Of these four cases, only the Belgian and Swiss cases involved ethnic divisions and so are relevant to Northern Ireland and South Africa. The Swiss canton solution was advocated in South Africa by white conservatives, who wanted a minimalist central government. It was totally unacceptable to both the charterists (ANC/UDF) and Inkatha. The Belgian solution was for a territorial split based on ethnicity between the French, the Flemish, and the Germans. There is also an elaborate machinery of cultural and language councils and so on. This scheme served as a model for the KwaZulu–Natal Indaba in 1986. Lijphart postulates that normal majoritarian democracy as practiced in Australia, Britain, New Zealand, much of Western Europe, and the United States is inappropriate for deeply divided societies because majoritarian democracy is based on the assumption that today’s opposition will be tomorrow’s government and vice versa. This does not hold true for deeply divided societies where people tend to vote along the fault lines (ethnic, religious, ideological) that separate them, leaving some in a permanent majority and others in a permanent minority. Consociational democracy is based on elite coalitions that are formed after the election. The mechanisms for accommodation can be either formal or informal depending on the level of trust among the elites and the depths of the divisions. A typical consociational measure is the invitation of opposition figures into one’s cabinet, as occurred in South Africa after 1994. In the Indaba plan, half the executive was to be made up of ministers representing the various opposition factions. Under Horowitz’s theory, accommodation would not be by elites but rather by voters, with this happening as a result of the franchise rules. In Nigeria, to be elected president in 1979, the winner had to have a certain level of support in at least two-thirds of the states. In Kenya in 1962, blacks were allowed to vote for white candidates and the winning white candidate had to have a minimal level of black support. Horowitz was at a disadvantage because he had far fewer examples of electoral power-sharing than Lijphart had of consociational democracy. But both believed that simple majoritarian democracy was inappropriate for deeply divided countries like South Africa with different ethnic or racial “segments.”8 The book then examined a number of cases outside Western Europe: Cyprus, Lebanon, and Malaysia, and then examined South Africa itself. In Cyprus consociationalism was a complete failure. It eventually failed in Lebanon as well. It was successful in Malaysia, but was in effect there for less than a decade. Thus there was not a wealth of successful examples of consociationalism outside of Central and Northern Europe. The book may not have been read by ordinary voters, but it was read by opinion makers in the media and academia. And this allowed the party to get its ideas discussed in the media: discussed on the radio and reviewed in periodicals like the Financial Mail and Leadership SA. In August 1978 the PFP and Inkatha established a joint liaison committee to deal with issues of common concern. This was at a time of vacuum in black politics when the radical Africanist AZAPO and Inkatha were the only organized legal parties with any following. The UDF would not appear for another five

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years. Natal was the only province whose provincial government had never been ruled by the Nationalists in the seventy-six years of elected provincial government between 1910 and 1986, when appointed provincial governments were instituted as part of the new constitution. During the 1975–90 period, Natal was the only region with a popular alternative leadership to the charterists in the form of Inkatha.9 These two facts and the growing rapprochement between Inkatha and the PFP made some sort of constitutional experimentation along the PFP’s lines conceivable. The sugar industry in 1980 appointed a commission, the Lombard Commission, to come up with alternatives to the government’s plan for homeland consolidation for KwaZulu. The Lombard Commission in its report recommended some sort of consociational arrangement between Natal and KwaZulu. The previous year the Quail Commission had made a similar recommendation for Ciskei, but that homeland’s leadership rejected that recommendation for favor of independence. But in KwaZulu Chief Minister Mangosuthu Buthelezi, who was opposed to independence, took up the recommendation and appointed his own commission to make concrete proposals in this regard. The Buthelezi Commission consisted of representatives of academia, agriculture, industry, KwaZulu, the NRP, and the PFP. It first met in October 1980, let its major recommendations be leaked in October 1981, and officially issued its report in March 1982. The report called for a merger of KwaZulu and Natal to be ruled by a unicameral legislature on a power-sharing basis. The recommendations were rejected by both the NP and the NRP. The provincial leader of the NRP, Ron Miller, led the forces rejecting the report. Two years later he defected to the NP along with two other NRP MPs, leaving the NRP with just five MPs. For the next two years there was a complete break in relations between the NRP and Inkatha. The Slabbert/Welsh book served as a primer for the Buthelezi Commission. In 1985 Lijphart wrote his own guide, Power-Sharing in South Africa, which was used by the Indaba the following year to educate the delegates to the negotiation. Duke University political scientist Donald Horowitz wrote his own book on South Africa which was based on his own theory of electoral powersharing.10 From 1982 to 1985 the PFP was most active in opposing the NP’s plans for a new constitution. The government held a white referendum on the new constitution in November 1983. The PFP, along with the Conservatives and the HNP—but obviously for different reasons, urged a no vote while the NP and NRP supported a yes vote. Slabbert met with many editors from the leading newspapers urging them to come out in favor of a no vote. But nearly all supported a yes vote as they felt it was a step in the right direction and they felt uncomfortable siding with the Conservatives. Some papers even refused to run ads against the constitution.11 The business community also supported the new constitution.12 Many of the PFP’s voters in 1981 defected to the yes campaign in 1983. With a 70 percent poll, two-thirds of voters voted yes.13 With

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those who voted PFP in the 1981 election, the figure was actually 70 percent, compared with 76 percent for the NRP and 80 percent for the NP, so the PFP, in spite of the leadership’s urging, still voted for the constitution in aboveaverage numbers. But this is misleading, because the HNP/Conservative voters all voted no.14 If the average of those parties whose voters voted yes was made, it would probably be close to 78 or 79 percent. With a 70 percent poll, twothirds of voters voted yes.15 Slabbert argued that the constitution represented phony power-sharing as the President’s Council, dominated by whites, decided what matters constituted “own affairs” (to be decided by a single race’s house of parliament) and which constituted “general affairs” (to be decided by parliament as a whole). Africans were conspicuously lacking from the framework. The tricameral parliament was essentially the NRP’s racial parliament minus an African chamber. Slabbert had four main objections to the constitution: • It was one party’s solution imposed on the rest of the country. • It would polarize race relations and promote conflict by excluding Africans. • It entrenched racial laws. • It gave too much power to the new executive president.

The NRP had developed its scheme in 1976 just as the United Party was going defunct. Members then testified on the scheme extensively before the President’s Council in 1980–81. The new constitution effectively created a presidential system of government replacing the parliamentary system. A leading constitutional theorist, the former dean of the University of Natal’s law faculty, dubbed it “sham consociationalism.”16 Leading up to the referendum in November 1983, there were three separate political marketing campaigns being conducted among whites to influence their votes: a no campaign by the white right, a yes campaign by the NP and the NRP, and a no campaign by the PFP. This positioned the NP campaign to appear as the centrist moderate position between “the two extremes.” This joint campaign between the NP and the NRP facilitated the former’s poaching of the latter’s voters and much of the provincial council caucus in the next elections in 1987. The defections began in October 1984 with that of Natal leader Ron Miller and two other NRP MPs. The new constitution provided the National Party with a handy excuse to eliminate the provincial councils at the end of June 1986. This was in order to prevent the Conservative Party from developing a base in the provincial councils in the Transvaal and the Orange Free State. It also coincidentally closed down the only provincial council not controlled by the NP and served as another stumbling block in the path of the Indaba. NRP leaders in Natal were of the opinion that the move was more aimed at the Conservatives than at them and the Indaba.17

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The new constitution led to a realignment of extra-parliamentary politics. The black opposition launched the UDF in August 1983 as an umbrella organization for some six hundred civic, athletic, and cultural organizations presenting Africans, Indians, and mixed-race coloreds. Inkatha and its controversial leader, Mangosutho Gatsha Buthelezi, were conspicuously excluded from the UDF for their participation in the homeland system. This resulted in problems for the PFP. Inkatha was the PFP’s natural black partner in implementing its powersharing ideas in Natal, but in other provinces, particularly in the Eastern Cape and in Johannesburg and Cape Town, the PFP had to work with the UDF. These contacts with both organizations allowed the PFP to play the role of neutral violence monitors when violence broke out between the two organizations in Natal, initially in 1985 and then on a regular basis after September 1987. Ideologically, the PFP was much closer to Inkatha than to the charterists. But the tactics of some of the Inkatha “warlords” and the KwaZulu Police, as well as revelations about secret government funding of Inkatha, led a number of the PFP’s members of parliament to eventually join the ANC during the early 1990s. The members who defected to the National Democratic Movement in 1987 were Pierre Cronje and Peter Gastrow and independent Jan van Eck. In 1985 the PFP and Inkatha formed the Convention Alliance, dedicated to holding a national convention of all political groups in South Africa to negotiate a new constitution. This had been part of the PFP’s policy since 1978, but the state of emergency seemed to make it more urgent. In 1978 when a national convention was first discussed, there was controversy over whom to invite. Harry Schwarz proposed a motion excluding all those convicted of treason or sabotage. The motion passed, effectively barring the Rivonia defendants who were the leaders of the ANC. Although the ANC could have been represented by individuals like Oliver Tambo, who had not been convicted, this would have the practical effect of excluding the ANC. This led to the continuation of the feud between Suzman and Schwarz until Slabbert resigned from parliament. But the UDF would not have anything to do with any organization that Inkatha was part of, so Inkatha was forced to withdraw its membership a few months later. The Convention Alliance ended up stillborn because the UDF knew that the NP would not call a convention.18 No national convention met until December 1991 when CODESA held its first meeting.19 Slabbert later wrote that he had both greatly underestimated the resistance to Buthelezi among extra-parliamentary forces and the suspicion of such an initiative coming from a parliamentary party. He declared the effort to have been “romantically naive” and “doomed to failure from the outset.” He does note, however, that the initiative was very popular with party donors and there was even talk of starting a Convention Trust.20 In October 1985, Slabbert led a PFP delegation to Lusaka, Zambia to meet with the ANC. This was the second major South African delegation to meet with the ANC. A business delegation including Zach de Beer and Tony Bloom had visited Lusaka the previous month.21 This initiative was important for several reasons. First, it signaled to the electorate (and to the government) that the

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ANC was not “beyond the pale” and was an important actor, which must be included in any deliberations about the future. Second, it signaled to the ANC and the UDF that the PFP took them seriously. Third, it gave a chance for the PFP to present its ideas to those who would be negotiating for the blacks. Lastly, it signaled the importance of negotiations as opposed to armed confrontation as a means of resolving problems. This theme carried through to Slabbert’s final initiative. In November 1985, Slabbert told Eglin during a flight to Australia that the party desperately needed new strategic initiatives. The National Convention Alliance had failed, the party had lost a number of by-elections, and the PFP was unable to implement its strategy of using the new houses of parliament against apartheid because of resistance from the UDF and from the tricameral parties. Many groups in the PFP urged that the party stay out of the other two houses as they were illegitimate. In the end, the PFP ended up getting two token independent MPs from the House of Delegates and forming a partnership with the Labour Party in the House of Representatives.22 The final innovative initiative of the PFP under Slabbert was participation in the KwaZulu–Natal Indaba. The Indaba met for eight months from March to November 1986. Although Slabbert had resigned in February he had already supported Natal provincial leader Ray Swart’s desire to participate. In terms of constitutional knowledge, the PFP was the best equipped of any of the many party and government delegations attending the Indaba. The Indaba is examined in depth in a later chapter. Slabbert does not discuss the Indaba in his memoirs, and mentions the Slabbert Trust and fundraising in general as the only successful initiative by the PFP in 1985 in his opinion.23 Much of the everyday work of PFP members of parliament and members of the provincial councils centered around opposing the practical effects of apartheid on the lives of its victims and providing legal counsel to them. The PFP worked closely with the women of the Black Sash, a protest organization made up primarily of white housewives, and with various civic organizations. This was especially the case in the Eastern Cape, in the Cape Peninsula, and in the Witwatersrand area around Johannesburg. Provincial Councillor Molly Blackburn was very closely aligned with the local UDF in Port Elizabeth. When she was killed in a car accident in 1986, thousands attended her funeral. Initially the PFP suspected foul play on the part of the government, but eventually determined that it was probably just a random accident. It can be taken as a measure of the esteem in which Nelson Mandela held Helen Suzman because of her work on behalf of the Robben Island prisoners that he wrote the forward to her memoirs.24 Except in Natal, the PFP was never in a position to implement its proposals so it had to be content playing the role of the vigorous critic in parliament and in the provincial councils. This was particularly a burden because the party often lacked the funds to hire staff for its MPs and MPCs. Rodney Haxton, the lone PFP member of the Natal Provincial Council, was forced to do all his own

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research on the whole gamut of subjects that arose for debate before the provincial council. Fortunately he was on good terms with NRP provincial council leader Frank Martin. Suzman, as a lone MP in the sixties and early seventies, was more of a threat to the NP than the entire United Party caucus because she was a vigorous critic and attracted the attention of the international press. Until the advent of Mike Mitchell’s racial parliament plan in 1976, the United Party did not even have a real alternative to apartheid. This was admitted to the author quite frankly by a number of NRP members in 1990. Sometime before the 1987 election the PFP put out a small ten-page pamphlet in English and Afrikaans titled Constitution Plan for a New South Africa. The first page listed seven basic principles of the PFP: • A new constitution, drawn up, negotiated, and agreed upon by recognized leaders of all sections of our people. • Full and equal citizenship rights for all South Africans, without discrimination on the grounds of race, color, religion, or sex. • The sharing of political rights by all citizens without the domination of one group by another. • An open society, free from statutory apartheid. • The right of all our people to maintain and develop their religious, language, and cultural heritage. • Equality of opportunity for all people in the economy. • The right of every individual to the protection of his life, liberty, and property and access to the judiciary in defense of these rights.

The rest of the pamphlet discusses the plan for a national convention and the PFP’s own constitutional plan: • A federal structure with decentralized power. • Proportional representation in both the legislatures and the executives, presumably not only for elections but for forming the executive. • A bill of rights. • Entrenched clauses in the constitution.25

At the same time the PFP produced a Guide to PFP Policy & 1987 Election Strategy, which was an internal document meant to educate PFP candidates. It contains an extensive analysis of the National Party’s reform policy. It contended that further reform was impossible because adherence to nonnegotiable principles is more important than the reform policies. It then analyzed in depth the seven party principles above, the national convention plan, and the PFP’s constitutional plans. An analysis of the National Party’s election manifesto then followed. It then addresses the “right-wing threat” with an analysis of the potential of both the HNP and the Conservatives. The document was evidently

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designed to provide additional information and analysis for candidates who have to confront an English-speaking public that has been brainwashed by the government-controlled electronic media. Many English-speaking moderates who supported reform wanted to reward the government for its meager reforms in the belief that this would encourage it in the face of the Afrikaner right. The PFP’s task was to persuade the public that the NP’s reform strategy simply was not viable. Topics include: “Why a Vote for the NP to Keep the CP Out is a Meaningless Vote,” “The Group Approach,” “Own Affairs,” etcetera. The document slightly underestimates the potential gains of the Conservative Party at twenty seats—the actual total was twenty-two. But it correctly foresees that “[t]here are no indications at all that the proposed National Council will get off the ground.”26 Slabbert had become disillusioned. The more he studied the government’s National Security Management System and met with academic analysts, the more he realized that the parliament was beside the point. The new constitution effectively bypassed the parliament by having all important issues decided by the president’s council. Slabbert was personally offended by being repeatedly lied to in official briefings by government officials. After the party lost the Newton Park by-election in Port Elizabeth, he became convinced that the PFP had no hope of expanding much beyond its present size. He proposed to Colin Eglin, Nic Olivier, and Robin Carlisle that as many PFP MPs as possible resign their seats and fight by-elections on an absentionist platform of promising not to take their seat until the government agreed to abolish mandatory racial classifications. All of them rejected the idea. He told them that he intended to resign. He was scheduled to begin a second round of fundraising appearances for the Slabbert Trust. The use of his name for the effort struck him as almost like a cult of personality and was personally offensive.27 In February 1986, he and Andrew Boraine suddenly resigned both from their party posts and from parliament. Slabbert and Boraine went on to form the Institute for a Democratic Alternative for South Africa or IDASA. IDASA was dedicated to educating South Africans of all races about the elements of real democracy and bringing them together so different groups could learn the thinking of others. IDASA organized a “safari” of some fifty Afrikaner political and cultural leaders to meet with the ANC in Dakar, Senegal in July 1987. While no NP leaders attended, a number of important journalists, academics, and student leaders attended. Some of them became part of the “fourth force” which formed the Democratic Party in 1989. By 1988, IDASA had offices in Johannesburg, Cape Town, and Durban. Aiding the liberal parties in the 1980s were big business and the English press. From only being supported by the Rand Daily Mail in the early sixties, by the mid-seventies the major English language papers throughout the country—with the notable exception of the secretly government financed Citizen— were supporting the PFP. South Africa’s English press consisted of two major

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newspaper groups: the Argus Group and South African Associated Newspapers. Because Anglo-American Corp. had a controlling interest in both these companies there was almost a monopoly situation. Fortunately for the Progs, it was a monopoly with a pro-PFP bias. Only the Natal Mercury in Durban continued to support the New Republic Party in competition with the Daily News and the Sunday Tribune which supported the PFP. The independent English newspapers like the Natal Witness and the East London Daily Dispatch were both liberal and supported the PFP and the NDM.28 Big business financed the Indaba in the late eighties. Natal business, primarily the sugar industry, financed the original negotiations, and the business community nationally financed the public relations campaign for the next three years to keep the Indaba proposals under discussion. Clem Sunter of the AngloAmerican Corporation’s Gold Division initiated an independent initiative. Sunter made a study of the characteristics of the leading industrial democracies and compared them to South Africa. He looked at economics, politics, and social policy. He developed a presentation that he went around the country presenting to business figures, government officials, student and professional groups—anyone who would listen—for three years from July 1986 to late 1989. By the end of 1987, Sunter and his colleagues had presented the material to 230 audiences comprising between 25,000 and 30,000 individuals. In 1987 it was published in paperback by a leading South African publisher. The key point of the presentation was the “high road, low road” scenarios which was the presentation’s climax. These were two separate scenarios for South Africa’s future. The high road, leading to a peaceful future and competitive status in the world economy, consisted of: • Minimal sanctions; • Small government; • Decentralized power; and • Joint negotiation and synergy.

The low road, leading to a wasteland and a future shared by many African countries, consisted of: • Increasing sanctions; • Controlled economy; • Centralized government; and • Eventual confrontation and conflict.

In essence it was the PFP/DP’s vision compared with that of the National Party and Conservatives. The “high road, low road” scenarios were featured in an article in Leadership South Africa, a leading business publication.29

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The main aim of the presentations and the book was to promote negotiation politics and to support the PFP’s call for a national convention. This was in contrast with the African National Congress, which in the late 1980s was thinking of either winning power through revolution or through a bilateral negotiation with the National Party. For the 1989 election the Democratic Party produced a sixteen-page bilingual document, The Democratic Party: A Government in the Making. On page two it declared boldly that “We are going for power.” Such optimism had not been seen since the Alliance Party in the early 1970s or Colin Eglin’s loose talk of winning enough seats in 1987 to be able to prevent the NP from forming a government without its consent. It set forth the basic policies of the party, including the pledge to double the police force and provide a rational economic policy. The pamphlet devoted two pages to the party’s constitutional vision, emphasizing the following points with bold type: • “Bringing government closer to the people”—federalism; • “Making everyone’s vote count”—proportional representation; • “Protecting everyone’s rights”—a bill of rights; and • “Ensuring the independence of the courts”—constitutional judicial review and the rule of law.

The final page, in smaller print, lists five beliefs of the DP, nine principles of the DP, a twelve-point policy program complete with a four-point economic policy, and a three-point program of action. The principles and first policy points are basically the same as the PFP’s seven principles with the addition of the statement that “the State has an important role in the development and upliftment of all South Africans.” But they are worth listing in summary: • The protection of all human rights for all South Africans. • Representative government on a universal adult franchise. • An independent judiciary and the rule of law. • The maintenance of law, order, and security. • The limitation of the central government’s authority by various layers of elected government. • Negotiation of a transition to true democracy. • The rejection of violence as a political instrument. • Free collective bargaining as the basis of labor relations. • A state which encourages private economic initiative.

The three points of the program of action are worth quoting:

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• Develop strong power bases in Parliament and in other representative bodies. The objective is to gain control. • Extend interaction with groups and individuals, whether or not they share our goals, so as to promote negotiation, settlement, compromise, and reconciliation. • Develop a broad front for peaceful co-operation, relations, joint strategies, and alliances with organizations both within and outside Parliament which are pursuing the same objectives.

Essentially it was the strategy of the PFP, except that the PFP never really believed that it would gain control of the parliament or any second-tier governments (except for possibly the Natal Provincial Council once the NRP collapsed). The PFP pursued the last point through the National Convention Alliance and Indaba election pact.30 The PFP was never in a position to implement its programs. One of its main functions was to provide information for foreign diplomats, either through direct contacts or through parliamentary debates, which could then be used in the formulation of their countries’ policies toward Pretoria. Ironically, the PFP’s cogent attacks against apartheid over the years had helped to develop the climate in the West for economic sanctions which the party remained utterly opposed to. Suzman spent much of her time in the mid- and late eighties speaking out against economic sanctions as being harmful to both blacks and the future economic development of South Africa. Suzman was one of the PFP’s leaders who was genuinely opposed to sanctions as a policy rather than the effect that support for them would have on the party’s electoral fortunes. Many of her prophecies of mass capital flight, massive unemployment, and a growing crime problem have come true. But can one really say that an end to apartheid would have come about before the end of the century without economic sanctions and the accompanying financial sanctions exercised by private banks?31 In 1990 the National Party basically adopted the Democrats’ policies wholesale. During the negotiations at CODESA and afterwards, the Democratic Party shifted from support for a consociational approach to a more straight federal approach. Federalism has the effect of strengthening the power of the provinces at the expense of the central government. It creates alternative power centers and is more conducive to the maintenance of the rule of law. It is no coincidence that in 1999, four of the seven leading industrial democracies of the West are federations: Britain, Canada, Germany, and the United States. Under majority rule the Democrats have reverted to the opposition role similar to that of the early days of the Progressive Party. The party has concentrated on attacking corruption, supporting vigorous measures against crime, and encouraging the rule of law. The party supports a free market economy and close trade ties with the West.

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PROGRESSIVE LEADERSHIP The Progressive Party had only two leaders: Jan Steytler (1959–71) and Colin Eglin (1971–79). The Progressive Federal Party had only two leaders: Eglin (1976–79, 1986–88) and Frederik van Zyl Slabbert (1979–86). The Democrats have had only two leaders: Zach de Beer (1988–94) and Tony Leon (1994–98). So in nearly forty years in existence as a party the Progs/Democrats have had only five leaders. Of these five, two have been Afrikaners, two English-speakers, and one, Zach de Beer, of mixed parentage. This is in a party that is usually portrayed and perceived as being an ethnic English-speaking party. Dr. Jannie Steytler had been the most distinguished member of the original group of twelve rebels, as the leader of the Cape Province branch of the United Party. Steytler was neither a natural administrator nor a natural public relations person. He left the daily running of the party to others and often was slow to react to events as he lived on an isolated farm near Queenstown in the Eastern Cape. In 1971 he declined to run for reelection as party leader and decided to step down.32 Colin Eglin, who replaced Steytler in 1971, had the disadvantage of spending his first three years as leader without a seat in parliament. Eglin was a “nuts and bolts” political tactician with a quick mind. Eglin was an excellent parliamentary debater, a skilled organizer, and a spellbinding orator in both Afrikaans and English. But when preoccupied he could be abrupt and even rude. Not only did he preside over the party’s major expansion in the mid-seventies when it went through two mergers, but he was called on to take over again in 1986 after Slabbert abruptly resigned in February 1986.33 Eglin was innovative in engaging different groups in dialogue in order to expand the party’s base and influence. These groups included urban blacks, homeland leaders, and Afrikaner intellectuals. In September 1972, Natal party leader Ray Swart led an official Progressive Party delegation, which included Helen Suzman, to meet with the KwaZulu cabinet in Empangeni. This was the first direct contact between the homeland government and a white political party. In late 1973, Eglin had East London Dispatch editor Donald Woods convene, organize, and conduct a three-day constitutional seminar at Bulugha near East London. Those participating included homeland leaders, academics, M. J. Naidoo of the Natal Indian Congress, and Tom Swarz of the Coloured People’s Congress. The conference unanimously approved a resolution supporting a nonracial federation in which discrimination would be outlawed and an entrenched Bill of Rights. Six editors from the English press and two from the Afrikaans press attended the conference. Eglin next organized a symposium for about thirty Afrikaner academics at a hotel in Silverton outside Pretoria to discuss and debate the principles and policies of the Progressive Party. The academics were all mainstream Afrikaners. They all expressed reservations about apartheid but thought that the Prog policy would never work as whites—especially Afrikaners—would never accept a common voters’ roll. But they wanted the Progs to

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play a bridge building role with blacks to save whites when apartheid collapsed.34 The Progressive Party’s “class of 1974” was its leadership class. Eglin returned to parliament for Sea Point after a thirteen-year absence; future leader Frederik van Zyl Slabbert and future whip Alex Boraine were elected, all from the Cape Peninsula. Eglin was forced to step down in 1979 after the government accused him of leaking confidential information about the Namibian negotiations to American negotiator Donald McHenry. Eglin denied the charge but Basson was very lukewarm in his defense and the charges stuck. The federal executive asked Eglin to step down for the good of the party. There were only two real potential candidates for the leadership: Slabbert and de Beer. De Beer was a close friend of Eglin and refused to contest the leadership giving it to Slabbert by default.35 Slabbert was the party’s leading intellectual. He was responsible for policy formulation. Besides being fluent and a polished speaker in both official languages, Slabbert was a brilliant writer. His op-ed piece in the Sunday Tribune before the Pinetown by-election is the most brilliant political analysis that this author has read. Slabbert came from an elite Afrikaner background: a graduate of Pietersburg Boy’s School in the northern Transvaal, he studied theology at Stellenbosch University and played rugby for Stellenbosch and the South African team. The Nats feared Slabbert and, according to one of his senior ministers, P. W. Botha hated him because “Slabbert is too clever.” Slabbert was a very private person and never a good mixer. His only close friend in the party was Alex Boraine. But his Afrikaner background made him even more attractive to English-speaking voters. Only thirty-four when elected to parliament, he was thirty-nine when he became party leader. He became very cynical and skeptical of the government when he found out that he had been lied to in 1975 about Angola. His first major challenge came shortly after his appointment. After the government announced its new constitutional proposals with the President’s Council to replace the senate, the PFP decided not to participate. But Japie Basson told the press that he thought the opposition should give the Council a chance. Slabbert called him into his office to seek clarification and Basson said that he would straighten out the problem in his speech in parliament. In the speech, Basson said that he was prepared to serve on the Council. Slabbert immediately called a caucus meeting and expelled Basson from the party. He personally liked Basson, but could not tolerate such a major departure from policy.36 Slabbert became depressed with a feeling of helplessness in 1985. The shift from a parliamentary government to a presidential system made him feel that parliament was irrelevant. He suddenly resigned on the floor of parliament in February 1986, giving the caucus only an hour’s warning beforehand.37 De Beer was too busy with corporate business to take over when Slabbert resigned, so the party once again turned to Eglin. Boraine had considered running for the leadership and sought Swart’s advice as to whether he should resign

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like Slabbert or go for the leadership. Swart advised him to do neither but Boraine resigned after a week. After successfully negotiating the election pact with the NRP, Eglin developed a case of Rawitis—the tendency to make wildly optimistic election forecasts with no basis in reality. He spoke of winning forty or more seats and serving as the balance holder between the NP and the Conservatives. After the party’s poor performance in 1987, he was made the scapegoat and it was decided to replace him with new talent.38 Zach de Beer served in parliament twice: 1953 to 1961 and 1977 to 1994. Trained as a doctor, he then went into advertising and became an executive with Anglo–American Corporation. He worked in Zambia as well as in South Africa. He actually had firsthand experience in Africa outside of South Africa and a business background. He was responsible for the merger with the NDM and the Independents.39 He became the outright leader of the party in 1990 after the resignation of Malan from the party. Tony Leon had served for several years on the Johannesburg City Council and had been a PFP member and then a Democrat for years before being elected to parliament in 1989. He replaced de Beer as party leader in 1994 following the election that reduced the party caucus to only seven MPs. His background in local government served him well in dealing with the type of issues that the party chose to emphasize: crime, corruption, education, etc. With his relatively young age, he is a throwback to Slabbert. ALLIANCE PARTY LEADERSHIP In twenty-eight years of existence the Alliance party has had five leaders: Oliver Napier (1970–72 [with Bob Cooper as coleader], 1973–84), Phelim O’Neill (1972–73), John Cushnahan (1984–87), John Alderdice (1987–98), and Sean Neeson (1998– ). During approximately 85 percent of that time it has had two leaders: Oliver Napier and John Alderdice. When the party was created in 1970, the two former leaders of the political committee, both lawyers, were made the joint chairmen. When Phelim O’Neill joined in February 1972, he became the leader because he brought to the new party the highest party position, most experience and prestige. In the June 1973 Assembly elections O’Neill failed to win a seat, so in accordance with party rules, Napier became the party leader and Bob Cooper became deputy leader and party whip. In June 1973 Catholic Napier ran in Protestant East Belfast and Protestant Cooper ran in Catholic West Belfast and both were elected demonstrating the appeal of the party’s nonsectarian principles to both communities.40 O’Neill’s biggest accomplishment as party leader was to get the Northern Ireland Office to agree to return to the proportional representation—single transferable vote (PR–STV) voting system that had been in effect in Northern Ireland in the 1920s and was in effect in the Republic. This gave a new party like Alliance the best chance of making a good showing. The biggest accomplishments from the pre-O’Neill period were the growth of the party and its survival,

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and the party’s principled resistance to internment, which was implemented in August 1971. Internment was based on very poor out-of-date intelligence and was initially applied only against nationalists and not against loyalists. Napier had important issues to contend with in his first year as leader in his own right. British policy was to devolve power back to Ulster on a powersharing basis. This meant in practice that two parties had to be involved to make it work: the Ulster Unionists and the nationalist Social Democratic and Labour Party. But Alliance was more eager than either of them to be involved in powersharing and showed up at every conference called by the Northern Ireland Office to discuss the possibility of creating such a government. At the Darlington Conference only the Ulster Unionists and Alliance attended. But after further consultations, the SDLP joined these two parties at the civil service training college in Sunningdale in December to discuss the fine details of a power-sharing executive. At the conference Brian Faulkner of the Unionists insisted that the Ulster Unionists have a majority in the executive. Because the Ulster Unionists had split into pro- and anti-power-sharing factions, Faulkner actually commanded less seats than did the SDLP. So Napier broke the deadlock between the SDLP, which insisted on proportionality, and the Unionists, who insisted on a majority, by proposing that there should be a number of nonvoting members created in proportional terms. This would allow the Unionists to have a majority of voting members but allow the SDLP to have more members on the executive. The two parties agreed to the proposal.41 Napier was also worried that Faulkner was giving away more to the SDLP in terms of the Council of Ireland proposal than he could sell to the electorate. Napier thought that there should be a quid pro quo from the Republic in terms of a clear unequivocal recognition of Britain’s sovereignty in Northern Ireland and a clear promise of extradition of republican terrorists from the Republic. Napier was unable to convince the Irish government to grant these requests. He warned the government that Faulkner would be unable to sell the agreement to unionists without these concessions.42 Napier was Law and Order Minister in the power-sharing executive from January 1 to the end of May 1974. But he feels that the biggest role that the party played in the executive was not in his functions as minister but in the party’s position as peacekeeper between the Unionists and the SDLP. Before the executive met, Faulkner was forced to resign as party leader and party member after losing a vote to support the executive. He led his supporters out of the Ulster Unionist Party to form the Unionist Party of Northern Ireland. Not only the Unionists were split, but also the SDLP: Paddy Devlin, Paddy Duffy, and John Hume were all big supporters of the Council of Ireland. Party leaders Gerry Fitt and Austin Currie were indifferent to the Council.43 The Council was a body that would link members of parliament and the Dail in a body which was largely ceremonial. But it was of great symbolic importance to both unionists and nationalists as it signified in principle a united Ireland. The Council

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was never actually implemented during the five months that the power-sharing executive existed. But it was enough ammunition for its opponents among the unionists to bring the government down through a loyalist workers’ strike organized by the Ulster Workers’ Council in mid-May.44 Napier wrote an open letter to Dublin appealing to it “to keep its side of the bargain,”45 that is, to give up its constitutional claim to Northern Ireland. But Dublin did not and the executive collapsed in the strike. It is interesting that Oliver Napier did not list the Sunningdale Agreement or his role as minister as among the top three accomplishments during his time as leader. He listed these as: (1) establishment and survival of the party; (2) proportional representation—single transferable vote for elections; and (3) opposition to internment. Napier said that the executive did not want to oppose internment, but he won support for his opposition stand from the party’s Council. He said at the time that as a result of internment, relations would be so embittered that it would take another generation to reach agreement between the two sides.46 In fact, it took twenty-seven years. On Alliance’s tenth birthday, a nationalist journalist wrote the following assessment of the party. They have not fulfilled the high hopes with which they set out ten years ago. But they are still here, and increasingly they will provide the means whereby those Catholics who want to get involved in local administration can do so . . . True, it will be decades before Alliance gains significant support from the border areas. But then, did the Nationalist Party ever have much support in Belfast? The Belfast area has enough people to provide a real base for a moderate party.47

Alliance refused to participate in the New Ireland Forum of the nationalist parties. John Cushnahan wrote an article in Fortnight in November 1983 explaining the party’s abstention. Cushnahan wrote that many in Northern Ireland regarded the Forum as a rival to the Assembly. He objected to the narrowly stated objectives of its main participants at the beginning of the process. Throwing John Hume’s words back at him he wrote, “the Forum will be proved to be the ultimate in worthless talking shops.”48 Napier stepped down as party leader in September 1984, two years into the term of the new assembly, in order to allow John Cushnahan to take over as party leader. He was afraid of becoming stale as party leader, which he thought was the case with John Hume and Ian Paisley.49 This would allow Cushnahan to gain experience as leader before having to fight a new assembly election. Cushnahan was leader during the difficult period following the surprise announcement of the Anglo–Irish Agreement (AIA) in November 1985. Before this, a very critical article about the party appeared in the June 1985 issue of Fortnight. Ask your average Alliance member about his involvement over the years and he will tell you he cannot remember the last time there was a political debate in his branch . . . You

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would have thought that a party dealing with the problems of Northern Ireland would have thrown up a whole series of motions on the constitutional reform and future of institutions. There hasn’t been one in five years. The party will have to become a radical alternative and not a bunch of wet do-gooders. The party will have to generate debate amongst its own members, attract the interest and support of more politically-motivated young people, allow its party spokesmen more freedom. It must become more vigorous and tougher intellectually. It must attract back the moderate thinking Catholic vote it has lost. And it must stop acting like a rabbit caught in the middle of the road, petrified by the oncoming headlights of disaster.50

Unfortunately, most of these problems were not fixed and the party suffered as a result. Cushnahan gave the agreement a guarded welcome, in contrast to the unionist parties which all condemned the agreement as a sellout to Ireland and the first step toward a united Ireland. Actually, Napier was opposed to the AIA for the same reasons as future Irish president Mary Robinson of the Labour Party; they both saw it as unfair to Protestants as it amounted to interference by another country in their affairs.51 Cushnahan took the party out of the Assembly in the spring of 1986 after the unionists began spending all their time investigating the agreement and became deliberately obstructionist. This caused London to prorogue the Assembly. Cushnahan had been head of the education committee; like John Hume, he had qualified as a teacher. He found it necessary to fight the unionists who did not want to appoint a Catholic as head of a committee, even if he was more qualified than their candidate. Alliance threatened to quit the Assembly over the issue, which would have brought it down as the SDLP was already boycotting it.52 By the autumn of 1987, John Cushnahan was forced to quit as party leader because he could not find a job due to his political position and could not afford to support his family on his salary as party leader. After quitting as party leader, Cushnahan started his own public relations consulting business and was quite successful. He had just built an addition on to his home when he was offered a position as candidate for the European parliament for Munster for the Fine Gael party in the Republic.53 After consulting his family, he took up the challenge and was elected. He was followed a few years later by SDLP assembly member Austin Currie, whose wife had been cruelly disfigured by loyalists.54 Currie became a deputy in the Dail for Fine Gael.55 Cushnahan’s biggest asset in both Ulster and Munster was his fluency in Irish, which allowed him to deal with Sinn Fein hecklers. He was also unafraid to attack Sinn Fein as cowardly men hiding behind the Irish Republican Army (IRA) who hid behind masks. Cushnahan grew up in Andersonstown, West Belfast and attended the same school as Gerry Adams.56 One former assemblyman described Cushnahan’s traits as: “energy, courage, selflessness. He was very tough, feared in debate by other parties.”57 Cushnahan was replaced by John Alderdice, Alliance’s first Protestant leader

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since Phelim O’Neill in 1973, fourteen years before. Alderdice was the son of a Presbyterian minister, and a practicing psychiatrist—a useful profession for someone dealing with politics in a deeply divided society like Northern Ireland. Napier described Alderdice as “highly intelligent, a hard worker, an advocate of the politics of rationality.” In fact, the latter was one of Napier’s main criticisms of Alderdice, “his politics came from the head, mine came from the heart.” Napier also claimed that Alderdice “did not have any feel for the people.”58 In Northern Ireland most party leaders and members have politics that comes from their hearts and look at what the result has been. It can be a useful thing to have at least one party ruled by an intellect rather than a temper or nonrational longings for union. Alderdice led the party during the period of talks: the Brooks talks in 1991, the cease-fires, the forum discussions, and finally the negotiations that led to the Good Friday Agreement. Alderdice sees it as a seven-year peace process. Alderdice joined the party while a senior medical student at Queen’s University in 1978. He had decided that he wanted to get involved in politics in Northern Ireland to help end the conflict. He wrote to a number of parties that he was interested in and Alliance not only replied to his letter but sent someone out to see him.59 He was impressed with the party’s liberal and pluralist credentials. Alderdice does not see power-sharing as the party’s raison d’etre, but rather putting forward liberal views. He concedes though, that in a deeply divided society like Northern Ireland, such a policy is necessary in order to end the conflict, which is a prerequisite for building a liberal society. So power-sharing is a means rather than an end in itself. When I asked him why he had not imitated Slabbert and written a book on power-sharing for Northern Ireland, he replied: “It is not the job of politicians to produce detailed studies of powersharing. That is the task of political scientists. Our job is to produce concrete proposals or general guidelines. We have produced several pamphlets over the years including Governing With Consent.”60 This answer may demonstrate one of the party’s greatest weaknesses under Alderdice’s leadership: a lack of flair for public relations and publicity. Alderdice is a brilliant speaker and orator; his annual conference speeches are among the best profiles of Ulster’s political scene. But by the 1980s the party was no longer news and the media did not want to cover Alliance because it did not fit well into their double conflict model of Ulster politics: a rivalry between the DUP and the UUP, and a rivalry between the SDLP and Sinn Fein. The party needed to use innovative approaches or gimmicks to get the media to cover its policies on various issues. But because Alderdice was such an accomplished speaker, the party tended to rely on him and did not develop alternative leadership talent.61 To his credit, Alderdice announced at a meeting of the ruling Council of Alliance in March 1988 that he had set up a small study group to review the party’s policy “in a broad area covering the arrangements by which Northern Ireland should be governed.”62 The group met regularly over the next six months

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and presented its findings to the Council on September 17, 1988, where they received unanimous support.63 The document, published the following month, called for devolution on a power-sharing basis with an entrenched bill of rights. He then wrote an article in Fortnight plugging the document’s findings. The article discussed how to incorporate the Irish dimension within a power-sharing devolutionist solution.64 When the Brooke talks got started in 1991 he again wrote an article in Fortnight which referred to Governing With Consent.65 Governing With Consent is a twenty-one-page booklet divided into five chapters: an Introduction, Examining the Options, Proposals for Devolution, The Anglo–Irish Context, and Conclusion. The options examined were: United Ireland, Independence, Federation (with either Ireland or the United Kingdom), Joint Sovereignty, and Devolution. All of these—with the exception of devolution—were found to be unacceptable to either or both of the two communities. Joint Sovereignty was seen as either being unworkable or an interim solution leading to a United Ireland. Interestingly, repartition of Northern Ireland between the UK and Ireland was not examined as a possible solution. This is possibly because no political group proposed it as a solution and both republicans and unionists could be counted upon to reject it. The proposals called for a unicameral legislature based on multiple member elections within the existing Westminster constituencies. A consociational executive is envisaged, coming from members of the Assembly, but no firm rules are offered for its composition. The following guidelines are offered for its composition: • “it is widely representative of the community as a whole;” • “reflects . . . the balance of the parties in the Assembly;” and • “includes no person who supports the use of violence for political ends.”

Presumably this last stipulation applies only to domestic and not to international politics. The allocation of portfolios within the executive would be a matter for the executive itself. In order to be acceptable the executive should be supported by at least 70 percent of the members of the Assembly. This is the amount listed in the Northern Ireland Act of 1982. The fourth chapter concludes with a recommendation for a tripartite Anglo– Irish governmental body having rights of consultation to the administrations in both Belfast and Dublin over matters that are dealt with by Westminster. It would be made up of members of the Dail, the Assembly, and the British parliament. It would deal with those “excepted matters” reserved to the British government, such as electoral law and the appointment of Supreme Court judges. These would always remain in London. “Reserved matters” such as security, police, and criminal law would initially remain in London but gradually be transferred to Ulster as the province demonstrated its ability to assume these powers. “Transferred matters” would be immediately transferred from London to Belfast.66

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The Conclusion sums up with an abbreviated listing of the eight main proposals: • A devolved Assembly having both legislative and executive powers over transferred matters, and an advisory role in other matters. • Financing of the devolved administration by an expenditure based system. • Policy formulation by an Executive appointed by the Secretary of State. • A test of acceptability for the new Executive at its formation and annually requiring a weighted majority of 70 percent from within the Assembly. • A political right of appeal to Westminster for aggrieved minorities requiring the support of 30 percent within the Assembly. • Backbench Committees with an oversight role. • The Executive and Assembly free to enter into whatever relationships with the Republic that they deem appropriate. • A new tripartite consultative body giving advice to the administrations in Belfast and Dublin over reserved and excepted matters.

But Alderdice, unlike Slabbert, did not consider collaborating with a political scientist to produce a book making the case for the party’s constitutional proposals. This was left to the Opsahl Commission which researched political attitudes of the province’s inhabitants and came up with a few proposals in the early 1990s. Two academics, Kevin Boyle and Tom Hadden, popularized the concepts of power-sharing in Northern Ireland and the United Kingdom as a whole in their book The Choice which appeared in 1994 following the Brooks Talks, the Opsahl Commission, and coinciding with the paramilitary cease-fires. The two devoted only two chapters for a total of forty-eight pages to powersharing. Only two foreign models are discussed in depth: the Belgian model of the 1980s and the Swiss cantonal model. There are passing references to the Netherlands and Cyprus but no detailed discussion. Alderdice could have approached either of the coauthors, who have written a series of books on Northern Ireland together, or some other academic to write a detailed book on consociationalism in order to sell the idea to the province’s elites: the Northern Ireland office, the Ulster Unionists, and the SDLP. But Alderdice apparently thought that his job was finished with appointing a committee to come up with a set of guidelines and then writing a single page article in a current events journal. Because Alderdice traveled to South Africa frequently to vacation and discuss party business after 1994, he could have even collaborated with Welsh or Slabbert on such a book. But he lacked the imagination. Because of the lack of thirdworld cases of power-sharing, and the similarities between the conflicts in South Africa and Ulster, a study of the power-sharing arrangements in South Africa, both in the Indaba and in the 1994 constitution, would have been particularly valuable. None of the European cases came about after an internal civil war involving terrorism, guerrilla warfare, and liberation movements.

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Alderdice saw as his three biggest accomplishments: (1) the survival of the party under difficult circumstances (2) taking the unionists to court to carry out their legal obligations after the AIA; and (3) the role that the party played during the negotiations for the Good Friday Agreement in which it put forward compromise proposals and used its knowledge of consociationalism to suggest the basic outlines of the agreement.67 When I asked Alderdice’s same question of present party leader Sean Neeson, he replied: (1) the party’s participation in the Dublin Forum for Peace and Reconciliation (which was boycotted by the unionists); (2) raising the profile of Alliance in Europe through its membership in the ELDR (European Liberals, Democrats, and Radicals)—the body within the European parliament; and (3) major contributions during the final week of the negotiations. These include the idea of sufficient consensus and the idea of a deadline for the talks.68 Sufficient consensus was a concept borrowed from the negotiations in South Africa when Conservative Party and Inkatha intransigence was not allowed to prevent a final agreement. It is the idea that an agreement can be reached among the essential parties to the conflict, to prevent the extremists from blackmailing the moderates. Alliance considered the essential parties to be the SDLP and Ulster Unionists. It did not consider the tiny loyalist parties, the DUP, the United Kingdom Unionist Party (UKUP), or even Sinn Fein as essential. Most analysts regarded Sinn Fein as an essential party, but treating them as nonessential was probably a useful strategy. Under Alderdice, Alliance researchers came up with a very well-written paper on decommissioning (disarmament) in other conflicts. The paper examined the issue in regard to Bosnia, South Africa, the Oslo Accords, and elsewhere. Alderdice saw the decommissioning issue being resolved in time because Sinn Fein wants to participate in the executive. He said that all the paramilitaries had made a commitment to decommission within two years. In contrast, the loyalists did not actually expect to sit in the executive, but Sinn Fein did and thus was subject to greater leverage than the loyalists. Alderdice noted that a Bosnia-type situation that entailed unannounced arms inspections on demand would not be acceptable to unionists because paramilitaries could not be put on an equal basis with the British army. But in Bosnia, NATO was peacekeeping among three factions that were all on an equal basis.69 One of the criticisms of Alderdice that I heard from several members was his tendency to use Protestant cultural references in his speeches.70 He would talk about being raised in a “manse” (Presbyterian minister’s residence), refer to Northern Ireland as “the province,” which some Catholics find even more offensive than calling it Ulster because it emphasizes the tie to the United Kingdom. In his campaign literature for the assembly he spoke of being a bible teacher.71 Because of their position as a formerly discriminated against minority, nationalists are more sensitive to such references than Protestant Alliance members or supporters would be to Irish Catholic cultural references. Alderdice probably lost the party votes in 1998 when he asked Mary McAleese to stand down

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as a candidate for president of Ireland after she made remarks that he construed as being pro-republican.72 Present party leader Sean Neeson became acting leader after John Alderdice became speaker for the new assembly. He joined Alliance in Carrickfergus in 1977. He is a former schoolteacher who worked in that profession for fourteen years before becoming a full-time politician. In 1980 he was elected to the Carrickfergus local council, later becoming vice chairman and then chairman of the council. Neeson helped to build Carrickfergus into the strongest Alliance area in Northern Ireland: Janet Crumpsey from the Alliance is the mayor and Neeson was elected from there on the first ballot in both 1996 to the Forum and in 1998 to the Assembly. Alliance is the largest party on the council, having six out of seventeen seats compared to four UUP, three DUP, and four independent unionists. Neeson is a Catholic politician in a town that is 93 percent Protestant.73 He and Seamus Close in Lisburn also have significant support in the housing estates. This demonstrates that middle-class Alliance can win working-class support through hard work such as canvassing and effective representation.74 Neeson intends to try to take the constitution (the border) out of day-to-day politics and deal with bread-and-butter issues. He anticipates close cooperation with the Women’s Coalition and the Workers’ Party to develop nonsectarian approaches to problem solving.75 He would like to divide the responsibilities among a wider range of people within the party and give others a chance for more publicity while giving more responsibility to women.76 Women already play a greater role in Alliance than in any other well-established party in Ulster. The party has the highest percentage of female councillors in the province—34 percent, and one of its six assembly members, Eileen Bell of Bangor, is a woman.77 ALLIANCE POLICIES AND PRINCIPLES In 1979, John Cushnahan wrote about the four founding principles of the Alliance. These are: (1) the primary objective is to heal the bitter divisions by ensuring equality of citizenship and full partnership between Catholic and Protestant; (2) to support Northern Ireland as an integral part of the United Kingdom; (3) a pragmatic nondoctrinaire approach to social and economic problems; and (4) support for the firm and impartial enforcement of the rule of law. The first two constitute a dual compromise to allay the fears of both communities.78 In the Alliance’s internal magazine, Stephen Farry wrote an article defining the identity of the Alliance Party. The Alliance Party is clearly identified with modern European liberalism through its membership of ELDR and Liberal International. . . . [W]e are the only liberal party in Northern Ireland as we are the only one that has consistently sought to create a liberal society.

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Only the Alliance Party advocates the consistent rule of law, democracy that is no way influenced by the threat of violence, and an individual Bill of Rights. Our political opponents are most illiberal: often demagogues rather than democrats, breaking the law when it suits them and scapegoating others to mask their own failures. . . . Sinn Fein is closely linked to the use of political violence. . . . The SDLP also frequently talks about rights in terms of group rights before rights for individuals. The SDLP is putting the interests of a group ahead of the individual; in a liberal state, the rights of the individual would be paramount. . . . Like the SDLP, Unionists increasingly talk about rights for Protestants or Unionists rather than individuals.79

If one substituted Inkatha and Afrikaners for SDLP and Unionists, this critique could also apply to South Africa. Following the Downing Street Declaration, John Alderdice wrote an article in the Belfast Telegraph, which was reprinted in the September 1994 issue of Alliance News, in which he laid out the party’s basic principles for solving the conflict: (1) that the people of Northern Ireland shall decide its own constitutional future; (2) violence is not a legitimate political instrument; and (3) all minorities must be protected and valued and given an opportunity to play a role.80 The party through the years has, like the SDLP, taken a very pro-European position. Alliance sees Europe both as a source of economic salvation and a means of dissolving the conflict within a larger entity. Cushnahan noted that when former member Brian Wilson asked party members which British party they would vote for if they had the opportunity, 36 percent chose the Liberal Party, 32 percent the Conservatives, and 30 percent Labour. But when asked to reply to seven questions, there was more in common among the Alliance members than with “their own” British parties.81 This demonstrates that in deeply divided societies, those who wish to solve the conflict through negotiation and compromise may have a range of socioeconomic beliefs. But they have more in common with those who are interested in solving the conflict through compromise than with those who share their economic philosophy within the other parties. That is why the PFP was made up of both social democrats and “Tories” like Helen Suzman who was an admirer of Margaret Thatcher.82 Several Alliance members told me that they saw themselves as belonging to a third or “other” tradition apart from the Catholic and Protestant denominations. Or as one member wrote, “Alliance is unusual in that it caters for various political persuasions, left-wing and right-wing, which come under one leadership in response to a polarised society.”83 The one policy that Alliance had a chance to implement through the years was support for power-sharing: in 1973–74 at the Darlington and Sunningdale Conferences and then in the power-sharing executive, and between 1974 and 1998 on a number of local councils where Alliance held the balance of power and used that leverage to enforce power-sharing. This was made easier because the SDLP also had a similar approach at the local level and worked to alternate mayors with the Ulster Unionists.

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There are three local councils in which Alliance has had large blocs over the years: Belfast City Council, Carrickfergus Council, and the North Down Council. David Cook became the first Alliance mayor of Belfast in 1978. He recalls the Belfast City Council (BCC) as having been “pretty bad.” One Ulster Unionist, Councillor Herbie Ditty, said he came into public life to keep Catholics from getting jobs. There were no worthwhile distinctions between the UUP and the DUP councillors as far as voting went. They both treated the Unionist Party of Northern Ireland (UPNI) councillors “like crap,” as that party had effectively ceased to exist in 1977. Progressive Unionist Councillor Hugh Smyth was treated with considerable deference because he was more able than the others.84 At that time Alliance was the second largest party on the BCC with thirteen members compared with fifteen for the UUP, seven each for the DUP and SDLP, three from the Republican Clubs (later the Workers’ Party), and two each for the UPNI, independent unionists, and independent Catholics.85 As Cook had been the leader of the Alliance group in the BCC from 1973–77, the Ulster Unionists agreed to elect him mayor, making him the first nonunionist mayor in city history. Cook feels that that was his main accomplishment, but believes he also brought a new more inclusive style to the Council. Alliance continued to elect large groups to the BCC into the 1980s.86 Yet Alliance councillor Muriel Pritchard who served on the BCC from 1973 to 1985 considered “[t]he 1977– 81 council was the best Belfast ever had, with a more even mix of parties than ever before.”87 She claims that, “[m]ost people would admit that the Alliance Party has exercised a steadying influence over the years. . . . Individually, Unionists have always acknowledged the Alliance to be the most intelligent and responsible group in the City Hall.”88 When the present BCC was elected in 1997 there were thirteen each from the UUP and Sinn Fein, seven each from the DUP and SDLP, six from Alliance, three from the Progressive Unionist Party, and one from the Ulster Democratic Party. Alliance supported the nationalists to elect the first ever nationalist mayor of Belfast in 1997, Aldin Magginis of the SDLP, followed by their support for the second Alliance mayor the following year, David Alderdice. David is the younger brother of John. As Lord Mayor, Alderdice will be part of a Northern Ireland investment tour of Europe and another of the United States.89 Alliance’s closest allies on the BCC are the women of the SDLP and the small loyalist parties, but it changes over time as the situation is very fluid. DUP and some members of both nationalist parties are the most opposed to Alliance. Alderdice said that it has not been difficult for Alliance to get ideas adopted by the BCC during the last year. He convinced Sinn Fein to set up a cultural diversity subcommittee. He did not think that tensions in the Assembly will play themselves out in the BCC.90 One Alliance member has been quite critical of the party’s approach to powersharing.

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For the last decade we have stood by a policy which succinctly put, runs something like, “vote Alliance and we will ask the other Parties to talk to one another.” That is an entirely untenable electoral platform. The consequences of it are far more serious than the mere laughability of its naivete´. There can be no power-sharing administration between the SDLP and the Official Unionist Party that will not, within one year, engender its own destruction.91

Her alternative, however, of going for power was even more “laughable in its naivete´.” What Alliance could hope to do was build up a large enough base that in a future assembly it could withhold its support from any government that did not attempt to engage in power-sharing, which was, in any case, a British precondition for transferring power to Belfast. Unfortunately I was unable to ask Ms. Laird if she still felt that power-sharing between the SDLP and Ulster Unionists was impossible as she was out of the country when I was there. North Down is a very different type of council from the BCC. North Down is affluent and moderate, “comparable to the south of England.”92 Eileen Bell also discovered that North Down is becoming politically more aware. Bell described how she opened the first advice center in North Down and caught flak from the other councillors who thought that people should demand something before the councillors did anything for them. North Down is predominantly Protestant and predominantly unionist, with parties which have little support elsewhere in Ulster like the Conservatives and the United Kingdom Unionists. Out of twenty-five seats, six each are held by Alliance and the UUP; there are six independents including former Alliance member Brian Wilson, three UKUP, and two each from the Progressive Unionist Party (PUP) and DUP. Alliance started to win a string of by-elections in North Down in 1995. Bell credits these victories to having the most professional party machinery after Sinn Fein. She also noted that in by-elections the party can be more focused and has more workers available. “People come from all over to help,” Bell said.93 Although 34 percent of Alliance councillors are women, Bell still thought that the position of women within Alliance was like that in other parties—“dreadful everywhere.”94 She said that local branches are carried by women and that Alliance women are running community groups. “Women are tired of the stalemate. The women who are in the forefront of the Women’s Coalition would not join parties in the past. I begged them to get involved. But the biggest barrier to women in politics is resistance from other women,” claimed Bell.95 But she credited Alliance with good female representation on the executive. Bell is the first Alliance assemblywoman; at present there are fourteen assemblywomen or 13 percent of the Assembly. Bell has been working with Jane Morris from the Women’s Coalition and looks forward to working with other women. A key Alliance policy is not to boycott bodies without giving them a chance. When the loyalists boycotted the power-sharing executive and brought it down, and then refused to discuss power-sharing during the seventies and early eighties

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with the SDLP, Alliance was ready. In 1982–86, when the SDLP boycotted the Assembly, Alliance gave it a chance and worked for progress. In January 1986 when the unionists were attempting to close down the councils in protest against the Anglo–Irish Agreement, David Cook took them to court. He applied for a judicial review of the performance of the councils. He was supported in this by three fellow Alliance members: Tom Campbell, Peter Thompson, and Will Glendinning. The council was fined 25,000 pounds sterling or about 1,000 pounds per councillor. The court threatened to increase the fines if the unionists did not comply and Alliance threatened to take each of the offending councils to court for contempt. At the time David Trimble was serving as the UUP’s legal advisor. For about a decade after this, Trimble refused to speak to Cook when they met in professional settings. More seriously, Cook’s house was attacked by a loyalist mob led by Jim Wells of the DUP in May 1986.96 In 1996, Alliance participated in the Dublin Forum which was boycotted by the unionists. They boycotted because Albert Reynolds of Fianna Fail was the prime minister, and they did not like the treatment they received from him during the Brooke Talks in 1992. Bell said that the Irish politicians in Dublin had a frozen image of Ulster from 1969, due to the propaganda of the nationalists and the apathy of the politicians who did not care enough about the North to investigate for themselves. She found the Forum useful to educate Irish politicians and to learn about the Republic’s politics firsthand.97 The other key Alliance principle and policy over the years has been nonviolence and a monopoly on the use of force by the legitimate authorities. Alliance has been the most consistent party in Northern Ireland in supporting this principle, but that has not prevented rumors from being started. In the early 1970s a Catholic member in Lenadoon owned a baker’s shop. One of his employees hid a gun on the premises. He was picked up for questioning by the police and then soon released, but not before the Rev. Robert Bradford was telling people that “Alliance had Republicans in its midst.”98 In his 1994 conference speech, Alderdice was very critical of all the fawning over every utterance of Gerry Adams in both the media and by the politicians. Can you imagine how the Nationalist community would have felt if, for the last four months, Mr. Major and Mr. Reynolds had spent their time analyzing and concentrating on every peculiar nuance of the speeches of Ian Paisley? . . . That every time he stood up to speak all the cameramen were clicking, and all the reporters making historical analyses and references and talking about how to “get him off the hook” and “smooth his path.” There would have been outrage and quite rightly so.99

Sinn Fein, the UDP, and PUP of course have their own terrorist organizations or grew out of them. The mainstream unionists have toyed with the idea of an “Ulster Resistance” or “Third Force.” David Trimble met with “King Rat” Billy Wright at Drumcree in 1996 when Wright was still active in violation of the cease-fire. Only the SDLP has similarly opposed the use of violence, but at

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times implying that the state did not have the right to use force to protect order and enforce the law. The Alliance is highly regarded by many members of the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) because of that steady support over the years. Yet in February 1993, present party president Philip McGarry wrote an article citing psychiatric studies to the effect that paramilitaries are not mentally ill.100 McGarry shuns the term “terrorist” as being too pejorative and emotional.101 Like the Christian who condemns the sin but not the sinner, Alliance condemns violence, but does not stigmatize the violent. Alliance has many innovative policies on social and economic issues, but they are not really germane to the subject of this book. ISRAEL: THE MERETZ PARTY Meretz is an amalgam of three different left-of-center parties: the socialist Mapam party, which was supportive of Stalin in the early fifties, the liberal Citizen’s Rights Movement (Ratz), and Shinui. Both because Ratz is the largest of the three component parties and midway between the two ideologically, it has the most influence. Aloni and Ratz could side with Mapam to take a more socialist position or side with Shinui to take a more market approach. It has two main beliefs concerning domestic policy: the equality of all citizens and the separation of synagogue and state. Meretz supports the creation of an alternative nonmilitary national service that would allow Arabs to serve and have the right to those privileges reserved for veterans. In Israel there is no civil law in the area of personal relations such as marriage, divorce, and burial. The religious authorities of the particular individual are responsible for these. Interreligious marriage is not allowed in Israel, but mixed marriages performed abroad are recognized. Traditional Jewish and Muslim religious law (Halacha and Shari’a)—the law that the vast majority of Israel’s inhabitants are dependent upon—grants few rights to women in the event of divorce. The massive Russian immigration of the nineties has also caused numerous problems with the religious authorities causing problems for the numerous non-Jewish relatives of mixed marriages. In the eighties the interior ministry practically became the property of Shas. Because Shas was needed by both of the two major parties, its view of the type of state prevailed. In fact, in 1998, the Russian immigrant Israel B’Aliya party had as its very successful slogan (in Russian) Ne Shas Kontrol, Nash Kontrol (Not Shas Control, Our Control) referring to the interior ministry. In the 1992 Rabin government, Meretz’s only period in government, it held two ministries: education and environment. Party leader Shulamit Aloni became minister of education and Yossi Sarid became environmental minister. Aloni championed a liberal humanistic curriculum for Israeli public schools that would emphasize universal rather than ethnic Jewish values. For many years the ministry of education had been controlled by the National Religious Party, which had developed a curriculum that emphasized Jewish history, the Bible, and other

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studies at the expense of more commercially oriented education or more liberal education. It is similar to the type of education that one receives at Catholic schools in both Ireland and Northern Ireland. After a number of controversies after statements made by Aloni, Rabin was forced to replace her with Amnon Rubinstein. After the 1996 election, Member of Knesset (MK) Dedi Zucker, Peace Now’s representative within Meretz, started to build bridges to the Sephardic (Oriental Jew) Orthodox Shas party and the ultra-Orthodox. He was severely criticized for this within Meretz. Zucker has also criticized Sarid as being undemocratic. Aloni criticizes Sarid for not being aggressive enough in defending Palestinian rights; Sarid accuses Aloni of loving the Palestinians more than Israelis.102 The split between Sarid and Aloni is comparable to the feud between Helen Suzman and Harry Schwarz in the Progressive Federal Party. I am not aware of any comparable public splits within the Alliance Party, although there are certainly splits there.103 Sarid is an ambitious politician who was once a leading figure in the Labor Party before he left. He does not want to damage his party and its chances by taking positions that are too unpopular. Aloni, however, wants Meretz to be much more radical by opposing administrative detentions and house demolitions. Aloni thought the party should have advocated the destruction of the homes of Baruch Goldstein and Yigal Amir. “After all, there is no difference between Jewish and Palestinian terror,” she said before correcting herself. “Actually, there is a difference. We have an army, whereas the Palestinians consider themselves freedom fighters, and the justices of the Supreme Court . . . undoubtedly remember that . . . Shamir and Begin were also considered terrorists, and for the Palestinians we are a foreign ruler.”104 The feud between Aloni and Sarid goes back to 1984 when Sarid joined Ratz. Within two weeks they were feuding. Sarid claims that he played the leadership role within the party for a decade before formally taking over in 1996. If this were true, it would resemble the relationship between Gerry Fitt and John Hume in the Social Democratic and Labour Party where Hume was the de facto leader from the party’s formation in 1970. Aloni claims that many people warned her about Sarid when he joined the party that he was a megalomaniac.105 The feud intensified during the Gulf War. The Palestinians, both in the PLO in exile and in the territories, embraced Saddam Hussein as a savior. During the Gulf War the Palestinians in the West Bank cheered from rooftops as they watched Iraqi Scud missiles plummeting toward Israeli coastal cities. Sarid reacted as if he had been betrayed personally by the Palestinians—as if they had stabbed him in the back by revealing their true feelings and thus undermining the effectiveness of the Israeli peace lobby. Aloni reacted much more realistically and with understanding of the Palestinian situation. Why should I be disappointed? Have I done anything for them? Has the Israeli Left done anything for them? The Israeli Left are loyal citizens of Israel, supporting the establishment and upholding the security system. . . . We are a fig leaf for Israeli democracy. . . .

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The Palestinians have no obligation towards us. We have done nothing for them and they do not owe us anything.106

Aloni in her reaction demonstrates her similarity to Suzman, whereas Sarid demonstrates his similarity to Schwarz. This dilemma does not arise for the citizens of Northern Ireland where both the police and the military are voluntary, although Alliance takes a strong law and order position similar to that of Schwarz in South Africa or Sarid in Israel. It is easier to do in the case of Northern Ireland because the British security forces operate more within the rule of law than does the Israeli army or the SADF and SACP, as is discussed in more detail in chapter six. Both Suzman and Aloni had a tradition of operating in much smaller parties, almost personal factions, and resented changing their personal styles in order to facilitate the growth of the party. Sarid wants to rebuild a larger party, a miniLabor Party to the left of Labor. From the earlier discussion of the history of the PFP, it is evident that Meretz has a greater potential to accomplish its goals as a larger bloc than as a small personal faction. But this may entail emulating the behavior of the religious parties and bargaining for a place in a Labor coalition rather than automatically joining it. But in order to bargain in terms of principles rather than just ministries, Meretz must first decide what is more important: its secularism or peace with the Palestinians. Both issues came to an interesting juncture in May of 2000. Yossi Sarid gave the 2000 Israel Prize for Life Achievement, the highest civilian award, to Aloni in recognition of her lifetime of fighting on behalf of consumers, minorities, and peace. This became the most controversial award in the forty-seven-year history of the prize. The prize was not controversial for forty years until Aloni herself, as minister of education in the second Rabin government, awarded it to philosopher Professor Yeshayahu Leibowitz, who once referred to Israeli soldiers as “Judeo-Nazis.” Leibowitz also called for a unilateral return of the territories shortly after Israel captured them in 1967. In 1997 the Israeli high court revoked the award of the Israel Prize to a journalist who had been censured by the Israeli Journalists’ Association after writing a racist piece about Ethiopian immigrants. The protesters were critical of the award to Aloni both because of her many controversial statements over the years and because it was awarded by fellow party member Yossi Sarid. Many suspected Sarid of playing to Aloni’s supporters within Meretz by the award. Aloni had been very scathing in her comments about Sarid in her autobiography, I Couldn’t Do It Differently (Hebrew), published after her retirement from politics. She compared Defense Minister Rabin to Mussolini on the Knesset floor in 1989, and then applied the same insult against Netanyahu ten years later. She was also very critical of Prime Ministers Begin, Shamir, and Peres. Aloni’s defense is that, “In politics, you can’t just play to the consensus—you can’t change anything that way.” Her critics, particularly in the Orthodox community, contend that her statements bordered on the criminal and she might have faced

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prosecution had she not had parliamentary immunity. An example of this is the statement that Shas is “a regional mafia that puts money ahead of the nation and spreads ignorance.” Aloni said that she meant to criticize the religious establishment as a body rather than individuals or Judaism. But she has also praised Sarid for “learn[ing] from my mistakes” and for standing up to Shas’s “caprices and extortion.” She now regrets having given up the education ministry in an attempt to appease Shas. Aloni considered the creation and success of Meretz to be her greatest accomplishment: “There have been so many generals that tried and failed to form political parties—Moshe Dayan, Ariel Sharon, Yigael Yadin, Ezer Weizman, Rafael Eitan—where are they now? Here I was, a woman with no money, and I managed to build a successful party. That’s a worthy accomplishment, isn’t it?”107 In the spring of 2000, Meretz faced its biggest dilemma since the mass Hamas expulsion of December 1992. Yossi Sarid told Prime Minister Ehud Barak that Meretz would withdraw from the cabinet if the government gave additional funding (estimates vary between NIS 10 million and 50 million) to Shas’s network of religious schools. Carrying out the threat would mean surrendering three cabinet ministries and three votes for peace within the government. Sarid said that Meretz would vote in the Knesset in favor of the government on any peace agreement reached with the Palestinians. But leaving the government may prevent a peace agreement from reaching the floor of the Knesset for a vote. All ten of Meretz’s MKs support the decision. It is clear that Barak will favor Shas with its seventeen Knesset votes over Meretz’s ten. But the decision is very unpopular among Meretz members on the “street,” as they seem to favor the goal of peace over that of a liberal secular Western society. Some felt that resigning was allowing Shas to have its way and call the tune. Novelist Sami Michael, an honorary member of Meretz’s Central Committee said, “I don’t believe Meretz is so extreme that it will commit suicide. All Israeli politics is corrupt.” Michael was certain that Sarid would find a way to climb down from his ultimatum at the last minute. Shulamit Aloni’s son, Dr. Nimrod Aloni, however, supported Sarid in his decision to quit. “An honorable person [or party] can’t speak about moral standards without living up to them,” he said. “With Shas, the demands for concessions never end.” Sarid earlier had vowed that Meretz would not sit in a government with Shas. He joined after it became clear that the alternative was letting the Likud join the Barak coalition.108 Sarid now may feel compelled to carry out his threat in order to establish his political credibility. It recalls the split in the Labor Party over the decision by Peres to carry out the rotation agreement with Shamir in 1986 rather than find an excuse to scuttle the agreement and call new elections.109 Sarid may believe that at a critical juncture in the peace process Meretz can rejoin the government in order to support peace. Meretz considers the conflict between the Palestinians and Israel to be the core of the Arab–Israeli conflict. “There is no alternative to continuing the peace

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process.” The party considers any attempt to turn the clock back and revert to an occupation regime “is against Israel’s interests and its fundamental values.” Meretz supports an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel but does not support a return to the armistice lines. “The cease-fire lines of 1949 have never been internationally recognized borders.” Borders should be determined in negotiations between the PLO and Israel with demography and security being the two important determining factors. “Meretz opposes certain ideas that have been proposed in Labor Party circles, according to which, large portions of the West Bank will be annexed to Israel.” Meretz advocates a “just compromise on the issue of permanent borders that would guarantee the vital interests of both parties.” It calls for a demilitarization of the Palestinian state and notes that “any violation will entitle Israel to act in accordance with the fundamental right of self-defense.” The party advocates a fundamental separation between the Palestinians and Israel in order to guarantee the personal security of Israelis. Like all other Zionist parties in Israel, it considers united Jerusalem to be Israel’s capital. Because of Meretz’s relatively late formation, it avoided a dilemma that the PFP encountered. The PFP was asked to choose between a regional homeland party in power and a national party without power as its native partner. As we have seen, the PFP avoided this choice by simply failing to make it: it collaborated with Inkatha in the Buthelezi Commission and Indaba, remained neutral in the Inkatha–charterist feud, and worked with the UDF outside of Natal while meeting with the ANC abroad. Alliance did make a choice between the two main native parties—a relatively easy one. Sinn Fein and the republicans chose not to engage with settler parties and only deal with the British until the decommissioning crisis. The SDLP, like Inkatha for the PFP, was much closer to Alliance in principle; unlike Inkatha it had no taint of being an artificial system party. And the SDLP was the majority party among nationalists in the province. In Israel the choice was between Jordan and the PLO as a negotiating partner. Jordan had taken itself out of the running in July 1988—before Meretz was formed. The real dilemma was for Peace Now and Meretz’s constituent parties. They opted in favor of Jordan as the only partner that Labor would accept and that was palatable for the Israeli public. But by the time the Intifada erupted in December 1987, these organizations were beginning to think in terms of the PLO as the only real partner that could make a deal with Israel. In this they were in advance of Peres by a couple of years and in front of Rabin by about five years.110 Meretz opposes collective punishments or illegal punitive measures as long as the occupation continues. Any measures used by Israel must be in line with international law and covenants and “the laws of natural justice.” The platform specifically opposes torture. Meretz advocates the dismantling of small and isolated settlements before or during negotiations and Israel must act to prevent settlers from violating the law whether this is aimed at Palestinians or the security forces. The platform speaks of an incentive system to buy out settlers and says that “Meretz . . . continues to completely oppose, the policy of Israeli set-

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tlement in the territories.” But it is silent on what should be done in regard to the major settlement blocs or such settlements as the Etzion bloc, which had its origins before 1948.111 Regarding peace with Syria, Meretz emphasizes security rather than normalization of relations. “[I]n exchange for full peace with Syria, anchored in rigid security arrangements and guaranteeing Israel’s water sources, Israel must agree to gradual withdrawal to the international border.” The peace should be based on “widespread demilitarization, reduction of forces, sophisticated early warning measures, normalization of relations . . . and international guarantees.” The platform claims that peace with Syria will bring peace with Lebanon as well. It also calls for guarantees for the well-being of members of the South Lebanese Army and Lebanese citizens working in Israel.112 Unlike most Israeli parties, which have traditionally aimed at peace with specific Arab countries, Meretz advocates comprehensive peace as being necessary for maintaining the existing peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan. “[W]ithout progress towards peace, the threat of another war increases, and each war in the region is far more vicious and lethal than the one which preceded it, primarily because of the burgeoning presence of strategic and unconventional weaponry in the Middle East.” That is the stick. The carrot is that “[c]omprehensive peace in the Middle East will result in an increase in foreign investment and will revitalize Israel’s commercial relations.”113 The platform also contains a section on the IDF and Security Policy which begins by declaring that “The defense capability of the IDF is the main guarantee of Israel’s security.” While the section is very supportive of defense needs, it warns that: “The IDF is the army of the whole nation. The government must not be allowed to involve it in a war that is not a defensive war, or to exploit it in trying to further personal or politically partisan objectives.” This is a slightly veiled reference to the Lebanon War and Ariel Sharon. “Meretz will fight any tendency to weaken or attack the IDF’s standing, the spirit of sacrifice of its soldiers and officers, and appreciation owed it by the Israeli public.” This is comparable to the attitude of Alliance toward the security forces or of the Schwarz wing of the PFP toward the SADF. This differentiates the liberal parties in settler societies from more radical groups or from sections of the Democratic Party in the United States, the Bennite wing of the British Labour Party before Tony Blair, or the Greens in Germany. This is a party that evolved out of a peace movement which was founded by reserve officers and whose leading members tended to be from elite units.114 Because Meretz is advocating traditional partitionist solutions to the Arab– Israeli conflict, rather than cosociational ones as in Ulster and South Africa, it is much closer in spirit and views to the dovish wing of the more moderate mainstream party, Labor, than the Progs ever were to the New Republic Party before 1987 or the National Party before 1990 or than Alliance was to the unionists. This has helped in Meretz being able to influence the Labor Party

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during the Rabin government. The party did not need to do missionary work to convert the settlers, but rather merely reinforcement.

NOTES 1. David Scher, Donald Molteno: Dilizintaba—He-Who-Removes-Mountains. (Johannesburg: SAIRR, 1979), pp. 71–82. 2. Ibid., p. 101. 3. Robin Lee, ed., Values Alive: A Tribute to Helen Suzman (Johannesburg: Jonathan Ball, 1990), pp. 129, 164, 169. 4. Davenport, p. 393; Frederik van Zyl Slabbert, The Last White Parliament (New York: St. Martin’s, 1987), p. 58. 5. Suzman, p. 189. 6. Frederik van Zyl Slabbert and David Welsh, South Africa’s Options: Strategies for Sharing Power (New York: St. Martin’s, 1979). 7. For a good review of both types see Tim Sisk, International Mediation and Power-Sharing in Civil Conflicts (Washington, DC: Institute of Peace, 1996), pp. 27–46. 8. Charterists are those who subscribe to the 1955 Freedom Charter written by the ANC. They included the UDF, COSATU, and the Mass Democratic Movement of 1988 to 1990. 9. Arend Lijphart, Power-Sharing in South Africa (Berkeley: University of California, 1985). The author saw photocopied extracts from this book in the Indaba archives in Durban. Donald Horowitz, A Democratic South Africa? Constitutional Engineering in a Divided Society (Berkeley: University of California, 1991). 10. Schrire, p. 60. 11. Heribert Adam and Kogila Moodley, South Africa Without Apartheid (Berkeley: University of California, 1986), p. 71. 12. Schrire, op. cit., p. 59. 13. D. Laurie, “Mathematical Models for Election Analysis and their Application to White South African Politics in the Period 1981 to 1987,” in van Vuuren, op. cit., p. 259. 14. Schrire, op. cit., p. 59. 15. D. Laurie, op. cit., p. 259. 16. Laurence Boulle, Constitutional Reform and Apartheid (New York: St. Martin’s 1984), pp. 156–57, 210–12; Slabbert, op. cit., p. 115. 17. Interviews with a number of NRP leaders in Natal in October–November 1988 and in August through November 1990. 18. David Welsh, “The Ideology, Aims, Role, and Strategy of the PFP and NRP,” in van Vuuren, op. cit., p. 91; Murray, pp. 371–72. 19. As part of the negotiations, sustained negotiations did not occur until 1993; Suzman, op. cit., pp. 176–77. 20. Slabbert, op. cit., pp. 180–81. 21. Murray, op. cit., pp. 370, 372. 22. Slabbert, op. cit., pp. 178–79. 23. But the NRP also had the advice of a pair of constitutional experts from the University of South Africa and the Indian parties were surprisingly well-informed on this aspect. This is based on interviews conducted by the author with some of the participants in 1988 and 1990. Slabbert, op. cit., p. 181.

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24. Suzman, op. cit., pp. ix–x, 236, 240–41. 25. Constitution Plan for a New South Africa (Cape Town: PFP, no date). 26. This collection of typewritten pages was given to the author in 1990 in Durban. It is incomplete and missing the cover page. 27. Slabbert, op. cit., pp. 176–96. 28. Gerald Shaw, “The English Language Press,” in Butler, pp. 288–300. 29. Clem Sunter, The World and South Africa in the 1990s (Tafelberg: Human & Rousseau, 1987), pp. 91–111. I don’t have the date for the Leadership SA article but believe that it was published in 1987 or 1988. 30. The Democratic Party: A Government in the Making (Cape Town: DP, no date). 31. Suzman, op. cit., pp. 256–65. 32. Swart, p. 111; Slabbert, p. 61. 33. Swart, pp. 112–13. 34. Ibid., pp. 115–119. 35. Ibid., pp. 152–55. 36. Ibid., pp. 158–59; Slabbert, op. cit., p. 67. 37. Ibid., pp. 157, 180; Slabbert, op. cit., pp. 11, 40–42. 38. Swart, op. cit., p. 182; Suzman, op. cit., p. 249. 39. Suzman, op. cit., pp. 47–49, 168–70, 187–89, 246–47. 40. Irish Times, July 4, 1973. 41. Interview with Napier, August 1998. 42. Ibid. 43. Ibid. 44. This will be covered in depth in the chapter on internal settlements. 45. Macnee, op. cit. 46. Napier interview. 47. Macnee, op. cit. 48. John Cushnahan, “A Talking Shop to End All Talking Shops,” Fortnight, Nov. 1983. 49. Ibid. 50. Roger Plunkett, “Is there any future for the Alliance Party?,” Fortnight, June 24, 1985, p. 9. 51. Ibid. 52. Interview with Sean Close, September 1998. 53. Interview with Napier and with Sam Cushnahan, John’s brother, in August 1998. 54. Jim Cusack and Henry McDonald, UVF (Dublin: Poolbeg, 1997), p. 174. 55. George Drower, John Hume: Man of Peace (London: Victor Gollancz, 1995), p. 140. 56. Cushnahan interview. 57. Interview with David Cook, September 1998. 58. Napier interview. 59. Interview with John Alderdice, September 1998. He did not say which other parties he wrote to, but they were probably the Northern Ireland Labour Party, which was then on its last legs, the Ulster Unionist Party, and possibly the SDLP, which claimed to be nonsectarian. 60. Ibid. 61. This point was made in an interview by present leader Sean Neeson in August. 62. The opening page of Governing With Consent (Belfast, APNI: October 1988).

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63. Ibid. 64. John Alderdice, “Devolution still key to a solution,” Fortnight, November 1988, p. 9. 65. John Alderdice, “Time to take responsibility,” Fortnight, May 1991, p. 11. 66. Governing With Consent (Belfast: APNI, 1988), paragraphs 2.2–2.16, 3.5, 3.15– 3.20, 4.5, 5.2. 67. Alderdice interview. 68. Neeson interview. 69. Alderdice interview. 70. Napier interview. 71. Interview with Gerry Lynch in September 1998. 72. Neeson interview. 73. Ibid. 74. Ibid.; Lynch interview. 75. Neeson interview. 76. Ibid. 77. Interview with Glen Roberts, August 1998. 78. Ibid., p. 1. 79. Stephen Farry, “Northern Ireland: The Battle for a Liberal State,” Alliance News, May/June 1992, p. 7. 80. John Alderdice, “Protecting Rights with Fundamental Rules,” Alliance News, September 1994, p. 1. 81. Ibid., p. 6. 82. Suzman, op. cit., p. 264. 83. Particia Mallon, “An Alliance Adventurer in West Belfast,” Fortnight, Feb. 4, 1985. 84. David Cook interview, September 1998. 85. Cushnahan, op. cit., p. 4. 86. Cook interview. 87. Muriel Pritchard, “An Englishwoman in an Ulster Council’s Wars,” Fortnight, May 13, 1985. 88. Ibid. 89. Alderdice interview. 90. Ibid. 91. Siobhan Laird, “A Failure of Vision,” Alliance News, February 1988, p. 7. 92. Eileen Bell interview, August 1998. 93. Ibid. 94. The percentage is from Glynn Roberts in an August interview; ibid. 95. Bell interview. 96. Cook interview. 97. Bell interview. 98. Mallon, op. cit. 99. Alliance News, May 1994. 100. Philip McGarry, “Paramilitaries not mentally ill,” Alliance News, February 1993. 101. Interview with Philip McGarry, August 1998. 102. Ben-Simon, op. cit. 103. This is excluding the temporary feud between John Alderdice and Sean Close over Alderdice’s appointment as speaker of the Assembly.

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104. Sara Leibovich-Dar, “There’s life after Meretz,” Ha’Aretz Magazine, June 6, 1999. 105. Ibid. 106. Tom Segev, “They won’t have to look for Shulamit Aloni,” Ha’Aretz, Aug. 24, 1990, quoted in Norman Finkelstein, The Rise & Fall of Palestine (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996), p. 75. See Finkelstein, pp. 69–84 for an explanation of the Palestinian reaction. 107. Gil Hoffman, “Prize of a lifetime,” Jerusalem Post Magazine, May 9, 2000. 108. Larry Derfner, “When the choice is conscience or control,” The Jerusalem Post, May 16, 2000. 109. See Michael Bar-Zohar, Facing a Cruel Mirror (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1990), pp. 147–55. 110. Peres reacted to the Jordanian exit much faster than Rabin did. 111. “Peace with the Palestinian People,” Matza (platform) (Meretz Web site, 1998), pp. 1–5. 112. “Peace with Syria,” Matza (platform) (Meretz Web site, 1998), p. 1. 113. “Comprehensive Peace,” Matza (platform) (Meretz Web site, 1998), p. 1. 114. “The IDF and Security Policy,” Matza (platform) (Meretz Web site, 1998), p. 1.

4

Internal Settlements

The internal settlement is the penultimate stage of the liberation struggle. It occurs in independent settler colonies at the point when the armed struggle has reached the level that the metropole would disengage from a dependent settler colony and grant independence. There are a number of special cases to consider. The first internal settlement occurred in French Indochina from 1950–54. It occurred because this was France’s first major postwar colonial war and it did not want to encourage revolt in its settler colony of Algeria by leaving prematurely. It wanted to attract foreign aid from the United States. Northern Ireland is also a special case because the statelet is somewhere between a dependent and an independent settler colony. It is a dependent settler colony with the party political system and past of an independent settler colony. And London perceived the internal settlement as a means of relieving itself of responsibility for Ulster. An internal settlement is a settlement between the settlers and the natives that bypasses the external nationalists linked to the guerrillas by dealing with internal native leaders. These leaders can be of two types: nationalist leaders or traditional leaders (chiefs, homeland leaders, royalty). Internal settlements are also on terms less favorable to the natives than the external nationalists are demanding. In Southern Africa this meant something less than full majority rule. In El Salvador it meant preserving the military’s status and privileges and not interfering with the oligarchy. In Northern Ireland it meant no united Ireland. There have been six countries which have experienced internal settlements: French Indochina (primarily Vietnam), 1950–54; Northern Ireland, 1974; Namibia, 1977–88; Rhodesia, 1978–79; El Salvador, 1980–91; and South Africa,

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which experienced three internal settlements—only one of which was actually implemented, 1984–90. The internal settlements in Indochina, Namibia, and South Africa were traditional internal settlements. The internal settlements in Northern Ireland, Rhodesia, and El Salvador were nationalist internal settlements.1 This chapter will examine two internal settlements: Northern Ireland and the KwaZulu–Natal Indaba in South Africa, which was negotiated in 1986 but never implemented. It is being examined rather than the tricameral parliament, which was negotiated because it was a settlement in which the liberals played a major role. Liberals played major roles in the Northern Irish and South African internal settlements. They played almost no role in Rhodesia. Settlers negotiate internal settlements for three purposes. First, to gain needed foreign support. This can take many forms. It can be in the form of lifting or avoidance of economic sanctions (Southern Africa), the winning of foreign aid as an anti-Communist ally (Indochina, El Salvador), or an end to direct rule and the return to local rule (Northern Ireland). Although the unionists did not consider the British to be foreigners, the reverse was not always the case. Second, to win internal support from the native population. Third, to cause defections from the ranks of the guerrillas. This last motive was a factor only in the case of Rhodesia. Only Rhodesia involved internal leaders who had once been supporters of the armed struggle: Bishop Abel Muzorewa and the Rev. Ndabaningi Sithole. In my doctoral dissertation I identified five main roles for African politicians during the period of armed struggle: armed struggle advocate; conciliator and negotiating partner; nationalist front leader or proxy; nationalist collaborator; and traditionalist collaborator. The first is someone whose organization undertakes the armed struggle against the settler regime. The second is someone who attempts to win concessions by threatening armed struggle and organizing internally while not actually undertaking the armed struggle. The third is someone who serves as an internal advocate for an organization or organizations that have been banned. The fourth is a nationalist leader who has been lured into going over to the side of the settlers. The fifth is a traditionalist leader who is involved in internal structures that are part of the system: homelands, township councils, etcetera. The goal of the settlers is to turn the armed struggle advocates into conciliators and then turn conciliators and proxies into nationalist collaborators. With traditionalist collaborators there is no co-option process as they have already been co-opted.2 For nationalist collaborators the motives for internal settlement are to continue to play a role in nationalist politics and to win the status and salary of a leader. Those who are co-opted are usually past their prime politically; they are those without a viable armed struggle option. This is because they have either lost out in an internal power struggle within the movement, as occurred with Ndabaningi Sithole of ZANU in Rhodesia or Andreas Shipanga of SWAPO in Namibia; because they are proxies when proxies are no longer needed or wanted; or

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because they are fired from their proxy position. This occurred with Muzorewa who went from being a proxy in 1971 to 1974 to being an armed struggle advocate in 1974 to 1976. In 1979 Buthelezi was fired as a proxy by the ANC because he was not considered sufficiently obedient. The situation was a bit different in Northern Ireland and El Salvador. In Ulster the SDLP leaders were conciliators never connected with the armed struggle. In El Salvador the Christian Democrat party split with one wing supporting the armed struggle and the other, led by Jose´ Napoleo´n Duarte, becoming nationalist collaborators. The reasons for the failure of internal settlements are considered in the conclusion. Liberal parties are put in a tough position by internal settlements. Internal settlements involve the nationalist leaders that the liberals are most likely to have had contact with over the years. The attitude of the liberals to the settlement is most likely to be determined by the timing of the settlement: if it comes after several years of conflict and after the internal leaders have been losing influence, they may oppose it, as was the case in Rhodesia. This opens them to the charge of being inconsistent. If it comes early in the conflict, as in Northern Ireland, it will have the backing of the liberals. If it is the only alternative to the status quo, it is likely to be supported by the liberals. NORTHERN IRELAND Three parties were involved in the Northern Ireland internal settlement: the Ulster (Official) Unionist Party (UUP), the Social Democratic and Labour Party, and the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland. Since the followers of Brian Faulkner who supported the internal settlement were forced to leave the UUP, they eventually became the Unionist Party of Northern Ireland.3 I will not discuss the histories of these three further but concentrate on the period of 1973–74. The dismissal of the Stormont parliament and the imposition of direct rule caused Ulster unionist politics to move to the right. William Craig created the Vanguard movement as an extra-parliamentary movement and a lobby within the UUP. Vanguard was formed in February 1972, a month before the fall of Stormont, and took on a neo-Nazi character with paramilitary displays and motorcycle outriders. In March 1973 Craig formed it into a regular political party called the Vanguard Unionist Progressive Party. By leaving the UUP, Craig had conceded leadership of the party’s right wing to Harry West, a Westminster MP from Fermanagh and Tyrone. About the same time that Vanguard was founded, loyalist workers formed the Loyalist Association of Workers (LAW). The LAW helped to organize a twoday protest strike in February 1973 when internment was extended to Protestants. The strike was supported by Vanguard and the Ulster Defence Association (UDA) but otherwise condemned in the unionist community as it was accompanied by much violence. By mid-1973 LAW had virtually collapsed as most of the workers were apolitical and lacked the self-confidence to vote for workers or to form their own party. In November 1973 a number of political workers,

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such as Glen Barr of Vanguard, the LAW leader Billy Hull, and Hugh Petrie, the secretary of the largest LAW affiliate at the Short and Harland plant in East Belfast, met and decided that future political action by workers should focus on organizing key workers rather than attempting to take power directly. At first they called themselves the Loyalist Workers, but later called the organization the Ulster Workers’ Council.4 In late 1972 the British government invited all the constitutional parties in the province to a conference to discuss power-sharing. Only the UUP, Alliance, and the NILP bothered to attend the Darlington Conference. The SDLP declined to attend because internment was still in effect and there was to be no discussion of an all-Ireland element. Because the conference lacked a nationalist party, it soon collapsed. Following the Assembly election of June 1973, the Northern Ireland Office held bilateral negotiations with the three relevant parties and an agreement on the terms for a power-sharing executive was reached in November. In December the British tried again with a conference that was held at the civil service college at Sunningdale from December 6–9, 1973. The conference was called to discuss the all-Ireland aspects of the settlement. The SDLP decided to attend and the NILP was excluded as being too small to be relevant.5 Brian Faulkner would be the prime minister or chief executive, Fitt would be deputy chief executive, and Hume was appointed minister of commerce. Oliver Napier of Alliance was made minister of law and order. Austin Currie became minister of local government, housing, and planning. Paddy Devlin became minister of health and social services. Ivan Cooper was minister of community relations. Eddie McGrady received the executive planning and coordination portfolio. Thus the nationalists were being given primarily the welfare ministries.6 Faulkner had said that he would only agree to a Council of Ireland, which the SDLP wanted and had campaigned for in the Assembly election, if Ireland gave up its constitutional claim to Northern Ireland. Dublin, not concerned with making it easy for the unionists to make concessions, declined even after Oliver Napier met with the Irish leaders and requested this. Dublin made a statement that the status of Northern Ireland would not change without the consent of a majority of its population expressed in a referendum.7 But this was not sufficient for the real unionists. Faulkner, against the advice of the Alliance Party, settled for this. A symbolic Council of Ireland, consisting of representatives from the Assembly and the Dail, would meet to discuss issues of concern to the island as a whole. It never met. Following Sunningdale the UUP split into pro-executive and anti-executive wings. At the beginning of January 1974 the UUP voted against the powersharing executive. The party leader, Brian Faulkner, was forced to resign from the party and he left with his followers to form the Unionist Party of Northern Ireland. He actually ended up with fewer Assembly members supporting him than the SDLP had, eighteen to the SDLP’s nineteen. This would normally have made Fitt the chief executive and Faulkner the deputy chief, but Faulkner, as the unionist representative, insisted on being the chief executive as his com-

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munity was larger. So Napier came up with the idea of nonvoting members of the executive who would not be ministers but would hold portfolios. This would give the SDLP more members of the government, but the unionists more ministers.8 Ted Heath was forced to call new elections to deal with the issue of union power. The SDLP begged him not to, advising him that a defeat at the polls could shake the executive apart. The various anti-executive unionist parties formed the United Ulster Unionist Coalition and actually divided up the Westminster seats among them so that there would be only one anti-agreement candidate for each seat. The UUP received three seats, the DUP two—one of which was West Belfast, and Vanguard three. The Coalition ran on the slogan “Dublin is only a Sunningdale away” which John Laird of Vanguard invented. In the February 1974 election the unionists won eleven out of twelve Westminster seats with the SDLP retaining Gerry Fitt’s seat in West Belfast by only 4 percent of the popular vote. The anti-executive forces won 50.8 percent of the popular vote.9 In May the Ulster Workers’ Council organized a general strike of loyalist workers. It had the support of workers in key positions: the electricity producing power plants at Larne and Carrickfergus, transport workers, and dockworkers. The strike had the support of nearly all major industries in the greater Belfast area. The UDA and the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) were used to provide muscle to ensure full compliance with the strike. On March 23, 1974, the UWC issued its first public statement which threatened civil disobedience if new elections for the Assembly were not held as a result of the power-sharing executive and Westminster elections. In April 1974 the United Ulster Unionist Council (UUUC) held a meeting at Portrush and the UWC was not invited. The UWC issued a statement that if a motion in the Assembly to condemn power-sharing and the Council of Ireland was defeated it would call a strike.10 The strike started on May 14. On the first day there was only 20 percent compliance with the strike. This gradually expanded as power cuts gradually reduced electricity output to only 30 percent of normal. UVF members in East Antrim played a direct role in the rundown on electrical power. On Friday afternoon, May 17, 1974, the UVF detonated three bombs in the Republic: two in downtown Dublin and one in the town of Monaghan. The two Dublin bombs killed twenty-eight people, twenty of them female. The Monaghan bomb killed five and wounded twenty-eight. These were the deadliest loyalist bombs of the conflict and the two Dublin bombs together nearly equaled the effect of the Real IRA’s (RIRA) bombing in Omagh.11 By the end of the first week the UWC had acquired the status of an alternative government. West, Paisley, and Craig were co-opted onto the UWC but Paisley left on a trip to Canada two days after the strike started and West rarely attended meetings. Only Craig was really supportive of the strike, and even he thought it would fail. The SDLP was the most determined to keep the executive alive. Faulkner was under pressure from his supporters to negotiate with the UWC .

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and Alliance was too small to make much of a difference. The executive had no control over the security forces. On May 19, Merlyn Rees, the Northern Ireland secretary, called a state of emergency. On Sunday, May 26, the six SDLP ministers gathered for a meeting to discuss strategy. They ended up demanding that London send in its troops to break up the strike or they would resign. This was something that the Labour Party government of Harold Wilson was not prepared to do for fear that it would become a precedent for Britain.12 The Electrical Power Engineers’ Association had voted to walk out if the government attempted to take control of the power stations. A mole in the Northern Ireland Office informed the UWC of the government’s plan to get the petrol pumps going again and it came up with a counter. At 11 a.m. on May 27, the UWC announced that the strike had become total. The executive met at that same time for ninety minutes and decided by majority vote to negotiate with the UWC. Faulkner then met with Rees, who told him that the British government would not negotiate when it was cornered. Faulkner and the unionist members all resigned, the MPs who refused to resign were paid off, and direct rule resumed. Power-sharing was over with.13 Throughout the period of the power-sharing executive, the IRA continued its campaign. But it was a minor actor during the drama. It was between bombing campaigns in Britain with new teams going over in the summer of 1974, after the strike, to replace those who had been arrested in 1973. The campaign resumed in late 1974, but internally the IRA continued business as usual: there were 3,206 shootings, 1,383 bombings, and 2,398 injuries in 1974, all down from the totals in 1973 but higher—except for the injuries category—than those in 1975. In other words, it was part of a general de-escalation of the conflict that had been ongoing since 1972 when the war was at its peak. Deaths at 216 were lower than in either 1973 or 1975, but republican murders at 99 were only one short of the total for 1975.14

SOUTH AFRICA 1986–89: THE KWAZULU–NATAL INDABA AND NATIONAL COUNCIL This section builds on the previous discussion of the New Republic Party (NRP) and the PFP. Pretoria announced in September 1985 that elected provincial governments would be eliminated at the end of June 1986 as part of the government’s constitutional reform package. By then it was clear that the NRP did not have a very bright future as a parliamentary party. The decision was therefore made by the NRP’s leadership to enter into a negotiation with Chief Minister Mangosotho Buthelezi of KwaZulu to basically renegotiate the terms of the Buthelezi Commission report and come up with a merger between the provincial government and the homeland. Enabling legislation was rushed through the Natal Provincial Council in October 1985 to fund a negotiation in Durban through 1986. Invitations to the Indaba were sent by the two co-

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convenors, Frank Martin, the senior member of the Natal Executive Committee (EXCO), and Oscar Dhlomo, secretary-general of Inkatha, in March. Buthelezi’s hypersensitivity to perceived criticism made cooperation with him at times difficult. Because of the credibility of the PFP with the international press, Buthelezi became enraged whenever the party seemed to criticize him. Usually this was a case of blaming the messenger. Buthelezi became very upset with Suzman after she gave the press an account of the fracas at Sobukwe’s funeral in 1978 when Buthelezi was attacked by young Black Consciousness supporters and forced to leave. In 1985, the PFP issued its own report on disturbances in the Eastern Cape based on interviews with local observers. Several of these claimed that black policemen of Zulu origin, whom they referred to as Buthelezi’s impis or shakas, participated. Buthelezi temporarily broke off relations with the PFP. Ray Swart went to Ulundi to meet with the KwaZulu cabinet over the issue. Buthelezi said that the PFP represented only “disseminated liberal opinion” and lacked “territorially or regionally based power” like Inkatha. Eventually Bishop Alpheus Zulu was able to make peace.15 On April 3, 1986, approximately two hundred delegates, advisors, and observers came together in the Durban City Hall to open the Indaba. They were representing thirty-four participating delegations and four observer delegations. These groups can be divided into four broad categories. The first category consisted of nine business groups and one trade union. The two main South African labor federations were invited but declined to participate because they received the invitation too late to confer with their membership and could not keep the conditions of secrecy demanded by the co-convenors and still confer with their membership. The second group consisted of political parties and organizations. All eight that participated were part of apartheid structures by being either members of the tricameral parliament or the bantustan (homeland) system. Seven organizations were invited but declined to attend: two were right-wing white parties and five were left-wing black parties including the two liberation movements. The third type of organizations was local or regional governments including the two co-convenors: KwaZulu and the Natal Provincial Council. The fourth group consisted of seven organizations representing women or religious communities (Hindus, Muslims). The real powers behind the Indaba were the two co-convenors and the political parties that made up each of them: Inkatha on one hand and the NRP and the PFP on the other. These parties claimed to compose the “political center” in South African politics between the radical charterist and Africanist organizations on the left and the pro-apartheid organizations on the right. This meant that the spectrum of signers of the final report extended from Inkatha on the left to the NRP on the right—a very narrow spectrum. Thirteen of the thirtyfour participants were previous signers of the Buthelezi Commission report four years earlier: KwaZulu, Inkatha, the PFP, and the business groups. They were financing the Indaba. The Indaba, not surprisingly, agreed on a capitalist struc-

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ture for the province on only the third meeting. At its opening meeting the Indaba agreed on the following six principles as basic points of departure: • The Indaba accepts that the KwaZulu–Natal Region is a single unit and that its secondtier government should reflect this reality in its political structure. • This Indaba . . . has no desire to be sovereignly independent of South Africa. • All people of the region should have the right to full political participation and effective representation. • This Indaba accepts the democratic principles of freedom, equality, justice, the Rule of Law and access to the law. Legislation based on racial discrimination must be abolished. • Society in Natal-KwaZulu must be founded upon a free economic system and the provision of equal opportunities for all people. Provision must also be made for the protection of the rights of individuals and groups. • Legislative and administrative power should be devolved as much as possible.16

The Indaba consisted of sessions on Thursday and Friday of every week and committee sessions during the rest of the week. There were five expert committees appointed: the agenda committee, the constitutional committee, the economics committee, the local government committee, and the education committee. The key committee was the constitutional committee that was dominated by members of the PFP and academics from South African University associated with the NRP. It worked by circulating questionnaires to all of the delegations and then attempting to develop a consensus from the answers to these surveys. This was difficult because most of the delegations were not very constitutionally sophisticated and would support structures that were at variance with what they said they wanted. An attempt was made to educate all the delegations by passing out photocopied sections of Arend Lijphart’s book PowerSharing in South Africa.17 This book was similar to that written by Slabbert and Walsh but included information on the Buthelezi Commission. Besides the white parties, the Indian tricameral parties—particularly Solidarity and Inkatha—were well-informed on constitutional matters. It was these groups that the constitutional committee was attempting to accommodate and which it took most seriously.18 The Indaba was similar to the Turnhalle constitutional conference in Windhoek, Namibia in 1977 in its procedures. But it was different in that at the Indaba the main black delegations were as sophisticated as the whites they were dealing with, which was definitely not the case in Namibia. The whites in Natal expected an Africanization when the agreement was implemented, as opposed to Rhodesian whites that worked to prevent this process through the entrenched clauses of the constitution. Buthelezi’s bargaining leverage in Natal was similar to that of Muzorewa in Rhodesia and much greater than that of the Namibian

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politicians. But Buthelezi was a shrewd bargainer with shrewd partners who knew the meaning of enlightened self-interest. The negotiations lasted for nearly eight months. After the Natal Provincial Council was abolished on June 30, 1986, Frank Martin was personally named as the co-convenor as former head of the Provincial Council and business interests in Natal took over the funding of the Indaba. In November it was decided that the Indaba should wrap its debates up and produce a set of proposals that could be voted on. This was because of the external situation in the rest of South Africa. The Indaba also wanted to produce a set of proposals that its white member parties could run on in the upcoming elections, which would be held sometime in 1987. When the delegations finally voted on November 28, 1986, 82 percent voted yes, 12 percent voted no, and 6 percent abstained. The three organizations voting no were all Afrikaner organizations and rejected the proposals as leading to majority rule under a Zulu-dominated parliament. The NP delegation chose only to participate as an observer so it did not vote on the proposals, allowing the three Afrikaner cultural organizations to serve as proxies.19 The government called for in the Indaba proposals is a second-tier regional government consisting of a power-sharing executive composed proportionally, a bicameral legislature, and an independent judiciary. The province would be ruled by an executive prime minister with a ceremonial governor appointed by the government on the advice of the legislature. The legislature consisted of four parts: a first chamber consisting of one hundred seats elected on a proportional representation franchise in fifteen constituencies; a second chamber made up of fifty members divided into five different ten-member “background” groups; fifteen-member standing committees for each ministry; and an economic advisory council consisting of representatives from the private sector. The executive would consist of a prime minister and ten or more ministers. Half of these ministers would have been appointed by the prime minister and half by the members of the minority parties in both chambers voting together. If there were no majority party or coalition of parties in the first chamber, the prime minister would have been elected by the members of the first chamber, otherwise he would have been the head of the majority party in the first chamber. The five background groups in the second chamber are as follows: • African background group; • Afrikaans background group; • Asian background group; • English background group; and • South African group.

The only major ethnic group in Natal not represented in these groups was the colored population of Natal, which made up about 2 percent of the population

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of the region. The (colored) People’s Congress Party protested this in a minority report. It can be argued that the exclusion of the coloreds, who are about the same percentage of the total population as the Afrikaners, is racism. It was probably less racism than political calculation: the proposals had to be approved by the Afrikaner government in Pretoria. It was also pointed out that the Indians who outnumbered the whites in Natal had only one group representing them whereas the whites had two. Indians in Natal speak three languages: English, Gujarati, and Tamil and consist of people from two religions—Hindus and Muslims. Again the same reasoning applies. The logic was to both protect minorities and to appease the central government in Pretoria. The open South African group was created largely to deal with these criticisms. Each person had two votes, one for the first chamber and one for the second chamber. Each voter had the choice of voting for either his natural ethnic or racial background group or voting for the South African group. He could also attempt to vote for another group if he fit the linguistic and cultural makeup of that group. Thus many whites would have the choice of voting for either the Afrikaans or the English group if they are bilingual. Many Indians could opt to vote for the English group if they are university educated and Zulu-speaking whites could vote for the African group. Many Zulus could also elect to vote for the English group. To prevent abuse of the system, voters’ choices could be challenged by those manning the polling booths. The challenged votes would be set aside for a later hearing. But, of course, it never came to that as no election was ever held under the proposals. If elections had been held for a regional parliament, the largest group would certainly have been the Africans and the smallest the Afrikaners. The relative sizes of the three other groups would have been difficult to predict without knowing how many would have voted for the South African group. If few voted for it, the natural progression would have been Asian, English, and South African.20 These proposals were accepted so that its white member parties could run on them in the upcoming elections, which would be held sometime in 1987. The Indaba proposals create a “racial separation of powers system” in that there is a diffusion of power throughout the system. The basis is a parliamentary system rather than an American presidential system, but the checks and balances reflect an American influence, and racial categories are built into the system. The Portuguese consul described the Indaba as the plan of those excluded from power in South Africa. The proposals reflect both the thinking of the New Republic Party with its racial parliament and an attempt to appease the NP with its tricameral parliament and obsession with “group rights” and “own affairs.” The Afrikaner cultural groups said that they were concerned with religious, language, and cultural rights. So these were all protected by cultural councils to deal with these issues for each background group. Each background group also had a veto over matters that were considered to be “own affairs” such as promotion of culture, language instruction, etcetera.21 But in reality, in the South

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Africa of the 1980s, talk of cultural rights was code language for racial hegemony and white supremacy. A fifteen-clause Bill of Rights was adopted by the Indaba on July 10, 1986. The preamble to it stated that: Guarantees to everyone the equal protection of the law, without regard to race, color, ethnic origin, political opinion or economic status and, in particular, Enshrines the right to life and liberty, the right to own and occupy property anywhere, the principle of administrative justice, the right of public education, ethnic, linguistic, and cultural rights Will be part of the constitution of the new Province of Natal, binding on provincial and local government in Natal, enforced by the Supreme Court of South Africa.

The fifteen clauses were: • Human dignity and equality before the law; • Right to life; • Punishment; • Right of liberty; • Right to administrative justice; • Right of privacy and protection of the family; • Right of property; • Ethnic, religious, linguistic, cultural and educational rights; • Freedom of movement; • Freedom of thought, conscience and religion; • Freedom of opinion and expression; • Freedom of association; • Freedom of work and freedom of contract; • Restriction of rights and freedoms; • Enforcement of rights and freedoms.

The two most important operative sections are the fourteenth and fifteenth clauses. The latter makes the Bill of Rights binding on all three branches of the government and justifiable by the supreme court. The supreme court had, under the proposals, the power to declare any existing law null and void if it is inconsistent with the constitution, such voidance to take place beginning one year after the constitution went into effect. The former clause, however, states that the legislature may restrict the application of the bill of rights by a law in the interest of “public safety, for the prevention of disorder and crime, for the protection of health and morals, for the protection of the rights, freedoms and reputation of others,” etcetera.22 Therefore, unlike the American system, the

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legislature, and not the judiciary, is supreme. This was one of the severest criticisms of the proposals. With parties like Inkatha and the NP possibly collaborating in the legislature, these promised freedoms could easily be crushed. It is interesting that these same freedoms did not exist in either of the two bodies that would make up the region. KwaZulu was a one-party state and Natal was run on racial lines with the rule of law not necessarily applying. Furthermore, while the Indaba was being negotiated, South Africa was under a national state of emergency. It would have been easy for Buthelezi to use this as an excuse not to implement the bill of rights or parts of it. The bill of rights would also have been nonbinding on organs of the central government, which under the Indaba proposals would still have responsibility for security and defense in Natal. Under the division of tasks proposed, those functions to be given the provincial government would be mostly administrative and economic, with the most important being finance, health services, housing, education, and security. The central government would have retained defense, foreign affairs, home affairs, energy, customs, licensing powers, and even control over archives, libraries, monuments, and art galleries. It would be similar to the division of powers between the federal and the state governments in the United States. But this limitation of powers would have made it very difficult to integrate the apartheid central government and the nonracial regional government. Within forty-eight hours of the publication of the Indaba proposals, they were rejected by Natal NP leader Stoffel Botha (no relation to P.W. or Pik). He said that all constitutional structures that the NP commits itself to must embody two principles. First, they must “be democratic and everybody must be able to participate.” Second, structures must involve “equal power sharing without any one group dominating another.” So, the tricameral parliament passed the test as did the advisory National Council (see below) but the Indaba failed.23 In 1987 the secretaries of both the PFP and the NRP responded to letters from the author and wrote that they could not ever see the Indaba being implemented in its present form as long as the NP remained in power. This turned out to be correct. But the NP, a very different NP, went beyond it in negotiating majority rule in 1993–94. The Indaba was unworkable as long as the black opposition remained opposed to it. In this it was similar to the Rhodesian (and the Namibian) internal settlement. White public opinion favored the Indaba, but not enough that whites were willing to allow it to influence their votes in the 1987 election. The Indaba was approved “in principle” by Inkatha’s General Conference in July 1987 and then sent around to the various branches for rubberstamping. All Indaba business was handled through Oscar Dhlomo so that Buthelezi could distance himself from the negotiation and its failure to be approved. The Indaba’s publicity committee stayed intact once the Indaba ended and with funding from the Natal business committee continued to publicize the proposals for the next four years. A monthly/bimonthly Indaba News was published carrying news related to the Indaba, public opinion polls were carried out, and

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other projects attempted with up to 100,000 copies in three languages.24 The Indaba produced an eighteen-minute videotape which publicized the proposals and was distributed to video rental shops throughout Natal for free loan to customers when they rented tapes. Voluntary speakers were trained to discuss the Indaba proposals and an Indaba Speaker’s Manual was produced in Afrikaans, English, and Zulu. The main effect of this publicity machine was to keep the Indaba in the Natal press and in the national press. This probably helped the fortunes of the Democratic Party in 1989 by letting voters know that the Indaba was still an option.25 The main criticisms of the Indaba from the left are summed up by University of Natal sociology Professor Gerhard Mare: • The Indaba consists of an alliance between Inkatha and the tricameral parties. • There was a preselection of invitees which excluded the left and the far right and the one delegation–one vote rule gave a built-in majority to the above alliance. • There was a clear prior agenda for the Indaba based on the fact that more than a third of the invitees were signatories of the Buthelezi Commission report. • The proposals divide the people by emphasizing race and ethnicity. • The Indaba’s backers argue that Natal is both unique and that the Indaba is a model for the rest of South Africa, which is obviously a contradiction. Buthelezi is pursuing a “Savimbi solution.”26

The second and third points are false, or at least debatable. The UDF, Natal Indian Congress, Azanian People’s Organisation (AZAPO), and the liberation movements were invited. The ANC could have been represented by the UDF or by an individual or individuals. Likewise, the PAC could have been represented by the AZAPO or by individuals. They excluded themselves because it was an Inkatha initiative. The fourth point is the dilemma of working within the system. In the late 1980s the department of foreign affairs would use the Indaba as an example of change in South Africa in its propaganda abroad while the government failed to implement it. The fifth point is very true. The consensus of the diplomatic community in Durban was Natal was the only region where a regional Indaba could be negotiated. This meant that the only alternative was using the Indaba as a model for a national solution. But a national solution would require parties with mass support in urban areas: the ANC, UDF, and AZAPO. This is what occurred in 1990.27 Buthelezi and Inkatha wanted a regional solution. Their white partners in the PFP wanted progress towards a national negotiated solution. Two regional Indabas (“negotiation” in Zulu) outside of Natal were attempted and never got off the ground. The Cape Town City Council, dominated by the PFP, approached Slabbert about contacting black negotiating partners to come up with an alternative to the NP’s Regional Service Council for the Cape Town area in mid-1986. There was no interest on the part of the UDF in negotiating.

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In early 1987, the East London City Council approached the Ministry of Constitutional Development and asked for assistance in finding a partner for an Indaba. The ministry was unable to find any partners despite its boasts of regularly conducting negotiations with hundreds of black figures.28 Durban-based diplomats told the author that an Indaba was only possible in areas with an English-speaking majority, which meant the Cape Peninsula, Eastern Cape, and Natal. It failed in these first two areas because of lack of a black partner. But because the NP had a majority on the Cape Provincial Council, Indabas only would have been possible within small areas. The only homelands in the Eastern Cape were Ciskei and Transkei which were both “independent” and neither had any desire to give up that independence, even once Kaiser Mantanzima was overthrown in 1986 and replaced by Brigadier General Holomisa. Natal had the unique convergence of English control and an unconsolidatable homeland with a credible leader. This is an accurate characterization. Boulle wrote the most detailed academic critique of the 1983 constitution in South Africa. For someone from the left this may be a bad set of preferences. Africa, however, has suffered from decades of empowered governments with planned economies. And planned economies are usually not compatible with individual liberties. There was a competing model for an internal settlement from 1986–89, that of the South African government. On January 31, 1986, President P. W. Botha made a speech in which he announced the creation of a National Statutory Council on which “local homeland Blacks” and “other Black communities and interest groups” would sit. The Council would have consisted of thirty members, at least half of who would have been African. Buthelezi had laid down the following preconditions for his participation on the Council: • The freeing of Nelson Mandela and his ANC colleagues and of PAC President Zeph Mothopeng from prison. • The unbanning of the ANC and the PAC. • The lifting of the state of emergency. • Some sign that “the people” support the Council.

Botha never met Buthelezi’s conditions. F. W. de Klerk met all but the last one, but by then the Council was irrelevant and de Klerk knew it. Nothing, however, ever developed and once de Klerk became president in August, the National Council was quietly dropped. This was probably because he realized that it would not fulfill any of the three goals of an internal settlement: external support, internal support, and guerrilla defection. In 1988 and 1989 the UDF had gone on a major offensive against township councils and many of the councillors resigned, were lynched, or ended up having to flee the

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townships and seek refugee at police stations. This demonstrated the level of popular support that the councils enjoyed. The National Council, a purely advisory body, was a throwback to the Native Representatives’ Council of the 1930s and 1940s, which had been criticized by the Youth League which took over the ANC in the late 1940s. The only thing that the National Council did was shore up Buthelezi’s status by allowing him to be seen to reject it.29 CONCLUSION Internal settlements normally fail for either or both of two reasons. First, the stature of the internal leaders is not sufficient to attract the support needed for the settlement to succeed. If the leader lacks internal support he cannot deliver such support; foreign governments will recognize this. They will then refrain from supporting the settlement. This is most applicable to traditional settlements as in Vietnam, Namibia, and the tricameral parliament and National Council in South Africa. Second, if the terms of the settlement or the way they are implemented brings no material benefits to the native population or a major improvement in the way they are treated by the settlers, the natives will stop supporting the settlement. This was the case in Rhodesia and El Salvador and probably would have been the fate of the Indaba. Continued human rights abuses by the army and security forces can be a factor but are not decisive. For instance, the most successful internal settlements were those in Vietnam and El Salvador, which brought in hundreds of millions of dollars in economic and military aid for the regimes involved. Yet the French military committed major human rights abuses and the Salvadoran military was notorious for its massacres and death squads. No internal settlement has delivered on internal support on a long-term basis or on guerrilla defections. The closest any came on the former was the approximately one-third of the population that supported the Namibian internal settlements. It was based on a collection of ethnic groups that feared Ovambo domination. SWAPO was dominated by Ovambos and had solid Ovambo support so the whites concentrated on getting the support of other groups. Internal settlements are of continued relevance because in Israel, which has not experienced an internal settlement, Arafat has been treated since the Oslo accords much like Muzorewa was in Rhodesia. This has been especially true since the Likud took power in June 1996. For the Likud the Oslo agreement was anathema as is the idea of giving up the West Bank. Yet Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu has vowed to honor the Oslo accords. The way he has attempted to do this, while pacifying the Israeli nationalists in his own government, is through the “bantustanization” of the West Bank. A map of the Palestinian Authority’s area on the West Bank resembles a map of KwaZulu or Bophutatswana in South Africa during the 1980s.

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Arafat may prove to be Israel’s Muzorewa or Buthelezi. He already uses his patronage like Buthelezi used his. He has attempted to turn the West Bank into a virtual one-party state imitating those of his various patrons over the years. The Palestinian police behave like the KwaZulu police or Muzorewa’s auxiliaries. The only thing preventing him from doing this is that the Palestinians, during the Intifada, developed a civil society like that developed by the UDF and its member organizations in South Africa from 1983–90. This creates a tension between a former exile leadership used to the norms of the undemocratic region and the semi-democratic population, which evolved a civil society in opposition to the occupation. In South Africa both the exile leadership and democracy triumphed. Palestine can only hope to be so lucky.

NOTES 1. Mitchell, pp. 116–19. 2. See Mitchell, op. cit., pp. 110–16 for a fuller discussion. 3. Nelson, pp. 131–35, 155. 4. Drower, pp. 64–66. 5. Ibid., p. 65. 6. Napier interview; O’Malley, pp. 78, 228. 7. Napier interview. 8. Bruce, God Save Ulster, p. 108; Moloney and Pollak, p. 355; Bishop and Mallie, p. 266. 9. Nelson, op. cit., p. 156; see Bruce, Red Hand for details on the UDA participation in the strike. 10. Moloney and Pollak, op. cit., p. 358; Cusack and McDonald, pp. 132–33. 11. Moloney and Pollak, op. cit., p. 358; Drower, op. cit., pp. 69–70; Bruce, God Save Ulster, op. cit., p. 109. 12. Ibid. 13. Kevin Boyle and Tom Hadden, Northern Ireland: The Choice (Middlesex: Penguin, 1994), pp. 70–71; Bruce, The Edge, p. 154; Bishop and Mallie, op. cit., pp. 268– 69. 14. Swart, p. 172; Suzman, p. 217. 15. The list of participants and six principles can be found in New Frontiers: The KwaZulu/Natal Debates, a special issue of Indicator South Africa published in October 1987; and in Leadership: The Indaba Special Issue, published by Leadership in April 1987. 16. New Frontiers: The KwaZulu/Natal Debates (Durban: Indicator SA Project, 1987). 17. This is based on an examination by the author of the archives of the Indaba at the University of Natal library’s Africana collection and interviews with members of the constitutional committee such as Peter Gastrow. Libjphart’s book was published by the University of California, 1985. 18. The way the delegations voted can be found in the above-mentioned special issues. 19. Ibid. 20. The proposals are explained in a color foldout brochure entitled The Indaba Vision produced by the Indaba in 1987.

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21. The Bill of Rights (Durban: The Indaba, 1986). 22. Chris Heunis, “Some Basic Global Guidelines to Reform in South Africa,” Politics Today, No. 7, Dec. 1986, pp. 7–9; Mitchell, op. cit., pp. 499–500. 23. Year Book, p. 86. 24. The author has copies of the tape, the manual, and several copies of Indaba News. 25. Gerhard Mare, “Last Chance, Limited Option or No Go?,” in New Frontiers, op. cit., pp. 18–21. 26. Ibid. 27. This was the hope of American consul Jack “Tex” Harris. Frederik van Zyl Slabbert attempted to negotiate an alternative to the Regional Service Council on behalf of the Cape Town City Council in 1986–87 and could not find anyone from the UDF willing to negotiate with him, New Frontiers, op. cit. 28. Indicator SA Indaba Special Issue (Durban: Indicator Project SA, Oct. 1987) and information from a South African diplomat on East London after the author saw a note on the original request in SAIRR Yearbook 1988 (Johannesburg, 1988). 29. On the National Council, see Mitchell, op. cit., pp. 388–400.

5

Conservative Settler Parties

As with liberal parties, we can only really discuss conservative settler parties in the English-speaking colonies of Africa, Northern Ireland, and Israel/Palestine. It is only in these countries that autonomous settler party systems developed. In the smaller settler colonies in Africa such as Kenya, Northern Rhodesia, and Namibia the settler population was too small to really support a developed party system and elections were fought on a personal basis or were dominated by a single party as in Namibia from 1946 to 1977. In Rhodesia, South Africa, Namibia after 1977, Northern Ireland after 1969, and Israel after 1979, there was a particular pattern of conservative parties emerging either out of the existing ruling party or in reaction to a perceived softness and loss of values by the ruling party. This is most visible in South Africa where it played out repeatedly over the course of white politics in an independent South Africa from 1910 to 1994. SOUTH AFRICA In 1910, South Africa was granted independence as the union of the two defeated Boer republics and the two British colonies. As the Afrikaners had a 3:2 majority over the English-speakers, Afrikaners came to dominate South African politics. Until the 1950s the real issue in South African politics was: would the Afrikaners dominate the English-speakers in an independent republic or would all whites cooperate as part of the British Empire and commonwealth? Two defeated Boer generals, Louis Botha and Jan Smuts, formed the South Africa Party to cooperate with the English-speakers. In reaction to this, another

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Boer general, Barry Hertzog, formed the National Party in 1913 to preserve Afrikaner distinctness. Hertzog believed in equality among all whites but in keeping Afrikaner culture distinct. The National Party first came to power in 1924 in alliance with the Labour Party, which advocated the rights of white workers against Africans. In 1929 the National Party gained power in its own right. In 1934 the majority of the National Party merged with the South Africa Party to form the United Party. The dissenters, led by Daniel Malan, left to form the Purified National Party. This party came to power in 1948 in alliance with the Afrikaner Party, which was formed when many of Hertzog’s supporters left the United Party in September 1939 when the prime minister declared war on Germany. Germany had helped the Boers against the British during the Boer War and also again during the Afrikaner revolt of 1914. Malan’s National Party then absorbed the Afrikaner Party and became the ruling party for the next forty-six years.1 The next major split occurred in 1969 when Barry Hertzog’s son, Albert Hertzog, the minister of mining in the government of John Vorster, led a group of dissenters out of the National Party to form the Hereformde Nasional Party (HNP) or Reformed National Party. All the defectors lost their seats in parliament the following year in the general election. The party failed to win a single seat in parliament until a by-election in 1985. The seat was then lost in the general election of 1987 when the party was virtually destroyed by the Conservative Party. The party was opposed to the very modest “reforms” in petty apartheid enacted under Vorster, such as allowing multiracial foreign sports teams to break the sports boycott and play South African teams in cricket and rugby. The party served as a barometer of Afrikaner alienation with the ruling National Party particularly during the period of 1970 to 1982, before the formation of the Conservative Party. Its support base was maize farmers from the Orange Free State and rural Transvaal and unskilled workers who feared economic competition from blacks. Its appeal was visceral rather than intellectual. It advocated a return to the apartheid of 1948 and the fifties. The party won as much as 14 percent of the total vote without winning a single seat because of the first-past-the-post electoral system in South Africa. It was never really a factor in South African politics. In 1982 Transvaal National Party (NP) leader Andries Treurnicht defected with fifteen supporters from the NP caucus to form the Conservative Party (Konserwatiewe Party) or KP. The defectors left the party in opposition to the new constitution which granted coloreds (mixed-race) and Indians (South Asians) their own houses of parliament in a new tricameral parliament. For them it was irrelevant that the new parliament was specifically designed so that whites would continue to dominate through the president’s council which controlled so-called “general affairs” issues. It was the KP which provided the conservative opposition to accommodation with blacks in general and the African National Congress in particular during the eighties and the negotiations of the early nineties.

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The KP replaced the PFP as the official opposition in parliament in 1987 when it won twenty-two seats to the PFP’s nineteen. Until 1989 the KP was restricted to the rural “platteland” (flatland or prairie) area of the Transvaal. In the September 1989 elections, the party won thirty-nine seats and expanded its representation to the Orange Free State and the rural areas of the Northern Cape. Only in Natal was the KP not a major political force and even that was beginning to change in the rural areas of northern Natal. It was fear of the KP’s appeal that virtually paralyzed the Botha government during its last two years in office. President P. W. Botha was afraid that the Conservatives would do to the National Party what it had done to the United Party in 1948 unless he won back the support of rural voters. The KP was more intellectual and program-oriented than the HNP. It advocated a return to grand apartheid with homelands for the coloreds and Indians. Like the HNP, it was virtually an Afrikaner ethnic party during the eighties. But following the February 1990 reforms it made a serious effort to win support among English-speakers, particularly in Natal.2 The English-speaking parties also suffered from defections to the conservatives over time. During the 1920s the Dominion Party existed in Natal and had a small parliamentary caucus as the party of British imperialism. In 1977 when the United Party joined with the miniscule Democratic Party to form the New Republic Party (NRP), three members of parliament defected to form the South Africa Party. They quickly joined the National Party. In 1984 three members of parliament from the New Republic Party, including its Natal leader, defected to the National Party. This made the NRP the smallest parliamentary faction in Natal, the only province in which it had a major presence. In January 1987 half of the provincial council caucus of the New Republic Party defected to the National Party. Many ran as opponents of NRP incumbents for parliament in the May 1987 general election and several were elected. In 1986 the sole NRP member of the provincial council in the Cape defected to the National Party after the provincial councils were eliminated. He ran against and defeated the sole remaining Cape NRP Member of Parliament in the King Williamstown constituency. In the nineties, many of the NRP voters continued their migration rightward from the National Party to the Conservatives. In 1994 they voted for the Fatherland Front, the Afrikaner ethnic party which replaced the KP when the KP split in two over participation in the new system.3 RHODESIA Rhodesia followed the pattern of South Africa but over a much shorter period of time. During Southern Rhodesia’s period as a self-ruling colony from 1923 to 1965, its parliament was dominated by the United Federal Party. A group of right-wing members of parliament under the leadership of Winston Field, Clifford Dupont, and Ian Smith split off to form the Rhodesia Front (RF) in 1962. This was in reaction to the beginnings of African nationalism in Southern Rho-

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desia and the announced breakup of the Federation of the Rhodesias and Nyasaland, which existed from 1953 to 1963 and was dominated by Southern Rhodesia. Although formed only nine months before the elections, the RF managed to win thirty-five of the fifty white seats to the United Federal Party’s fifteen white seats and fourteen African MPs. The RF ran on a platform of standing up to the United Nations, the British government, and African nationalism in the interests of preserving “civilized standards” and “stopping the rot.” The RF really advocated the implementation of South-African-style apartheid in Rhodesia. Field became prime minister and Smith his finance minister. Two years later Smith replaced Field in an internal party coup on the basis of being able to go ahead with a unilateral declaration of independence. Smith took power in April 1964. A year later the RF swept all fifty white parliamentary seats in elections in May 1965.4 The RF would continue to do so until the end of white rule in 1978, sweeping four separate elections. The biggest threat to Smith’s rule and policies came in 1977 with the expulsion of twelve members of parliament under the leadership of party whip Desmond Frost to form the Rhodesian Action Party (RAP). Smith had started a program of minor reforms in 1976 comparable to the Botha reforms of the mid-eighties, in order to win international support and to give cover to African nationalist leaders who wanted to enter into an internal settlement with him. The ten members of parliament had voted against the land reform measures in March 1977 and been expelled from the party on June 23, 1977. Two weeks later the RAP was launched. It advocated a vigorous pursuit of the war effort with more cross-border raids into Mozambique and Zambia. The latter country had not yet experienced major raids. The party was essentially a return to the RF of 1962 and was headed by Ian Sandeman, a farmer and former officer in the Coldstream Guards. Two weeks after the formation of the RAP, Smith announced elections for August 31, 1977. This gave the RAP only six weeks to organize and campaign. It was not enough time, even with an electorate as small as Rhodesia’s white electorate. British journalist Martin Meredith initially predicted that the RAP could receive as much as 30 to 40 percent of the vote and six seats. Smith promised never to stand for one-man, one-vote—even though he had publicly accepted this in September 1976, after both South Africa and the United States applied pressure. He also promised to put any deal with African nationalists to a referendum vote. Smith lied to the electorate, asked for its trust, and won. The election was fought on the issue of loyalty to Smith. Initially, both parties also campaigned against nonwhite purchases of houses in white areas. But the government soon dropped its prosecution of violators when it found that the issue did not resonate with voters as those moving out of the suburbs wanted to be able to sell their homes and could not find white buyers. Most whites emotionally accepted the rhetoric of the RAP but knew that its solutions were no longer practical. The white electorate kept its collective head in the sand and the RF

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received 85 percent of the vote to the RAP’s 10 percent and the National Unifying Front’s less than 5 percent.5 Both the NUF and the RAP remained in existence long enough to campaign in the referendum campaign. The RAP campaigned for a no vote whereas the NUF did not know what to campaign for as it had only two choices and did not want to align itself with either Smith’s RF or the right-wing RAP. There was a month-long referendum campaign with the government vigorously advocating a yes vote and the opposition advocating a no vote. The RF claimed that they had won the best deal that was possible under the circumstances and that a no vote would embarrass Rhodesia’s foreign friends (South Africa and Western conservatives) and lead to an escalation of the war. The RAP called for the professionalization of the army with an end to call-ups and the widening of the war. The RAP correctly predicted that the internal settlement would never win foreign support, but that Rhodesia should rely on South African support. Pretoria’s announcement of support for the internal settlement and disavowal of the RAP’s claims undercut this appeal. On January 30, 1979, there was a 71.5 percent poll with 84.4 percent of voters voting in favor of the internal settlement. Most of the leaders of the RAP quickly emigrated.6 In Namibia the white electorate voted for local branches of the South African parties until 1977. In 1977 as part of the Turnhalle internal settlement, the whites stopped voting for the South African parliament and voted for control of the central area of the country. The National Party split with those supporting the internal settlement leaving to form the Republican Party and the majority forming the Aktion Turnhalle (AKTUR) alliance with the Rehobooth Baasters (mixed-race group). AKTUR dominated white politics in Namibia until independence in 1990.7 NORTHERN IRELAND Modern party politics in Northern Ireland began in 1969 when the Ulster Unionist Party split down the middle into pro- and anti-O’Neill candidates for the February 1969 election. The anti-O’Neill faction was opposed to his symbolic accommodation with the Catholic minority even if this did not extend to real reforms. The anti-O’Neill faction was led by Brian Faulkner who had been Terence O’Neill’s rival for the party leadership. Despite winning reelection, O’Neill felt compelled to resign in April 1969 and his cousin, Major Robin Chichester-Clark was elected prime minister by one vote over Faulkner. The Rev. Ian Paisley, leader of his own independent branch of the Presbyterian Church, ran against O’Neill in February 1969 and lost, but was elected to the provincial parliament at Stormont the following year. In 1969 he founded the Protestant Unionist Party and in 1971 it changed its name to the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP). The party was similar to the RAP, the HNP, and the Conservatives in that it wanted a return to pre-O’Neill unionist rule with unadulterated majoritarian rule. Paisley equated democracy with majoritarian rule;

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that meant that the majority had the right to rule in any way it wished. For the next thirty years the DUP would advocate a return to unionist rule. In Paisley’s rhetoric and the DUP’s propaganda, Catholics were equated with nationalists, nationalists were equated with republicans, and republicans with the IRA. Thus Catholic Alliance members and voters were really covert nationalists. Nationalist Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) members and voters could be considered republicans because they shared with Sinn Fein the goal of a united Ireland. And if the ends were the same, then they must covertly approve of the means. From 1974 to 1994, the DUP heavily influenced the policies of the unionist community in general. In the first European parliamentary elections in Ulster in June 1979, Paisley received more votes than any other candidate and established himself as the province’s most popular unionist politician.8 Brian Faulkner became prime minister in March 1971 and survived in that position for just a year until Stormont was prorogued in March 1972 after London refused to give the province control over security measures. In December 1973, he agreed to an internal settlement with the SDLP in the form of a powersharing executive. When he lost a crucial vote in the Unionist Council in January 1974, he was forced to resign as party leader and resign from the party and form his own Unionist Party of Northern Ireland. Paisley led the combined unionist campaign in opposition to the executive in the parliamentary elections of February 1974. Three months later a loyalist workers’ strike enforced by the loyalist paramilitaries led to the collapse of the executive after only five months in power. Faulkner was politically finished in the assembly election of 1975 when his party won only a handful of seats. He died in a riding accident a year later.9 In 1972, former Stormont Interior Minister Bill Craig formed his own Vanguard Movement. It started out as a fascist-style extra-parliamentary group and evolved into a political party. Craig was discredited five years later when he said that he was willing to enter into talks with the SDLP about power-sharing. Vanguard’s members largely reintegrated into the Ulster Unionist Party in the late seventies.10 The next major conservative defection occurred in the late nineties as a result of the negotiations with the SDLP and Sinn Fein. The UUP was united in its willingness to negotiate with the SDLP for a power-sharing arrangement in a way it had not been willing to do twenty years earlier. But it was unwilling to negotiate with republicans. The UUP’s goal was another internal settlement with the SDLP. The assembly faction of the UUP was supportive of the Good Friday (or Belfast) Agreement reached in April 1998, but the parliamentary caucus split into pro- and anti-agreement factions. Lagan Valley MP Jeffrey Donaldson, who was the prote´ge´ of former UUP leader James Molyneaux, led the anti-agreement faction. Donaldson cooperated with Paisley’s DUP and Robert McCartney’s UK Unionist Party in opposing the agreement. Five of the UUP’s parliamentary

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caucus opposed the Good Friday Agreement and three members defected to run as independents in the 1998 Assembly election and then formed a separate faction known as the United Unionists.11 The DUP and UKUP spent over a year acting as an anchor to the Ulster Unionist Party in negotiations from June 1996 to September 1997 when they finally left upon the entrance of Sinn Fein into the peace talks. They then campaigned against the Good Friday Agreement in the May 1998 referendum and in the Assembly for the next three years. The UKUP basically broke up as all of its assembly members (MLAs) except leader Robert McCartney left to form the Northern Ireland Unionist Party. One of these members then left to join the DUP. The DUP experienced significant gains in the local and parliamentary elections in June 2001. They still remained the smallest of the “big four” parties as Sinn Fein registered even larger gains. But they gained within unionism at the expense of the Ulster Unionists. If elections for the assembly are held again in September or October 2001, Paisley’s DUP could emerge as the largest unionist party for the first time in twenty years or at least on a parity status with the UUP. The arrest of three IRA activists in Colombia, where they had gone to liaise with the anti-government guerrilla movement, and the withdrawal of the IRA’s offer to put its “arms beyond use” effectively put an end to the Northern Ireland peace process and the Good Friday Agreement by destroying unionist faith in the agreement.12 This means that Trimble’s tenure as UUP leader will probably soon come to an end and he will be replaced by an anti-agreement figure like Jeffrey Donaldson or David Burnside. This will end the modernization project in the UUP and preserve its ties with the Orange Order. The UUP will go into a conservative mode as it did in 1974 in reaction to the power-sharing executive that emerged from Sunningdale. This last conservative mode lasted for twentytwo years until Trimble began to move toward the center in 1996. In the June 2001 elections, Sinn Fein replaced the SDLP as the largest nationalist party; if this trend is confirmed and strengthened by Assembly elections, it will further strengthen the extremists within unionism.13 The province will then be divided between the two extremes, with the first minister and deputy first minister being Jeffrey Donaldson or Peter Robinson and Gerry Adams. This would lead to the agreement collapsing within a short amount of time. Or London could simply conclude that the agreement was unworkable and restore direct rule either before elections are held or afterward. If Ian Paisley, Sr. should retire from politics in the near future (after the UUP has moved to the right), the stage might be set for a reconciliation of the two major unionist parties, as occurred in 1985 after the Anglo-Irish Agreement, or possibly even a merger of the two parties, or an electoral pact if Peter Robinson follows Paisley in the leadership of the party.14 Such a period will eclipse the growth possibilities of Alliance.

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ISRAEL Israel’s conservatives are the exception to the rule. From 1920 onwards there was a major split among secular Zionists between those who believed in “diplomatic Zionism” and those who espoused “practical Zionism.” Diplomatic Zionism was the approach advocated by World Zionist Organization founder Theodor Herzl from 1895 until his death in 1904. His initial successors continued his policies. But after Chaim Weizmann won the Balfour Declaration from the British government in 1917 and a League of Nations mandate in 1922, he became a supporter of the Labor Zionists with their policy of advancing Zionism through settlement. Russian Jewish journalist Vladimir “Ze’ev” Jabotinsky, founder of the Jewish Legion in 1918, founded his own Revisionist Party in 1925 to support his more activist approach to Zionism. Two years earlier he had founded his own youth movement, Betar, to compete with the Labor Zionist youth movement in Europe. A decade later Jabotinsky withdrew from the World Zionist Organization to found his own Revisionist Zionist Organization. The Revisionists were much more numerous and popular in the Jewish diaspora in Eastern Europe and in the United States than they were in Palestine. Jabotinsky was permanently banned from Palestine by the mandatory authority following the August 1929 riots. He was thus at a disadvantage, both in competing with the Labor Zionists and in controlling his own movement. Jabotinsky died in America in August 1940 at age sixty after being a prominent Zionist figure for nearly four decades. His son Uri then took control of the Revisionist movement but quickly lost control of it to the underground organizations which revolted against the British. From 1940 to 1948 Revisionist Zionism was largely a military movement rather than a political movement. Revisionism differed from Labor Zionism in several key areas. It was a liberal movement in the nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century meaning of the term. The movement supported a free enterprise economy and believed in mandatory arbitration to resolve labor conflicts. The party emphasized dramatic steps and major actions rather than gradual steps to achieve Zionist aims. These aims included control of Palestine within its biblical borders (“from Dan to Beersheba”) including the East Bank of the Jordan. Jabotinsky opposed the Peel Plan of 1937 and Menachem Begin opposed the United Nations Partition Plan of 1947 because both involved limiting Jewish sovereignty within Eretz Israel (the land of Israel) or Palestine. Betar was much more into parades and uniforms than its counterparts in the Labor Zionist movement. The Revisionists emphasized military strength and national symbols. Ironically because their rivals controlled the Jewish Agency, the Revisionists were not in a real position to be able to implement this in Palestine. Although Jabotinsky originally supported Britain as the mandatory power, he was not above threatening to have the mandate transferred to another country, such as France or Italy, in order to influence London. Thus, for Jabotinsky, the alliance with Britain was more tactical or

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operational than for the Labor Zionists who saw it as a strategic alliance. By the late thirties, Jabotinsky’s disciples in Betar and the Irgun Zvai Leumi had come to see Britain as an occupying power which had forfeited its right to the mandate. Jabotinsky believed in pure nationalism rather than the mixing of nationalism with other ideologies such as Marxism, socialism, fascism, or Orthodox Judaism. Ironically, Jabotinsky used a prohibition from Orthodox Judaism on the mixing of two types of fabrics to illustrate this principle.15 Jabotinsky’s greatest and main contribution to Zionist ideology was the theory of the “iron wall.” The iron wall was a metaphor for military strength and was introduced by Jabotinsky in a pair of articles in 1923. The theory argued that the native Arabs would not be bought off by economic advancement into voluntarily surrendering their native country to the Zionists. Therefore the Zionists had to build up military strength behind which they could build the Yishuv in Palestine and achieve statehood until the Arabs accepted the existence of Israel and agreed to negotiate peace. The theory was a much more realistic way of dealing with the Arabs than the naive slogans of the Labor Zionists during the mandate. Ironically, the theory was adopted without attribution—perhaps without being aware of it—by the Labor Zionists after the creation of Israel in 1948.16 In 1948, Revisionism was revived as a political movement in the form of Herut (“freedom or liberty”) founded by Irgun Zvai Leumi (National Military Organization) leader Menachem Begin. Begin remained the leader of Herut and the successor Likud Party for the next thirty-five years. He was called by his colleagues haMefaked (“commander”), as they were largely his colleagues from the leadership of the Irgun. The British, the Jewish Agency, the Arabs, and most of the West labeled the Irgun a terrorist organization. But in reality the Irgun were really urban guerrillas who operated by a strict code of conduct in operations against the British. They were more ruthless in dealing with the Arabs using terror to oppose the terror employed by the Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini and his supporters. For its first two decades Herut was largely confined to Irgun veterans, their families, and the urban poor. In the mid-sixties they recruited David Levy, a young Moroccan immigrant from Beit Shean, a development town. Levy was able to bring in many Oriental Jews over the next decade. In 1970 Yitzhak Shamir, the director of operations of Lehi, the other main underground organization involved in the revolt against the British, joined Herut and was immediately elected to the executive. Geula Cohen, Lehi’s radio announcer during the revolt and a prote´ge´ of Lehi ideologue Israel Eldad, followed Shamir. This widened the base of Herut slightly. In 1965 Herut formed an electoral bloc with the free market Liberal Party. It was known as Gahal for Gush Herut-Liberalism or Herut-Liberal bloc. The two parties were joined by a third party, La’Am (for the people), in the early seventies. La’Am was the union of two groups of Labor Zionists who defected to the right after the 1967 war. These two groups were the Movement for the

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Whole Land of Israel which was created in the wake of the 1967 war, largely from hawks from the Labor Party who formerly belonged to the Ahdut Ha’Avoda or Unity of Labor Party. This party had split off from Mapai in 1944 in opposition to partition. It had rejoined with Mapai in 1965 to form the first Alignment. In 1968 the two parties joined Rafi, which had split from Mapai in 1965 to form the Israel Labor Party. Former Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion refused to follow his Labor Party colleagues back into Mapai in 1968. Instead he formed the State List and was elected to the Knesset as a single-member faction in 1969. Ben-Gurion soon retired from politics and the remnants of his party then joined the other defectors to form La’Am. The fact that Gahal was part of the National Unity Government from 1967 to 1970 made the defection of Ben-Gurion’s supporters easier. Prime Minister Levi Eshkol had made the Revisionists respectable in 1965 by giving permission to have Jabotinsky’s body reinterred on Mount Zion in the cemetery reserved for Israel’s leaders. Jabotinsky had been granted posthumously founding father status. In 1973 reserve General Ariel Sharon got Gahal and La’Am to form into a single bloc known as the Likud (Unity) Party. The Likud eventually became a single party rather than a mere election bloc. In December 1973, following the Yom Kippur War, the Likud narrowed the gap between it and the Labor Party. Scandals, serious inflation, and other economic problems marked the Rabin government of 1974 to 1977. The Labor Party behaved arrogantly. Rabin paid the price for the stagnation caused by twenty-nine years of continuous power (over forty years if control of the pre-state Jewish Agency is included).17 Begin ruled the Herut Party for thirty-five years: the first twenty-nine years in opposition and the last six in power. He tasted power briefly as the minister without portfolio in the Government of National Unity during the Six Day War and War of Attrition. After this brief taste of responsibility he returned to seven years of opposition. During his six years in power as prime minister—and temporarily as defense minister in 1980 and 1981—he oversaw the negotiation of peace with Egypt over an eighteen-month period, invaded Lebanon twice, bombed the Iraqi Osirak reactor, and bombed Beirut. He also found time to begin a massive Jewish settlement project in the interior of the West Bank. The Labor Party had restricted its settlements to the areas to be retained by Israel under the Allon Plan—the Etzion bloc of settlements, the Jordan Valley, and the Golan Heights. Begin resigned from personal exhaustion and depression following the failure of his strategy in Lebanon and the death of his lifelong wife, Aliza, in September 1983. Yitzhak Shamir, the former co-leader of Lehi, ruled for the next nine years as either prime minister or minister of foreign affairs. His nine years were much less turbulent but very decisive in terms of implementing Revisionism ideology. Although Shamir was a prote´ge´ of Lehi founder Avraham Stern and a supporter of co-leader Nathan Yelin-Mor, in Herut and Likud he limited himself to espousing the views of Jabotinsky and Begin. Shamir was prime minister of Likud from 1983 to 1984 and again from 1990 to 1992, foreign minister in the Gov-

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ernment of National Unity from mid-1984 to late 1986, and prime minister in two successive Governments of National Unity from late 1986 to 1990. Shamir saw as his primary duties in these positions the consolidation of Jewish settlement on the West Bank and the prevention of any peace deal that would involve Israel losing control of the West Bank. To this end he sabotaged a plan for an international peace conference negotiated between Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and King Hussein of Jordan in late 1986. He then helped to scuttle the peace plan proposed by Defense Minister Rabin in early 1989, which ironically bore his own name. The Shamir Plan was opposed by Ariel Sharon, David Levy and Yitzhak Moda’i. They imposed nonnegotiable conditions on the plan that doomed it to failure. Shamir failed to fight for the plan. He had to be pressured by American Secretary of State Jim Baker to attend the Madrid Peace Conference. He headed the Israeli delegation personally because he did not trust Foreign Minister David Levy not to make concessions. Shamir finally resigned as party leader following his defeat at the polls by Yitzhak Rabin in June 1992.18 For the next seven years Benyamin Netanyahu, the son of a distinguished Jewish historian who was a personal friend of Jabotinsky, headed the Likud. Netanyahu, dubbed “Mr. Nightline” for his frequent appearances on the serious American talk show, had previously served as an ambassador to the United Nations and as deputy foreign minister. He was a “prince”—a member of the second generation of Likud leadership made up of the sons of the Irgun and Herut leadership. This group included Dan Meridor, Ze’ev “Benny” Begin, and Netanyahu. Meridor was the son of Ya’akov Meridor, Begin’s predecessor as leader of the Irgun and his longtime number two in Herut. Dan Meridor served as Begin’s aide at Camp David and as an attorney general and finance minister. Ze’ev Begin was a geologist who joined the Likud and was elected to the Knesset in the late seventies and then remained a Knesset backbencher for a decade. There were two major examples of defections from the right to the far right in Israel that fit the pattern of the other settler colonies. The first occurred in late 1978 following the negotiation of the Camp David Accords. Geula Cohen resigned from the Likud and in early 1979 combined with Rabbi Eleazar Waldman of the Gush Emunim (bloc of the believers) settler movement and nuclear physicist Yuval Ne’eman, the rector of Tel Aviv University, to form Tehiya (renaissance or renewal). The party existed for the next thirteen years as the settler party par excellance. Cohen, who was dubbed “the Israeli la Pasionaria” after the Communist hero of the Spanish left from the Spanish Civil War, was convinced that the precedent of evacuating Jewish settlers from the northern Sinai would be followed on the West Bank. She seemed obsessed with the idea that Begin or Shamir were about to sell out the settlers in a peace treaty with the Palestinians or with Jordan. This was totally unrealistic considering that the PLO was anathema to both Begin and Shamir and neither believed in the existence of a Palestinian people. Tehiya varied between two and five seats in its level of representation in the

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Knesset. Along with Tsomet and Moledet, Tehiya was one of three Likud satellite parties which were the ultranationalist equivalent of the three parties which created Meretz. But rather than combining to be greater than the sum of their parts, the three parties competed for a limited pool of supporters on the West Bank, in Gaza, and in Israel. Cohen committed political suicide in early 1992 by supporting a Labor no-confidence vote in the government to punish it for negotiating with the Palestinians in Washington. The party failed to win a single seat in the 1992 elections and eventually disbanded. Tehiya had an eclectic ideology based on Revisionism, the writings of Lehi ideologue Israel Eldad, and religious Zionism. On the walls of its office in the Knesset were four portraits: those of Jabotinsky, Lehi founder Avraham Stern, Rabbi Avraham Kook, and Yitzhak Tabenkin of Ahdut Ha’Avoda. It was a miniLikud that also included supporters from the National Religious Party’s Bnei Akiva youth wing. It drew supporters from Herut, the National Religious Party, and the Labor Party. The first two were the dominant elements. Tehiya had four main political goals in descending order of importance: (1) the annexation of Judea and Samaria (the West Bank); (2) support for settlement on the West Bank; (3) more police protection for settlers; and (4) the “uplifting of the Nation.” The final goal was rather vague and not operational but the others were those of its primary electorate.19 The second defection occurred in late 1998 when Ze’ev Begin left the Likud and formed his own party which he called Herut after his father’s party. This second defection was motivated by both personal and ideological considerations. Begin neither respected nor trusted Netanyahu. After the Wye River Plantation summit in October 1998, none of the forces on the right in the Likud coalition trusted Netanyahu not to cave in to American pressure and give the West Bank away to Yasir Arafat to form the basis of a Palestinian state. This was ironic as the left did not trust Netanyahu to ever fulfill the agreement and deliver on his promises. Begin declared himself a candidate for the premiership in Israel’s second direct elections. At the last minute he was persuaded to withdraw after Center Party candidate Yitzhak Mordechai withdrew from the race. This was to give Netanyahu a direct shot at beating Labor Party leader Ehud Barak. After a disappointing showing in the elections, Begin resigned as party leader and as a Knesset member and retired from politics. Begin was an ideological disciple of his father and of Yitzhak Shamir. He wanted to preserve the West Bank under Israeli control free from Arab sovereignty. He was a traditional Revisionist. THE CONSERVATIVES DURING PEACE NEGOTIATIONS The conservatives consider the enemy liberation movements to be unworthy negotiating partners for the settlers. They focus their anti-settlement arguments on the nature of the liberation movement and level three main charges against the enemy. First, the liberation movement is a false liberation movement and is

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really simply a terrorist movement. Second, it harbors irredentist goals against the settlers. According to the anti-agreement unionists, the Irish Republican Army still plans to work for a united Ireland against the wishes of the majority. The Conservative Party of South Africa equated majority rule with a form of black supremacy—apartheid in reverse. The Likud and its satellites saw the PLO as being still dedicated to the destruction of Israel. Third, the enemy consisted of communists or at least Soviet allies. This charge lost much of its relevancy with the end of the Cold War. Because of the above reasons the enemy was not to be trusted and the ruling party and liberals were/are naive in trusting the enemy’s promises and word. The liberals countered these charges with several arguments. First peace is always made with your enemies and not with your friends and one does not have the luxury of picking the former. Second, the enemy had been forced to modify its goals because they were unrealistic and had been finally recognized as such. Third, the Lehi had attempted to form alliances with both Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union and the Afrikaner right had ties with Imperial and Nazi Germany during the Boer War and the two world wars. Thus it is sheer hypocrisy to criticize the enemy for doing likewise. Fourth, both the Irgun and Lehi had engaged in terrorism against both the Arabs and the British in the forties. The loyalists used terrorism against ordinary Catholics in Northern Ireland.20 The South African military was much more willing to use terrorism against its opponents than was the African National Congress. Thus, both unsavory alliances and unsavory immoral methods taint both sides.21 Immediately before and during peace negotiations, the liberals and conservatives are fighting each other for the soul of the ruling party. In Israel, due to the long division within the Jewish community between the Labor Zionists and Revisionist Zionists, this fight is more for the soul of the Israeli electorate than for the soul of the ruling party. The tacit allies of the conservatives are the unreconstructed supporters of the armed struggle within the liberation movements. For many of the leaders of the liberation movements, such as Yasir Arafat, Gerry Adams, and Martin McGuinness, preserving the unity of the liberation movement takes precedence over other considerations until a split is impossible to avoid. Then, preventing further splits takes precedence. Many of the liberation movement leaders are haunted by the results of past splits. Fatah suffered major splits in its ranks twice. First when Sabri al-Banna (Abu Nidal) split in 1974 to form Fatah Revolutionary Councils. Then in 1983 a number of leading officers in Fatah’s military wing revolted against Arafat’s leadership with the backing of Syria and drove the PLO out of Lebanon. The Irish Republican Army suffered three major splits. First, in January 1970 it split into the Official IRA and the Provisional IRA with the latter eventually dominating after the former declared a ceasefire in May 1972. In 1986 the former president of Sinn Fein split off to form Republican Sinn Fein after Sinn Fein voted to revoke its principle of abstention from taking

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seats in parliament. In 1998 a further split occurred when the quartermaster of the Provos split to form the so-called Real IRA.22 In order to avoid further splits, the liberation leaders weave back and forth and attempt to be all things to all people: radicals to the radicals, moderates to the settlers and the West, and leaders to their peoples. This attempt produces many examples of oldspeak with its revolutionary language. Each liberation movement speaks with many voices and anyone can choose which one is the authentic one. This leaves the liberals at a disadvantage as they must demonstrate convincingly that the leopard has changed its spots. When the liberals fail to make this case with the public, it is usually their “partners” who are at fault. The liberals had the easiest time in South Africa because the ANC spoke with one voice. The ANC did not suffer from major splits after 1959. The ANC had the backing of the Front Line States who, with the sole exception of Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, did not attempt to play politics between competing liberation movements. The conservatives do not have to produce a credible alternative to negotiations with the liberation movement. They merely need to cast sufficient doubt on the viability of such a solution. The more critical the situation of the settlers in economic and military terms, the more they will look at the viability of the proposed solutions. Thus, the campaigns of the Rhodesian Action Party in 1977 and in 1979 to oppose the internal settlement were an utter failure because most whites knew that the status quo was no longer viable. They had to compare the viability of Smith’s proposed solution with that of the conservatives. In South Africa the situation was not as desperate in military terms, but ethnic politics came into play. Afrikaners split between supporting the Conservative Party and the National Party whereas English-speakers split between the Democrats and the National Party. Thus nearly all the English-speakers were backing the government. In Israel the armed struggle has very little viability and thus there is little pressure for change. Most of the incentive for change is of an economic and emotional variety: the desire to be accepted within the region. Those who oppose making concessions to the Palestinians point to the disappointing results of the Egyptian peace in terms of normalization. Those who support concessions point to the much warmer peace with Jordan since 1994. The liberals cannot hope to compete with the conservatives at the emotional level. They must focus their arguments on those who act out of rational analysis. This means focusing on the middle class, the upper class, and select sectors of the working class. The liberals must demonstrate that the conflict is not unique and that solutions that have worked abroad can work in their country. Academics, senior officers, or recognized security experts can best make these arguments. In settler states the word of a senior military officer is much more persuasive than that of an obscure academic.23 Both Alliance and Meretz are at a disadvantage because they lack their own military celebrities. In Northern Ireland most of the parties—particularly the nationalists—lack senior officers. Only the Ulster Unionists have a tradition of

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former officers serving as cabinet ministers and that tradition ended with direct rule. In Israel most of the senior generals migrate to Labor, the Likud, or the settler parties. In 1999, former Chief of Staff Amnon Lipkin-Shahak and former Northern Commander Yitzhak Mordechai formed the Center Party rather than going to Meretz. Meretz’s best chance for a senior military officer was former Defense Minister Ezer Weizman, who veered sharply to the left in the eighties. But Weizman became president for the Labor Party before Meretz was formed. Most former generals want a position commensurate with their former responsibilities. Thus Meretz and the Democrats are forced to settle for former and reserve colonels and majors. These officers may be as capable of analyzing the security requirements of the state as the generals, but it is difficult to convince the public of this. As a result of this, the liberals are largely irrelevant if the peace negotiations focus on security arrangements as in the Middle East. They come into their own only if the negotiations are focused on constitutional arrangements as in Northern Ireland and South Africa. Thus if partition rather than power-sharing is the proposed solution to the conflict, the liberals are relegated to a supporting role. They must content themselves with supporting the government in parliament (Knesset). Where power-sharing is the solution, the liberals can use their expertise to persuade both the natives and the settlers and serve as a bridge between the two groups. The natives may have developed their own expertise in power-sharing, as in the Social Democratic and Labour Party in Northern Ireland, in which case the liberals are mainly lending their expertise to the settlers. In both Northern Ireland and South Africa the conservatives were largely relegated to denouncing the power-sharing negotiations from the sidelines. Their argument remained persuasive to those for whom power-sharing with the natives was anathema. The DUP was forced to take its seats in the executive in November 1999 with the claim that they were fighting the Belfast Agreement from within.24 The Conservative Party of South Africa split into two factions over the issue of participating in the constitutional negotiations. The party virtually disappeared overnight in 1994 and was replaced by the Fatherland Front, which went into the elections and parliament in order to protect the ethnic interests of Afrikaners. Liberals have been irrelevant in Bosnia because the solution negotiated at Dayton in 1995 was a disguised form of partition. Croat nationalists and Muslim nationalists coexist uneasily within the Bosnian Federation. Within Republika Srpska, the choice is between extreme nationalists and pragmatic nationalists. Liberals will have little future in Kosovo because power-sharing does not appear to be likely to be on the table as a solution to the province’s future. The choices seem likely to be independence, union with Albania, and possibly some form of partition between Albanians and Serbs. Liberals cannot operate in a climate of active ethnic warfare as is taking place in Kosovo today. The future of the liberals in Yugoslavia is in Montenegro and Serbia proper, not in Kosovo. Liberals may have a future in Cyprus where power-sharing may be attempted once

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again as it was in the early sixties. If the existing de facto partition is negotiated and formalized, the liberals will have little say in the negotiations or little to say in the post-partition Cyprus. KULTURKAMPF Israel is presently undergoing a kulturkampf or cultural/ideological struggle similar to those that Western European countries underwent in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The United States began a similar period of struggle in the late sixties and it still continues at a low level. Germany underwent a kulturkampf in the period of the reign of Kaiser Wilhelm II and during the Weimar Republic in the 1920s and early 1930s. The battle was between the socialists and communists on one hand and the conservatives on the other. During the Weimar Republic the conservative monarchists were allied with the Catholic Centre Party. The conservatives used the power of the state to win but the conservative cause was discredited because of its alliance with Hitler and the Nazis. In France a kulturkampf occurred in the 1930s between the Catholic Church, the military, and the monarchists on one side and the anti-clericalist radicals and socialists on the other. The extreme right was discredited because of France’s military performance in 1940 and the Vichy collaboration. De Gaulle saved the prestige of the conservatives and Francois Mitterand defected from the right to the left to give the socialists a more conservative character. A statist compromise was reached on economic matters. France of the Fifth Republic, after the retreat from Algeria in 1962, resembles the United States with its political culture of compromise and centrism. Israeli Jews are divided into four broad ideological camps today: the ultraOrthodox religious Jews, the religious Zionists, the secular nationalists of the right, and the secular leftists. In party terms the first group consists roughly of: Shas, United Torah Judaism, and Agudat Israel; the second group consists of the National Religious Party; the third group consists of Likud and the settler parties; and the last group consists of Labor (One Israel) and Meretz. On religious matters the first two camps are naturally allied with each other against the last two. But on foreign policy/territorial questions the lineup consists of the second and third camps allied against the fourth camp with the first camp neutral and free to extort the most from either alliance for its support. Meretz must determine its priority of issues in order to decide with whom to align in this kulturkampf. Once a settlement with the Palestinians has been reached, a realignment will probably occur along secular-religious lines. The Likud and Labor will then be free to support Meretz on its demands for curbing funding to religious schools and its extortion on religious matters. From Meretz’s point of view, the National Religious Party is more of a political threat at present than the haredim (ultra-Orthodox). But the religious Zionists will be much more amenable to a settlement of religious matters than will the haredim. The NRP—or at least moderate Orthodox Jews—might even serve as a me-

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diator between Meretz and the haredim at some future juncture. But this can only occur once the conflict with the Palestinians has been settled. With large blocs of settlements remaining outside the terms of the peace treaty, the potential is always there for further haggling in the future with the Palestinians demanding more land and the Israeli government forced to slowly cede small portions. The Likud could resist the inclusion of these settlement blocs in Palestinian territory in the future. This would leave the present political alignment among the camps largely intact. In the United States the problem has largely been avoided because of the existence of a written constitution, an independent judiciary, and the constitutional doctrine of a strict separation of church/synagogue and state. The haredim in New York City are really only a factor in local politics, because they are a small minority within the larger Jewish community as a whole. The vast majority of American Jews are either Reform, Conservative, or completely secular and in favor of a continuation of a strict separation of church and state. In New York City the ultra-Orthodox, like every other community, keep their political demands largely to the supply of local services such as sanitation, road repair, etcetera. The backing of Israel within Congress is largely undertaken by secular Jews, with the backing of some Orthodox assimilated Jews. In Northern Ireland and South Africa the religious settlers were comparable to the religious Zionists. Ian Paisley used religion to support a harder line against the nationalists. Among the Democratic Unionists, and among the National Party and Conservatives in South Africa, there was/is no separation of church and state. The Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa has often been called the National Party at prayer. Daniel Malan and Andries Treurnicht, to mention two prominent National Party leaders, were both ministers. The Free Presbyterian Church and the DUP have the same leader—Ian Paisley. Both Treurnicht and Paisley remained anti-settlement. Treurnicht fought any power-sharing with blacks and split to form the Conservative Party. Paisley has been the leader of the anti-settlement camp since 1996 and was one of the leaders against the Sunningdale settlement of 1974. If Arafat is smart, he will offer an accommodation that will satisfy all of the genuine religious demands of the Jewish settlers on the West Bank and in Gaza. This will leave their refusal to negotiate and accept a deal based on territorial demands only. The former will include giving Jews unfettered access to exclusively Jewish religious shrines and sites in the territories and giving them equal or proportionate access to joint Jewish/Muslim sites such as the cave of the Patriarchs at Hebron. Means of addressing the secular–religious split in Israel are discussed in greater length in the final chapter. For now, it is only important that Meretz determines its priorities correctly and picks its battles carefully, keeping in mind that its opponents have much greater resources at their disposal than Meretz does. The second kulturkampf is taking place over the nature of Zionism and Zionist

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history. The creation of the Israeli revisionist school of historians (Benny Morris, Tom Segev, Avi Shlaim, Simcha Flapan, et al.) led to a rethinking of Zionism among labor Zionists. The revisionists came along just as the constituent parties of Meretz were rethinking their relationship to the Labor Party because of the creation of the governments of national unity of the 1980s. Nationalist Zionists from the right see Meretz and the left of the Labor Party (Yossi Beilin and Shimon Peres) as believing that Israel was conceived in sin and so must pay a territorial price as exculpation or sacrifice for that sin. This may be an accurate description of the thinking of Shulamit Aloni and Simcha Flapan. But moderates in Meretz, like Sarid and members of Labor, look at the conflict less in religious terms and more in pragmatic terms. The creation of Israel also created a Palestinian refugee problem that in turn led to the continuation of the national conflict between the Palestinians and the Zionists. The conflict can only be ended by giving the Palestinians a state in exchange for their recognition of Israel’s right to exist in peace. This is a conflict of views of Zionism that will be fought mainly within the Labor Party. Those who vote for Likud and its satellite settler parties do not tend to be introspective and questioning. They tend to take a much more emotional and reflexive anti-Arab stand. In making its case for an accommodation with the Palestinians based on a retreat from most of the West Bank and Gaza, both for support within the Labor camp and before the electorate, Meretz would be well advised to rely primarily on pragmatic rather than on moral arguments. Moral arguments require one to reexamine one’s entire past and way of thinking. Most people do not like to do this and will go to desperate lengths to avoid doing so. The vast majority of Israelis will reject the argument that it would have been more moral for Israel not to have been born, than for the Palestinians to have been made refugees. But many will accept that Israel bears partial responsibility for the creation of the refugee problem in 1948, because of the actions of the Irgun, Lehi, and Israel Defense Forces (IDF). They will accept that an accommodation with the PLO has been the result of the successful application of the iron wall doctrine of Jabotinsky. Arguing to Israelis that Israel should not have been created is like telling Americans that they should have remained British rather than compromise on slavery. This argument may resonate with blacks, but with very few whites. The abolitionists were forward looking rather than backward looking; they aimed at the abolition of slavery in the south. American liberals are learning of the backlash that arguments based on guilt produce with the majority. The vast majority of Americans will accept accommodating blacks as equals, they will not accept reparations for slavery. Similar arguments in Israel will also backfire. Alliance made a similar argument on behalf of an accommodation with the republicans in Northern Ireland. Alliance accepted that the unionist community was partially responsible for the outbreak of the troubles while condemning the

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use of terrorism by the IRA. Alliance continually supported the security forces and the concept of majority will deciding the constitutional question. In South Africa the situation was somewhat different. The Democratic Party and its predecessors argued on both moral and pragmatic grounds. But the Democrats did not argue that the white settlers did not have any right to be in Africa. The Democrats made the flipside of the case that Alliance made in Northern Ireland: the majority should rule with safeguards and accommodation for the minority. Eventually the Democrats took over as the leader of the opposition after majority rule on pragmatic grounds—it was a more vigorous and resourceful opposition party. The revisionist historians should be kept to academic discussions and teaching in the classrooms. By controlling the ministry of education Meretz can help to gradually produce a more nuanced political debate within Israel. This can be important in reaching a future accommodation with the Palestinians decades after the peace treaty has been signed. A similar debate has been going on about the teaching of history in American universities and high schools. Much of this centers around the teaching of slavery and the teaching of the centuries-long conflict with the native inhabitants of America. After a period in which the natives were seen as the aggressors, thereby justifying their own conquest, the opposite oversimplification occurred. During the Vietnam War, liberals and leftists portrayed the Indians as the peaceful victims of American imperialism, another gross oversimplification. Today in Texas a struggle is going on about the teaching of early Texas history and the Texas war of independence. Texans must grapple with the morally complex view that the white settlers were fighting both for democracy and slavery and that the Mexican dictator Santa Anna was fighting against slavery. In a few years revised scholarship on the Arab-Israeli conflict will synthesize the traditional Zionist historiography and the new revisionist historiography. This will result in a much more historically accurate and balanced view of the conflict. Until then, Meretz should attempt to integrate the new findings of the revisionists with traditional scholarship and teach high school students how Arabs view the conflict.

NOTES 1. See Marq de Villiers, White Tribe Dreaming (New York: Viking Penguin, 1987), pp. 250–51; and T.R.H. Davenport, South Africa: A Modern History, Third Edition (Buffalo: University of Toronto Press, 1987), pp. 216–19; and Thomas Mitchell, Black Faces, White Heads: Internal Settlements in Southern Africa (Los Angeles: University of Southern California Doctoral Dissertation, 1990), pp. 337–39. 2. On the HNP and KP see Mitchell, pp. 347–58, and Heribert Adam and Kogila Moodley, South Africa Without Apartheid (Berkeley: University of California, 1986), pp. 58–67. 3. On the NRP see Mitchell, pp. 459–65.

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4. Meredith, op. cit., pp. 36–38, 43, 53. 5. Meredith, op. cit., pp. 306–8, 313; Godwin and Hancock, op. cit., pp. 196–203. 6. Godwin and Hancock, pp. 238–41; Meredith, pp. 356–57. 7. Mitchell, op. cit., pp. 264–69. 8. On the DUP see Ed Moloney and Andy Pollak, Paisley (Dublin: Poolbeg, 1986); Steve Bruce, God Save Ulster (Oxford: Oxford University, 1986) and The Edge of the Union (Oxford: Oxford University, 1994); and Dennis Cooke, Persecuting Zeal: A Portrait of Ian Paisley (Dingle, Ireland: Brandon, 1996). 9. Henry McDonald, Trimble (London: Bloomsbury, 2001), pp. 43–44, 46–47, 54– 55, 61, 65. 10. Ibid., pp. 33–67. 11. Ibid., pp. 220–21, 228. 12. See David Sharrock, “Provisional IRA ‘is on war footing’,” The Telegraph; Brian Feeney, “Numbers just don’t add up for Trimble,” Irish News, Aug. 15, 2001; “Peace process credibility dented,” Belfast Telegraph, Aug. 15, 2001. 13. See the editorial “What hope survival?,” Belfast Telegraph, June 16, 2001. 14. This is based on discussions with a number of Belfast journalists, such as Chris Thornton and Malachi O’Doherty of the Belfast Telegraph and Henry McDonald of The Observer in June and July of 2001, and from readings of the Belfast and Irish press. 15. On Revisionism see Michael Cohen, Zion and State (New York: Basil Blackwell, 1987), and J. Bowyer Bell, Terror Out of Zion (New York: Avon, 1977). 16. Avi Shlaim, The Iron Wall (New York: Norton, 2000), pp. 12–16. 17. On the formation of the Likud see Amos Perlmutter, Israel: The Partitioned State (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1985), and Ned Temko, A Personal Portrait of Menachem Begin (New York: William Morrow, 1987). 18. Robert Slater, Rabin of Israel (New York: St. Martin’s, 1993), pp. 347–48; Michael Bar-Zohar, Facing a Cruel Mirror (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1990), pp. 216–19. 19. On Tehiya, see Ian Lustick, For the Land and the Lord (New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 1988), p. 58; Aaron Rosenbaum, “Tehiya as a Permanent Nationalist Phenomenon,” in Gregory Mahler, ed., Israel after Begin (Albany, NY: SUNY, 1990), pp. 71–72; Slater, op. cit., pp. 372–73. 20. See the entry for “Lehi” in Susan H. Rolef, ed., Political Dictionary of the State of Israel (New York: Macmillan, 1987), pp. 201–2. Prime Minister John Vorster of South Africa was interned during World War II because he was a leader in an anti-government organization, the Ossebrandwag, or Ox-wagon sentinel. On the loyalists see Steve Bruce, Red Hand: Protestant Paramilitaries in Northern Ireland (Oxford: Oxford University, 1992) and The Edge of the Union (Oxford: Oxford University, 1994); Jim Cusack and Henry McDonald, UVF (Dublin: Poolbeg, 1997); and Martin Dillon, The Shankill Butchers (London: Arrow, 1989). 21. Thomas Mitchell, Native vs. Settler: Ethnic Conflict in Israel/Palestine, Northern Ireland, and South Africa (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2000), pp. 140–48. 22. Ibid., pp. 42–43, 189–205. 23. See ibid., pp. 35–37, for the phenomenon of the “native fighter” in settler societies. 24. McDonald, op. cit., pp. 250–51.

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The Final Settlement

The negotiations for a final settlement will be when the liberals finally can participate in conflict resolution. This can only occur if the negotiations are in the form of multilateral all-party negotiations, as in Northern Ireland or South Africa, or if the liberals are part of the governing coalition, as in Israel. If the final settlement is decided by bilateral negotiations, as in the Lancaster House negotiations on Rhodesia or the Brazzaville negotiations on Namibia, the liberals will have no input. The liberals can influence the outcome of the negotiations in two main ways. First, they can frame the debate through their knowledge of consociational procedures. The settler ruling party may defer to their expertise and adopt their program as occurred in South Africa. Second, the liberals can act as a bridge builder or mediator between the two main sides. By making proposals they can be assured that they are less likely to be rejected than ideas from one side or the other. Alliance played this role in Northern Ireland during the negotiations. The Ulster Unionists and SDLP were more likely to adopt proposals made by Alliance than by each other. In South Africa, where international mediation was lacking, former PFP leader Frederik van Zyl Slabbert played the role of mediator by serving as chairman of the CODESA negotiations. The cases can be compared on two grounds: “ripeness” for settlement and the mediation involved. Foreign mediation was involved in the cases of Rhodesia, South Africa, Northern Ireland, and Israel. It was rejected by South Africa in 1986 when P. W. Botha deliberately launched cross-border raids against three neighboring capitals on the day he was to meet with the Commonwealth’s Eminent Persons Group. This ended foreign mediation until 1994 when South Af-

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rica requested it to resolve a dispute with Inkatha and KwaZulu. When it appeared that the situation was not “ripe” for mediation, the mediators withdrew. In the end an agreement was reached on Inkatha’s inclusion in the election without foreign mediation being necessary. THE NEGOTIATIONS When negotiations began in December 1991, the Democrats moved away from the PFP’s consociational position to a straight federal position but with a power-sharing executive with seats distributed proportionately to all parties gaining over 10 percent of the vote. The party also proposed that there should be a bicameral parliament with the upper house, the senate, representing the regions.1 The party was maneuvering to position itself evenly between the NP and the ANC so that it would be in a position to mediate. For instance, on May 15, 1992, at the World Trade Center talks, the ANC proposed a two-thirds majority needed to pass all constitutional proposals and the NP wanted a three-fourths majority. The Democrats offered a compromise solution of 70 percent.2 The DP’s short official history states that “the DP played a vital role in the negotiation of an interim Constitution which [sic] included most of the principles and ideals around which the PP was formed in 1959.”3 In the May 1998 issue of Alliance News, the party published a summary of the Belfast Agreement with party proposals that went into the agreement being italicized. These included: • Right of Self-Determination of the Basis of Consent. • Changes in the Irish Constitution and British legislation in relation to the Agreement proposals. • An Assembly with Executive and Legislative authority. • Ministers, Committee Chairs, and Committee Membership in proportion to party strength. • Key decisions to be taken on a cross-community basis—either by parallel consent or weighted majorities. • A Civic Forum for consultation on social, economic, and cultural issues. • A North-South Ministerial Council—to develop consultation, cooperation and action within the island of Ireland, with: • *All decisions to be by agreement between both sides. • *Ministers from each side remaining accountable to Assembly and Oireachtas (Irish parliament) respectively.

The only area in which there were not contributions from Alliance was in the issue of prisoners, which Alliance had less of an interest in than certain other parties. Mediator George Mitchell wrote “Alliance would play an important role in the negotiations. It was headed by an experienced articulate team.”4

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Alliance developed a reputation as being the most principled, even priggishly so, in upholding the renunciation of violence. It was in favor of the temporary suspension of the Ulster Democratic Party (UDP) and Sinn Fein during the course of negotiations for their associated terrorist groups committing murders or making threats. It could be argued that in the case of the UDP, Alliance was mainly making a case for being evenhanded. If the final settlement negotiations between Israel and the PLO are similar to the Oslo I and Oslo II negotiations, the liberals will play little role. Key decisions were restricted to Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, joint recipients of the Nobel Peace Plan, and their appointed delegates such as Uri Savir, Yoel Singer, Uzi Dayan, and Yossi Beilin. All of the latter came from the Israeli army or the foreign ministry and were associated with the Labor Party. Rabin sent Environment Minister Yossi Sarid to meet with Palestinian negotiator Nabil Shaath in Gaza. Sarid was the only cabinet minister besides Peres and Rabin to be entrusted with the secret of Oslo. Rabin instructed him not to reveal the Oslo negotiations to Shaath, if the latter was unaware of them. Shaath was uninformed and the meeting was not very useful. But this is typical of international negotiations as opposed to internal negotiations in a civil war.5 There are likely to be lively cabinet debates on the fate of the settlements as a final settlement is negotiated. Labor has already conceded the existence of a future independent Palestinian state in principle. What must be debated are the borders of the state, the status of the settlements and settlers, the status of East Jerusalem, the location of the Palestinian capital, security measures, and the timetable for Israeli withdrawal. The Israeli army will have a great influence on security issues. Meretz will probably have its greatest input on the issue of settlements. If Shas is included in the coalition during the final settlement, Meretz might be neutralized on the settlement issue. In a narrow coalition dependent on support from Arab parties, Meretz could have considerable weight on this issue. RIPENESS I. William Zartman, the bargaining theorist and Africanist, introduced the idea of “ripeness.” He wrote that it existed when three conditions are met; (1) there exists a situation of deadlock and deadline; (2) “unilateral solutions are blocked and joint solutions become conceivable”; and (3) the power gap between the two sides has shrunk by one side gaining and the other losing in power.6 This applies for conflicts that are resolved with or without mediation, and for internal wars as well as international conflicts. In native-settler conflicts, that is, those involving settler regimes, there is an additional condition. The settlers must recognize that it is with the liberation movement of the natives that they will have to make peace and the natives must realize that they cannot bypass the settlers by making peace with the colonial

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power or the settlers’ foreign patron. Thus, the Israeli–Palestinian conflict did not become ripe for resolution until the PLO concluded that it could not make peace through Moscow or Washington and Jerusalem realized that it must negotiate with the PLO and not with Jordan. This occurred between 1988 and 1993 as a result of the Intifada, King Hussein’s declaration of nonintervention in the West Bank in July 1988, and the Gulf War in 1991. South Africa did not become ripe until F. W. de Klerk had unbanned the two liberation movements, released Nelson Mandela from prison, and finally decided that Buthelezi was no substitute for Mandela in negotiations. Northern Ireland has only become ripe for real peace after the Good Friday Agreement, after the UUP began to negotiate directly with Sinn Fein over the issue of decommissioning. During the earlier negotiations, the UUP ignored Sinn Fein and dealt only with the SDLP. These later negotiations came about because of the IRA’s refusal to decommission as called for in the Good Friday Agreement and because the UUP withdrew from the assembly in February 2000. Earlier the UUP had refused to form an executive with Sinn Fein because of the decommissioning issue. Trust is a key prerequisite to a successful negotiating process. In South Africa the peace process broke down in 1992–93 because Nelson Mandela lost trust in the honor and truthfulness of President F. W. de Klerk. The peace process survived and the negotiations ended successfully not only because it was in the interests of both the ANC and the National Party, but also because trust had been built up between lower-ranking officials in both parties. This took place during 1991 and 1992. Cyril Ramaphosa, the former leader of the National Union of Mineworkers during the 1980s, developed a close relationship with Roelef Meyer, the minister of constitutional development in de Klerk’s cabinet. The two bonded during a fishing trip to the bush in September 1992. Meyer accidentally caught himself with a hook and Ramaphosa had to pull it out of his hand with a pair of pliers. After this the two had complete trust in one another.7 In the Middle East the lack of similar relations plagued the peace process until 1994 when Palestinian negotiator Abu Mazen and Israeli negotiator Uri Savir established a close personal relationship. The Israeli academics at Oslo had good relations with their Palestinian counterparts, but they lacked the official status and weight to be able to smooth over troubles. Savir and Abu Mazen managed the relationship until Oslo II was finalized in September 1995. Uri Savir was a top foreign ministry official and he managed the conceptual part of the negotiations for Israel with former IDF colonel and lawyer Yoel Singer going over the agreements as the legal expert. The relationship went into a deep freeze in 1996 after Benyamin Netanyahu took over as prime minister. Netanyahu was lacking in both political and moral courage and the deep commitment to peace. Ehud Barak has yet to establish a personal relationship with Yasir Arafat and the Palestinian leadership. Barak’s election was greeted with joy in May 1999, but this joy soon turned to frustration. In Northern Ireland the peace process went into crisis for a year between the spring of 1999 and the spring of 2000 over the decommissioning issue. It was

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basically because of a lack of trust—or even contact—between the two real parties to the conflict: the Ulster Unionist Party, representing the settlers, and Sinn Fein, representing the IRA. During the entire negotiating process before the Good Friday Agreement, there was no direct contact between the Ulster Unionists and Sinn Fein. The two parties finally began to understand, if not exactly trust, each other during the “review process” during the autumn of 1999. This led to the convening of the assembly and the executive in December 1999. After ten weeks the executive was shut down by the British on behalf of Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble because the IRA had made no moves to decommission. All the little trust that had been built up in London through the mediation of George Mitchell was sacrificed. This closing of the executive was necessary to demonstrate to the IRA that the Unionists were serious about decommissioning. Finally, in early May 2000 the IRA announced that it would put its arms “beyond use” by allowing inspections of its arms dumps in the Republic by figures from the international community (including Ramaphosa). Trimble set to work trying to convince his fellow Unionists to accept this move as an acceptable means of decommissioning and as an indication that the IRA’s armed struggle was really over. The crisis repeated itself when there was no further decommissioning by the IRA after the assembly had been in operation for over a year. Trimble started by barring Sinn Fein’s ministers from officially participating in North-South contacts with ministers from the Republic. On July 1, 2001, he resigned as first minister, sparking another round of talks that eventually resulted in a second declaration by the IRA that it would put its arms “beyond use,” presumably by pouring concrete on top of the bunkers that the international inspectors had been allowed access to. This will allow Trimble to be reelected as first minister and the assembly to start over when it is actually implemented. The liberals are basically impotent during this stage as the key decisions are in the hands of the main settler and native parties. Once the conditions are objectively suitable for liberals to market their message they can begin to educate the electorate and convert settlers (and possibly natives as well). But once this conversion has taken place the negotiations are largely in the hands of the mainstream parties. The Democrats were basically powerless to save the peace process in South Africa following the Boipateng massacre in 1992. Meretz had little influence in the spring of 1996 or during the Netanyahu government. Alliance was virtually ignored by everyone during the decommissioning crisis. Alliance representatives met with Senator Mitchell in 1999 and wrote guest opinion columns in the Belfast Telegraph but had little input into the decisions that affected the peace process in 1999 and 2000. COMMITMENT Both the Arab–Israeli conflict and the Northern Ireland conflict were solved partly due to the personal commitment of leading politicians from the main parties. This is most evident in the latter conflict.

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John Hume was personally committed both to ending discrimination against Catholics and to finding a solution to the conflict through nonviolence. He began his search in the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association in 1967–68 and thirty years later was still at it. After police brutality, Paisleyite mobs, and republican manipulation conspired to destroy the civil rights movement, Hume became involved in finding a solution through Stormont. After Stormont was prorogued he became involved in power-sharing with Brian Faulkner in 1974. After this the party became greener and went into stasis, as the unionists were content to let London govern. In 1988, fed up with the status quo and the violence, he entered into a dialogue with the IRA. The dialogue did not really go anywhere until it was bolstered by a parallel process of the British and Irish governments. In the Middle East the comparable figures were King Hussein of Jordan and Prime Minister Shimon Peres of Israel. King Hussein engaged in a secret dialogue with Israeli prime ministers as far back as 1963 when he met with envoys from Prime Minister Levi Eshkol. Following the Six Day War he began meeting with Israeli leaders from the Labor Party over the next decade on a regular basis. Unfortunately, King Hussein was not secure enough to deviate from the Arab consensus in the terms that he offered Jerusalem even after the Khartoum summit principles had become passe´. He insisted that all Arab territory captured in June 1967—including East Jerusalem—be returned to Arab rule. King Hussein played a role similar to Sadat: he demanded that all territory be returned while assuring Israel that real peace was possible. Because of the different strategic and historical importance of the West Bank for Israel as compared with the Sinai, such a peace was not possible with Jordan. During the mid-eighties he attempted to serve as an interlocutor between the PLO and Israel in negotiating a peace. This proved impossible because of the vacillation of Arafat. Hussein’s greatest role may have been in renouncing any connection with the West Bank in July 1988, thereby forcing the Labor Party to realize that it would have to make peace with the PLO. In October 1998 Hussein played a role of mediator between Israel and the PLO at the Wye River summit, bolstering the efforts of President Clinton. Hussein’s most persistent Israeli partner was Shimon Peres. Peres, a hawk in the fifties, sixties, and early seventies, was profoundly affected by Sadat’s visit to Jerusalem. In 1978–79 as head of the Labor Party he supported Begin’s territorial concessions to Sadat in exchange for peace. In 1984–85 he supervised the withdrawal of the Israeli army from Beirut to the security zone just north of the Israeli border. In 1986–87 he championed an international conference as a means of negotiating a peace agreement over the West Bank. This effort failed due to lack of support from the Likud within the National Unity Government. After the Intifada began and Hussein renounced responsibility for the West Bank, Peres became a leading covert supporter of talks with the Palestine Liberation Organization as he realized that there was no other peace partner for Israel. He managed to convince Prime Minister Rabin of this in mid-1993 after the Oslo negotiations reached a critical point. Peres did not want to make peace

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with the PLO, but he wanted peace and realized that he had no alternative to making it with the PLO. In South Africa there was no single figure in the white community who championed peace over the years outside of the Progressive Federal Party. The most vigorous in that regard was Frederik van Zyl Slabbert who championed the PFP’s dialogue with Inkatha and support for the Indaba. After resigning from parliament he supported dialogue among leading South Africans. Along with Andrew Boraine he founded the Institute for a Democratic Alternative in South Africa (IDASA). It helped to educate both sides about the meaning of democracy. This meant in practice letting each side educate the other side about the inadequacy of its concept of democracy. Slabbert then chaired the CODESA negotiations during the early nineties on the transition from apartheid. In Northern Ireland and Israel, the presence of those individuals with a known commitment to peace helped build trust between the two sides and helped mediation work. In South Africa those who were trusted served as mediators in lieu of international mediators until trust was built among the leading parties. CONSOCIATIONALISM This section is applicable not just for liberal parties in settler societies, but for liberal parties in ethnic conflicts elsewhere (such as Central and Eastern Europe). It is not intended as a primer on consociationalism, but merely as an introduction.8 Majoritarian democracy as practiced in countries such as Australia, Britain, Canada, New Zealand, and the United States is inappropriate for multiethnic or deeply divided countries in which politics takes place along clear ethnic, religious/confessional or ideological lines in which individuals do not change parties easily. The authors of The Federalist Papers, John Adams and John Jay, saw various interests or factions being represented in Congress under the American separation-of-powers system. The voters would form shifting coalitions of votes, which eventually became parties. But both the parties and the electorate remained fluid. In deeply divided societies this fluidity does not exist. In South Africa, two elections have been waged with voters dividing along racial lines. This is not likely to change in the near future.9 In Israel, Arabs vote overwhelmingly for Arab parties and very few Jews vote for Arab parties.10 In Northern Ireland, voting is along ethnic lines and is analyzed by political scientists and journalists along those lines. In such societies, which lack voter fluidity, permanent haves and have nots form. This in turn leads to alienation and ethnic conflict. Dutch-American political scientist Arend Lijphart developed a political theory of power-sharing called consociationalism based on the practices in four Northern or Western European countries: Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Switzerland. These practices range from informal understandings to unwritten agreements to formal legal arrangements. The more entrenched and bitter the

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divisions, the more formal the measures must be. Because the conflicts in Belgium and Switzerland are ethnic in nature they are more suitable to settler societies and were the cases most closely examined in South Africa—at the Indaba—and in Northern Ireland. These arrangements involve formal language, cultural, and religious rights for ethnic groups (for example, the background groups in the Indaba and protection of the Irish language in the Good Friday Agreement). They are most suitable for possible future political arrangements in Israel and Palestine involving minority rights for Jewish settlers and/or Israeli (Palestinian) Arabs. The cases from Austria and the Netherlands involving religious and ideological differences within the same ethnic group are most suitable as models for arrangements in Israel between secular Jews and ultra-Orthodox Jews. Arend Lijphart considers the existing “status quo” arrangements in Israel to be a form of consociationalism.11 Meretz prefers to eliminate special privileges for the religious and impose a strict separation of synagogue and state as exists in Protestant Western democracies. A different approach might be to formalize some of the existing “status quo” arrangements by zoning different neighborhoods and municipalities as either secular or religious. Shabbat restrictions would apply in religious neighborhoods but not in neighborhoods zoned as secular. Ultra-Orthodox Jews would run their own primary and secondary schools and would receive some funding for Yeshiva religious institutes, but would lose their religious deferrals. Before such arrangements could be made, the existing system would have to be changed and this would require a reform of the basic political system. Israel’s proportional representation list system with its low 1.5 percent threshold for election to the Knesset would have to be replaced by either a different form of proportional representation or a much higher threshold. Sisk classifies deeply divided societies as falling into four basic types: • Fragmented—five or more major mobilized ethnic groups with no single group dominating; • Balanced—four or less mobilized ethnic groups, further divided into bipolar (Northern Ireland) or multipolar (Bosnia); • Dominant minority—where a minority clearly dominates over a majority as in white settler states or in Rwanda, Burundi, Iraq, and Syria; and • Dominant majority—a single majority group dominates ethnic minorities as in Israel, Croatia, Russia, and Sri Lanka.12

Thus, the three settler societies we have discussed in depth fall into three different categories according to Sisk: Northern Ireland is balanced; South Africa is a dominant minority; and Israel is a dominant majority. Liberal parties in Central and Eastern Europe should then determine which type of society their country falls into and examine most closely the case(s) that pertain to it.

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Proportional representation in some form is a basic requirement—the basic requirement—for consociational democracy. But most European countries use either a combination of the party list system with geographic constituencies or multi-candidate districts with proportional representation–single transferable vote (PR–STV). The latter is the system used in both the Republic of Ireland and in Northern Ireland. Germany uses a combination of constituencies and party lists giving each voter two votes for parliament. Israel has the most dysfunctional electoral system of any major democracy in that it results in governments that result from intricate compromises that cannot be predicted by the average voter.13 Consociationalism is based on compromises negotiated among elites that are induced by the system to become cooperative. These compromises take place after elections have determined the popular strength of all parties. These negotiations involve the type of compromises that are normal in majoritarian democracies but that would not occur without the special consociational arrangements. The main weakness of consociationalism is that its main successful cases have taken place in Western Europe among groups that have not been in open military conflict with each other. It cannot be established that those societies would not have remained peaceful without consociationalism. Some have said that “Consociationalism is only successful when it is unnecessary.” If it succeeds in Northern Ireland it will disprove this adage. Because the consociational arrangements are much weaker in South Africa than in Northern Ireland, it is less suitable as a case. Consociationalism has been attempted and failed in a few non-European cases: Cyprus, Lebanon, and Malaysia. Lijphart defends the failure in Lebanon on outside circumstances—the Arab–Israeli conflict. In Malaysia it was tried for fourteen years in the late fifties and sixties and then abandoned. But in Cyprus it was tried between 1960 and 1963 and clearly failed resulting in open ethnic clashes in 1964. Lijphart’s critics argue that Lebanon and Malaysia were not even true cases of consociationalism, as the arrangements did not include a minority veto.14 Consociationalism involves arrangements among ethnic, religious, or ideological segments. In ethnic consociationalism the arrangements involve formal representation along ethnic or federal lines in a second chamber of parliament with the chamber responsible mainly for legislation that affects group rights. Group rights are normally concerned with primary and secondary education, cultural matters, language, and religion.15 Often, the minority group or groups are given a veto over legislation in certain areas in order to allow them to preserve the status quo or prevent legislation that threatens their basic interests. This is known as the minority veto. Another key device is an executive organized along proportional representation lines. This was used in both the KwaZulu–Natal Indaba and the Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland. The chief executive officer, whether he is called the prime minister or the first minister, is chosen from the majority

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party in the lower chamber of parliament. Up to half of the executive may be composed of his ministers from the majority party with the remainder coming proportionately from the members of the minority parties.16 Every party with a minimum level of representation in the legislature is then entitled to seats in the executive. In Northern Ireland there was even a deputy first minister, who in reality functioned as a co-first minister as the majority first minister could not function without the support of his co-minister. The controversy over decommissioning occurred because under the Good Friday Agreement, Sinn Fein was entitled to two ministers on the ten-man executive. All other parties saw Sinn Fein as being organically linked to the Irish Republican Army and hence in violation of the agreement because the IRA had not disarmed as called for in the agreement. The anti-agreement DUP was also entitled to two seats on the executive. If the DUP continues to take up its two seats, it may be a destabilizing influence on the agreement by sabotage from within. Another consociational device is overrepresentation. This means giving minority parties more representation in either the legislature or the executive or both than they are strictly entitled to in proportional terms. This was envisioned in the Indaba proposals at the executive level. It was accomplished in Northern Ireland for the loyalist parties by manipulating the franchise rules in the 1996 forum elections so that there was a general proportional representation aspect in addition to the PR–STV vote. This allowed the Ulster Democratic Party and the Progressive Unionist Party to both be represented at the talks. The UDP lost its representation in the assembly in 1998 when this “topping up” feature was removed. Another device is division of the spoils along ethnic lines so that each ethnic group is guaranteed a minimum level of representation in the civil service or in officer positions in the military, etcetera. In Lebanon this was taken to an extreme with every major office in the country allocated to a different ethnic group under an informal “Lebanese compact” that went back to 1943. In Cyprus this overrepresentation of Turks among civil servants, the army, and the police led to a backlash among the majority Greeks, which led to the agreement being cancelled in 1963.17 One aspect of power-sharing is that it can lead to a freeze in intergroup relations within the society. This means that it is suitable for societies with no tradition of assimilation of minorities into the general culture, or in which the minority (ies) do(es) not wish to be assimilated. But it is not suitable for immigrant societies like Australia, France, or the United States with a long tradition of assimilating minorities into the general society.18 In the United States “affirmative action,” a mild informal consociational device, has led to a racial backlash among the white majority and a partial setback of assimilationist efforts. Affirmative action has resulted in greater opportunities for some middle-class blacks and Hispanics, but at the cost of hurting the assimilation of the groups as a whole. Affirmative action has been found to be more politically acceptable to the majority when it is discussed in terms of “goals” rather than quotas. Most whites see it as being a transitional device to assimilation of blacks into society

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following the end of enforced segregation in the South. The American example is complex because the United States has an excellent record of assimilating diverse ethnic groups within racial lines but a poor record across racial lines. Affirmative action may be used as an example for societies that wish to assimilate minority groups and where those groups want to be assimilated. The Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA) took the American civil rights movement as a model for Northern Ireland with disastrous consequences. The difference was that the American movement leaders were requesting to be assimilated by ending discrimination, whereas many in NICRA wanted to eliminate the society that discriminated against them.19 Depending upon the demographic reality in the country, arrangements might involve autonomy along territorial lines with a federal system as in Belgium or Switzerland. Belgium is divided into four ethnic areas: a Flemish area, a Frenchspeaking Walloons area, a tiny German area, and the federal capital of Brussels. Switzerland is organized along ethnic lines into cantons for German-speaking, French-speaking, and Italian-speaking Swiss.20 But for areas like Northern Ireland, which resemble a checkerboard of interconnecting segregated ethnic neighborhoods, not easily given to partition along ethnic lines, arrangements must be in terms of personal autonomy and group representation in parliament. Territorial arrangements would be suitable for Israel and Palestine, but not necessarily for Central and Eastern Europe.21 There is an alternative to consociational democracy known as integrative power-sharing. This is based on manipulation of franchise rules to cause different ethnic or ideological groups to pool their votes in a federal presidential system. It has primarily been tested in Nigeria, Sri Lanka, and the Indian state of Kerala. Integrative power-sharing relies more on incentives that reward moderate behavior than on constraints that prevent immoderate ethnic politics. Integrative power-sharing’s leading theorist is Donald Horowitz, an American political scientist who is critical of the consociational approach.22 Both consociational and integrative power-sharing advocate federal structures and territorial autonomy wherever practicable. But Horowitz and Lijphart differ over their classification of cases with the former being much more restrictive in his definition of consociationalism. Horowitz argues that Lebanon and Malaysia were actually examples of integrative power-sharing rather than consociationalism.23 Consociationalism is suitable for the Balkans, Slovakia, Romania, Ukraine, and the Baltic States. In Bosnia, politics takes place strictly upon ethnic lines; voters cast their ballots along ethnic lines for Bosniak (Muslim Slav), Croat, or Serb parties. Most Bosnians have even less real political choice than do the inhabitants of Northern Ireland who at least have two main confessional parties for each ethnic group and Alliance. Unless formal partition takes place between the Bosnian Federation and Republika Srpska, the existing federal structure will remain nonfunctional. The only hope for a real viable multiethnic state is in the form of a consociational democracy with very formal rigid structures. The

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Northern Ireland peace will be a good test case to determine if power-sharing can be a viable solution shortly after bitter ethnic conflict. Macedonia has a similar situation involving only two main ethnic groups: Macedonians (claimed as Bulgars and Serbs, by Bulgaria and Serbia, respectively) and Albanians. The Albanians are a more manageable minority at between a quarter and a third of the population. Unlike the Kosovar Albanians, the Macedonian Albanians claim that they are fighting for greater autonomy and rights within Macedonia rather than independence. Macedonia could introduce consociational democracy to the Balkans and serve as a model for Bosnia and Serbia. Serbia has large ethnic minorities in both of its formerly autonomous republics of Kosovo and Vojvodina. Presumably Kosovo will either remain an international protectorate for the foreseeable future or be partitioned from Yugoslavia. That will leave the Hungarians in Vojvodina and the Muslims in the Sanjak region between Montenegro and Serbia as the main ethnic minorities remaining in Serbia. Consociationalism involving some type of group rights or territorial autonomy for these groups will help to stabilize the country and guarantee democracy following the replacement of Slobadan Milosevic. Such measures are not likely to occur as long as Milosevic remains in power. Slovakia and Romania both have had problems with Hungarian minorities. The implementation of consociational measures will aid the integration of both countries into Europe by easing their membership into the European Union and NATO. Ethnic demagoguery as practiced by former communists like Milosevic and Franjo Tudjman of Croatia have kept former East bloc countries from joining the European Union. Ending ethnic conflict can pay dividends in terms of collective security, new markets, and economic aid. Such incentives are most convincing to countries on the short list for Union and/or NATO membership: Romania, Estonia, and Slovakia.

RULES Here is a list of rules or guidelines for liberal parties in settler colonies or deeply divided societies. They are arranged by category.

Expansion 1. Do not get out too far in front of your potential electorate in terms of policy. 2. Expand in urban areas, starting in the main city and gradually expand outward from existing areas. 3. Rely on the press for publicity, not on the electronic media. Develop innovative means of publicizing your policies on various issues. Do not assume that the press will automatically cover you. 4. Mobilize nationally in order to win in by-elections.

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5. Identify your potential electorate and establish a monopoly in it. 6. If possible, campaign for a proportional representation voting system. Among PR systems, choose PR–STV. 7. Have a single election manager responsible for determining strategic decisions as regards where to expend resources during general elections and to run by-election campaigns. 8. Use all government institutions as platforms for attacking the government’s policies, exposing the weakness of the settler opposition, and for publicizing one’s own policies. 9. Learn the needs of the press and accommodate them as far as is possible. This includes the foreign press and media. 10. If financially feasible, develop an internal newsletter or paper for members.

Conflict Policy and Negotiations 1. Establish ties with as many native/minority parties as possible and do not allow any single party to bully you into giving it a monopoly. 2. Seek both native and settler input when establishing your policies, but give no outside party a veto over policy. 3. If possible, conduct power-sharing experiments with the natives. Use their control of territory or institutions to carry this out. 4. Determine whether a partition or a power-sharing solution is most appropriate and work accordingly. If the latter, choose between consociational and integrative, the settler/majority public must be educated about consociational democracy. In either case, develop expertise on consociationalism and on other settler/ethnic conflicts and solutions. 5. Conduct meetings at home or abroad with banned native organizations if they are the true representatives of the native population, but highlight your differences with the natives on both ends and means. Initially these may be secret, but eventually they should be publicized if such conduct is legal. 6. Form contacts with the legal political wings of paramilitary organizations. 7. Recruit those with security expertise, preferably in the field of counterinsurgency warfare, as spokesmen on security matters. If possible, recruit high-ranking former officers. But make sure they support party policy and are liberals. 8. Serve as a bridge builder between natives and settlers during final negotiations. 9. Develop close ties with liberal parties in other settler or former settler colonies, deeply divided societies, etcetera.

CONCLUSION If the situation is ripe, that is, if the liberals have managed to convert the settlers and built bridges to the natives, then the liberals finally have a good chance of implementing their policies. But this requires first demonstrating pop-

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ular support at the polling booth. At this point they might be rendered irrelevant or simply have their policies co-opted by the other parties. But even if the conflict is resolved there is still the challenge of developing a liberal society and seeing their numerous other economic, social, and educational policies implemented. This is the challenge in Northern Ireland and South Africa. It may, hopefully, also soon be the challenge in Israel. Those liberal parties in Central and Eastern Europe are still in the early growth phase of their careers. They should study these rules as they can be as applicable to deeply divided societies in Europe as they have been for liberal parties in settler societies. They should establish direct relations with each other and with the parties covered in depth in this book. There is much that the Alliance Party, Meretz, or the Democratic Party could teach the liberals in Eastern Europe. The European liberals, after they have gained experience and success, can then in turn educate liberal parties in Latin America and East Asia.

NOTES 1. Marina Ottoway, South Africa: The Struggle for a New Order (Washington: The Brookings Institution, 1993), pp. 101–2. 2. Ibid.; and David Ottoway, Chained Together (New York: Times Books, 1993), op. cit., p. 211. 3. Democratic Party Web site (www.dp.org.za), op. cit., p. 3. 4. Alliance News, May 1998, pp. 6–7. Those other parties were Sinn Fein, the Progressive Unionist Party, and the Ulster Democratic Party; George J. Mitchell, Making Peace (New York: Alfred Knopf, 1999), p. 44. 5. Samuel Segev, Crossing the Jordan (New York: St. Martin’s, 1998), p. 207. 6. I. William Zartman and Maureen Berman, The Practical Negotiator (New Haven, CT: Yale University, 1982), pp. 52–62. Zartman discusses this concept in all of his works on conflict resolution. 7. Allister Sparks, Tomorrow is Another Country (New York: Hill and Wang, 1995), pp. 4–5. 8. The best short guide is Timothy D. Sisk, Power Sharing and International Mediation in Ethnic Conflicts (Washington, DC: U.S. Institute of Peace/Carnegie, 1996). Other suitable works are those by Lijphart and Slabbert and Welsh mentioned in earlier chapters in connections with the PFP. Sisk provides a full bibliography. Donald Horowitz, Ethnic Groups in Conflict (Berkeley: University of California, 1985), is a critique of consociationalism and an alternate form of power-sharing by manipulation of electoral rules rather than by the constitution. It has very few examples in practice. 9. See Adrian Guelke, “Dissecting the South African Miracle: African Parallels,” in Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, Vol. 2., No. 1, Spring 1996, pp. 142–45. Blacks vote for the ANC, Inkatha, and the Movement for Democratic Change; whites vote for the National Party and the Democratic Party. 10. Older, more conservative Arab voters tend to vote for Jewish parties—either Labor, Likud, or the National Religious Party. 11. Lijphart told the author this in a phone conversation in 1989 when challenged about his inclusion of Israel in a list of states with consociational democracy.

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12. Sisk, op. cit., pp. 15–16. 13. The voter knows that compromises will take place but cannot accurately predict how his vote will translate into actual policy outcomes. 14. Sisk, op. cit., p. 5. 15. In Israel, education is organized along ideological lines into three streams: general, labor (socialist), and religious. In South Africa, group rights are defined in terms of culture, religion, and language. In South Africa, most whites educate their children in private schools, following majority rule. 16. In the Indaba proposal, the majority party was given half of the seats; in Northern Ireland the executive was organized on strictly proportional lines. This may have been because, otherwise, Inkatha may have had up to 80 percent of the seats in the executive. 17. Frederick van Zyl Slabbert and David Welsh, South Africa’s Options: Strategies for Sharing Power (New York: St. Martin’s, 1979), pp. 72–73. 18. In the United States, consociationalism would be most suitable for American Indians that are lacking a territorial base in the form of a reservation, or for blacks who have historically encountered considerable obstacles to assimilation. 19. There were many parallels between the relationship of Northern Ireland to the UK and the South to the United States, but the republicans made the difference. If the Black Panthers or Nation of Islam had become a powerful current in the civil rights movement in the early sixties, the results might have been very different. 20. See Slabbert and Welsh, op. cit., pp. 50–62, for an in-depth discussion of the four European cases, and also Kevin Boyle and Tom Hadden, Northern Ireland: The Choice (London: Penguin, 1994), pp. 197–201, for an extensive discussion of the Belgian case. 21. The Crimea is an exception. 22. His main theoretical work is Horowitz, Ethnic Groups in Conflict (Berkeley: University of California, 1985). He also wrote A Democratic South Africa? Constitutional Engineering in a Divided Society (Berkeley: University of California, 1991). 23. Sisk, op. cit., pp. 5, 40–45, the table on p. 70, for a comparison of the two approaches.

Afterword

This book was researched in the summer of 1998 during a three month trip to Belfast and was written during late 1998 and early 1999, with the final chapter having been revised during 2000. This epilogue serves to bring the book up to date to late 2001. In 1999 the Democratic Party beat the New Nationalist Party to become the leading opposition party. This defeat caused the condition of the latter party to further deteriorate until it finally decided to enter into merger negotiations with the Democratic Party. In July 2000 the existence of a new party, the Democratic Alliance, was announced as a result of the merger of the two main existing opposition parties on the right. This was similar to what had occurred in 1987– 89 when the Democratic Party absorbed the remnants of the New Republic Party, first by forming an electoral pact with it in January 1987, and then by merging with the Independence Party of Denis Worrall. This unfortunately has been the only unqualified success story of the three liberal parties since 1998. In late October 2001, however, the breakup of the new party was announced due to friction between the deputy leader—the former leader of the New National Party—and the party leader. The New National Party had still not adjusted to the prospect of being in permanent, vigorous opposition. The Democratic Party and its predecessors had forty years to get used to the idea. In May 1999 Knesset elections in Israel resulted in Meretz forming part of a grand coalition led by former Chief of Staff Ehud Barak. Barak was a prote´ge´ of Rabin and copied his mentor’s leadership style. This meant that, in practice, he relied on only a handful of former senior military officers, with whom he had come up through the ranks, in order to formulate and execute policy. This

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left Meretz out in the cold with little influence. When Barak went to Camp David in July 2000 for the summit with Chairman Yasir Arafat and President Clinton, he was accompanied by Labor Party ministers and Dan Meridor and David Levy, ministers from the Center Party and Gesher who were former Likud ministers. Barak did, however, implement a Meretz territorial policy in practice. He offered to divide Jerusalem with the Palestinians and let them have control of the Arab neighborhoods and 90 percent of the West Bank. Arafat and the PLO rejected the Israeli offer on three grounds. First, they demanded a return to the pre–June 1967 lines: Second, they wanted sovereignty over the Temple Mount or Noble Sanctuary in Jerusalem. Third, they wanted an unlimited right of return for refugees from 1948 to Israel. Eventually, in response to American bridging proposals in December 2000, Israel agreed to a virtual return of all of the occupied territories to the Arabs (or compensation with an equal amount of Israeli territory), with the exception of parts of Jerusalem. Israel would probably have acquiesced in Palestinian sovereignty over the top of the Temple Mount in exchange for sovereignty over the Western Wall and acknowledgement of the historical connection of Jews to the Temple Mount—which the Palestinians insisted on denying. But Meretz joined with all the other Zionist parties in opposing any blanket right of return for Palestinians to Israel. This demand was interpreted by nearly all Israelis as Arafat failing to modify his own demands or his final goal of eliminating Israel. Arafat and the PLO had effectively discredited themselves with the Israeli parliamentary left. In late September 2000 a new Intifada broke out following a visit by opposition leader Ariel Sharon to the Temple Mount accompanied by a thousandman police escort. Arafat had been inciting violence through the electronic media for months in possible preparation for a unilateral declaration of independence for a Palestinian state. Palestinians rioted and soon a new Al-Aksa Intifada began that lasted through the final months of the Barak government. In February 2001 Sharon buried Barak in the first ever one-on-one prime minister’s election without accompanying Knesset elections. Sharon formed a government of national unity with Shimon Peres as foreign minister and a Labor defense minister. Israel implemented an aggressive policy of responding to Palestinian actions and started assassinating Palestinian military and terrorist figures. Meretz remained in opposition, as had its component parties in the 1984– 90 period. Peres had limited effect on government policy and Meretz had none. Another serious attempt at Israeli-Palestinian peace will probably have to await the death of Arafat, when he will be replaced by one of the senior Palestinian negotiators from the Oslo period, most likely Abu Ala or Abu Mazen. In order for there to be peace in the Middle East three factors are necessary. First, an Israeli government of the center-left that is strong enough to make the painful concessions necessary for peace. Second, a Palestinian leadership interested in pursuing peace and doing so unambiguously. Third, an activist American administration that is unafraid of becoming involved in the many details of the negotiating effort. All three of these conditions must coincide—that is

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they must occur simultaneously or in sequence. The first condition occurred only twice in Israeli history: in 1993 to 1995 and in 1999 to 2000. The second possibly occurred only in 1993 to 1996. The third occurred only in 1977 to 1980, and in 1999 to 2000. The Bush Administration appears unlikely to be ready to vigorously pursue the peace process until after the end of its new war on terrorism, if at all. That means that a third chance for Israeli-Palestinian peace awaits a second Bush Administration or a new Democratic president. The peace process in Northern Ireland has been in crisis for nearly the entire three years since the Good Friday Agreement. Alliance has had very little input into the process and no influence on the actions of the four major parties. The major issue has been a battle between the Ulster Unionists and Sinn Fein over decommissioning. The UUP refused to nominate ministers to the executive in July 1999, leading to a formal review of the Agreement in the autumn of 1999 presided over by Senator George Mitchell, who had mediated the Agreement the previous year. This review led to the formation of an executive in December 1999 that remained in place for about three months. Northern Ireland Minister Peter Mandelson was forced to suspend the Assembly until May 2000 when a deal was finally reached between the Ulster Unionists and Sinn Fein. The Republicans agreed to allow inspections of two of their arms dumps by agreed international figures (from Finland and South Africa) and the Ulster Unionists gave them one year to begin turning over actual weapons for destruction. The Assembly was in place and functioning, but First Minister David Trimble banned Sinn Fein ministers from participating in North-South meetings with their Irish colleagues until actual decommissioning had begun. This action was later ruled illegal by the courts. Elections for the Westminster parliament and local government were held simultaneously in late May 2001. Alliance limited its participation in the former to a handful of races so that its voters could vote for pro-agreement SDLP and UUP candidates. For the first time in history, Sinn Fein surpassed the SDLP in both elections and became, at least temporarily, the largest nationalist party. The Ulster Unionists remained the largest unionist party but the Democratic Unionist Party made impressive gains. Many of the UUP candidates that were successful in the parliamentary elections were anti-agreement. Alliance found its share in the local elections to be a measly five percent of the vote—down from 14.4 percent in 1974 and from 6.5 percent in the Assembly and Forum elections. If Alliance remains at five percent or dips below, it will be too small to have significant input into the policy debate in the Assembly and on renegotiating the Good Friday Agreement. Its only real source of expansion is the pool of nonvoters who voted in the May 1998 referendum in support of the Good Friday Agreement. Alliance has to convince them that elections are not merely tribal head counts, but that they provide a genuine alternative with the possibility of implementing change. It must do what it did in 1970–73 if it is to survive as a viable party. On July 1, 2001, Trimble resigned as first minister in fulfillment of a pledge

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to do so if no decommissioning had occurred. This resignation sent a second review process into effect with negotiations involving the two prime ministers and all of the parties in the Assembly. Alliance participated, as did the Progressive Unionist Party (PUP) and the Women’s Coalition. But its leaders received even less media attention than the women. Rioting began in North Belfast in mid-June 2001 that soon became the most serious since 1981. The riots centered on a dispute at the interface of a loyalist neighborhood and the Catholic Ardoyne district. The DUP accused the Republicans of instigating the rioting, and the Republicans accused the loyalists. The Ulster Defence Association had been almost openly violating its ceasefire since the summer of 2000. In August 2001 three Republicans were arrested in Colombia for having been in the autonomous guerrilla zone of the FARC rebels. Two of the three had IRA terrorist records and had served in prison. The third was claimed by Cuba to be Sinn Fein’s representative to Havana. This caused serious difficulties for Sinn Fein both in America and in Northern Ireland. The SDLP then felt free to announce its participation on the policing board, putting some clear distance between itself and the Republicans. The IRA withdrew its offer, made at the beginning of August, to put its arms beyond use. The terrorist attacks in New York and Washington on September 11, 2001, compelled the IRA to begin talking about putting its arms “beyond use” once more. If decommissioning finally occurs, it will be because of international (primarily American) pressure, and not because of unionist or Alliance input. In October, following the failure of a unionist motion to exclude the Sinn Fein ministers from the executive when the SDLP voted against it, Trimble announced that the UUP ministers would resign from the executive within two weeks unless Sinn Fein began to decommission. Before the deadline was reached, Northern Ireland Minister John Reid announced that the Northern Ireland Office no longer recognized the UDA or the Loyalist Volunteer Force as being on ceasefire because of the UDA’s continued participation in the North Belfast riots and the murder of journalist Martin O’Hagan by the LVF. Two days before the collapse of the government, Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams made a dramatic announcement that the IRA had agreed to decommission its weapons. He also admitted that one of the three Irishmen arrested in Colombia in August was the party’s representative to Cuba, claiming that he had not known this in the past. The denial rung hollow but was ignored in the jubilation over decommissioning. By Thursday—the day the executive was set to collapse—the first stage of decommissioning had already occurred. Britain reciprocated by removing two of the watchtowers along the border with the Republic. On Saturday the UUP’s executive reelected David Trimble as leader. However, two renegade UUP assembly members, Peter Weir and Pauline Armitage, still opposed his reinstatement as first minister, so Trimble lacked the majority needed to win reinstatement. This required a slight-of-hand, as when Seamus Mallon was allowed back in 1999, by having the members of the Women’s Coalition and Alliance redesignate themselves as unionists. Initially

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Alliance refused to designate with leader David Ford, declaring that his party “would not be dressing up for Halloween.” The Women’s Coalition redesignated its two members—one as a nationalist and one as a unionist. But because both Armitage and Weir voted no, Trimble and Durkan lacked the support to be voted in as first minister and deputy first minister. Alliance consulted with Northern Ireland Minister John Reid and agreed to redesignate three of its members as unionists for a twenty-four hour period for the purpose of a second vote, in exchange for Reid promising to address the voting system in a review of the Good Friday Agreement. Trimble was reelected first minister thanks to the support of three Alliance members and one WC member in drag. The DUP was quick to denounce this as chicanery, but was also quick to take their seats in the executive. The DUP also took Minister Reid to court for not calling for new elections, but the judge sustained the minister. Unionists had woken up to the dangers of the voting system. There is now considerable support for a weighted voting system that simply requires a set percentage of all MLAs to vote in favor of a measure for it to pass. Alliance faces the danger that both the SDLP and UUP will attempt to strip away all of its supporters in order to secure their own pro-agreement wings visa´-vis intraethnic pressures from the DUP and Sinn Fein. Trimble needs the support of moderates in order to survive as leader of the UUP. While he cannot benefit directly from former Alliance voters in the Ulster Unionist Council, their support in elections does help his cause in Council votes. The same process is occurring with the SDLP’s struggle to remain the largest nationalist party. The SDLP has very little support among young working class voters. Its electorate is increasingly older and middle class. It can balance Sinn Fein’s first time voters with new voters from Alliance. The danger with this approach is that Alliance could find itself stripped of its voters and only slightly more robust than the Women’s Coalition or the PUP. While the SDLP and Trimble’s wing of the UUP are both pro-agreement, they are also sectarian. If the nonsectarian vision is to remain viable, Alliance must remain viable. The Women’s Coalition has almost no infrastructure or representation at the local level and is not in a position to replace Alliance. Alliance must be prepared to function in an era when Trimble is no longer leader of the UUP, and the leader comes from the anti-agreement wing. Proagreement veteran moderates like Ken Maginnis and John Taylor have retired to the House of Lords. This leaves the younger party leaders, like Jeffrey Donaldson and David Burnside, who are mostly anti-agreement. The peace process and Good Friday Agreement have been as nearly discredited among unionists as the Oslo Process has been among ordinary Israelis.

Bibliographic Essay

SOUTHERN AFRICA There is one book on Rhodesian liberals that tells everything that anyone would want to know on the subject. This is Ian Hancock’s White Liberals, Moderates and Radicals in Rhodesia 1953–80 (Oxford University, 1984). For those wishing only a summary of the highlights, Peter Godwin and Ian Hancock’s Rhodesians Never Die (Oxford: Oxford University, 1993) is a handy source. On South Africa’s Liberal Party there are several good sources. Pierre L. Van den Berghe edited a thin work, The Liberal Dilemma in South Africa (New York: St. Martin’s, 1979), that includes an essay by the author dealing with the Liberal Party. Douglas Irvine has a very good essay on the party in the book edited by Jeffrey Butler, Richard Elphick, and David Welsh, Democratic Liberalism in South Africa: Its History and Prospects (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University, 1987). Alan Paton published the second volume of his memoirs, the portion covering the time when the Liberal Party was in existence in Britain in 1985 or 1986; unfortunately this author does not know the publisher. There is an abundance of sources on the Progressive Federal Party (PFP), mainly because unlike the Liberal Party or its Rhodesian counterparts, journalists considered it to be a real player in South African politics during the 1980s. Heribert Adam and Kogila Moodley include a discussion of the PFP in their book, South Africa Without Apartheid: Dismantling Racial Domination (Berkeley: University of California, 1986). David Welsh has a good essay on the party’s policies and those of the NRP in D. J. van Vuuren et al., eds., South African Election 1987 (Pinetown, RSA: Owen Burgess, 1987). A less extensive

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discussion of the party in the early 1990s is found in Robert Schrire’s Adapt or Die: The End of White Politics in South Africa (New York: Ford Foundation, 1991). T.R.H. Davenport’s South Africa: A Modern History, 3rd Edition (Toronto: University of Toronto, 1987), contains a useful appendix of party representation in the South African parliament in the twentieth century. For a sympathetic biography of Buthelezi, see Jack Shepherd Smith’s Buthelezi: The Biography (Melville, RSA: Hans Strydom, 1988). There are unsympathetic biographies by the ANC’s Mzala and Marxist academics Gerry Mare and Georgina Hamilton, but both predate the Indaba. The best detailed discussions of the Indaba are found in the special Indaba editions of Indicator SA and Leadership SA published in October and April 1987, respectively. There is also an extensive literature on the party by prominent members. The most important memoir is probably Helen Suzman’s In No Uncertain Terms: A South African Memoir (New York: Alfred Knopf, 1993). Also of importance is Ray Swart’s memoir, Progressive Odyssey (Cape Town: Human & Rosseau, 1991). This is important because it corrects Suzman’s omission of any discussion of the KwaZulu–Natal Indaba. Lastly, there is Frederik van Zyl Slabbert’s The Last White Parliament (Johannesburg: Jonathan Ball/Hans Strydom, 1985); this contains a lengthy discussion of the PFP’s attitude towards the tricameral parliament. Another book by Slabbert, co-authored with David Welsh, South Africa’s Options: Strategies for Sharing Power (New York: St. Martin’s, 1979), discusses consociationalism and its application to South Africa. Arend Lijphart’s Power-Sharing in South Africa (Berkeley: University of California, 1985) repeats much of this same discussion and updates it by an inclusion of the Buthelezi Commission. Clem Sunter’s The World and South Africa in the 1990s (Cape Town: Human & Rousseau, 1987) is a written version of the presentation that he gave to business groups and government officials in the mid-1980s. NORTHERN IRELAND The first detailed discussion of the Alliance Party in book form is to be found in the author’s Native vs. Settler (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2000). This book also contains chapters dealing with the unionists, the SDLP, and Sinn Fein, comparing them to their South African and Israeli or Palestinian counterparts. It repeats, in a condensed version, what is found in these pages. For a good analysis of the election performance of Alliance, see the series of books published by Blackstaff Press and edited by Sidney Elliot and F. J. Smith after each major set of elections. Prior to that, only two books discussed the party other than in passim. Padraig O’Malley’s The Uncivil Wars: Ireland Today (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1983) devotes three pages to the party compared to separate chapters on all of the major Northern and Southern Irish parties. This was published before the New Ireland Forum and the elections to the Convention. A second updated edition was published in the mid-1990s with a long introduction that brings the book

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up to the beginning of the negotiations. Michael Connolly’s Politics and Policy Making in Northern Ireland (New York: Philip Allan, 1990) devotes approximately one page to the APNI. But both of these books are good discussions of the political milieu in which the party operates. For a good discussion in dissertation form, see Erwann Bodilis, The Alliance Party of Northern Ireland 1970–93: Twenty-three Years of Combat for Peace and Progress (France: Universite´ de Bretagne Occidentale MA Thesis, 1994). When the author was doing research in Belfast in 1998, an Alliance member, John Harbinson, told him that he was planning on writing a history of the party. For a short inside history of the party, see John Cushnahan, The History and Development of the Alliance Party: A Centre Party of Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland (Belfast: APNI, April 1979). ISRAEL There has been very little published on Meretz in English. Shulamit Aloni published her memoirs in Hebrew in the late 1990s, but they have yet to appear in English. What little has been published in book form is found in the essays in the series of Israel at the Polls books edited by Daniel Elazar and Shmuel Sandler and published by Wayne State University Press in Detroit starting in 1992. Ashler Arian also has a good discussion of the 1992 and 1996 elections in Ashler Ariah, The Second Republic: Politics in Israel (Chatham, NJ: Chatham House, 1998). For a good background on Meretz’s constituent parties, see Susan Hatlis–Rolef, ed., Political Dictionary of the State of Israel (New York: Macmillan, 1988).

Index

Adams, Gerry, 117 African National Congress (ANC), 5, 7, 18, 55–56, 60, 118, 126, 128 African Resistance Movement, 7 Alderdice, David, 74 Alderdice, John, 10, 67–72 Alliance Party, 31, 118, 122–23, 125, 126– 27; election results, 37–41; growth, 35– 36; ideology, 36, 72–73; leadership, 65– 72; and New Ireland Forum, 66; origins, 35; and peace negotiations, 126–28; policies, 72–77; powersharing, 73–75; and Sunningdale, 65– 66, 73, 90–91 Allon Plan, 13 Aloni, Shulamit, 12–13, 77–80 Arafat, Yasir, 101, 117, 130, 142 Azanian People’s Organisation (AZAPO), 99 Barak, Ehud, 141–42 Bashford, Pat, 8 Begin, Menahem, 13, 112, 113–15 Belfast, 35–40, 74 Belfast City Council (BCC), 74–75 Blackburn, Molly, 27, 55

Borkum, Max, 18, 21 Botha, Pieter Willem (P.W.), 31, 63, 125 Brown, Peter, 6–7 Buthelezi Commission, 24, 53, 92 Buthelezi, Mangosuthu Gatsha, 20, 53, 92– 101 Cape Town, 19–20, 23, 24, 28–29, 58, 100 Carrickfergus, 36, 39, 72 Centre Party (CP), 8–9 Citizen’s Rights Movement (CRM), 12– 13 Contact, 7 Conservative Party (South African), 58, 106–7 Cook, David, 74 Cooper, Robert, 34–35, 64 Craig, William, 110 Cushnahan, John, 66–67, 72 Dayan Plan, 14 De Beer, Zach, 10, 21, 51, 63–64 De Klerk, Frederik Willem (F.W.), 31–33 De Klerk, Willem, 30, 32 Democratic Party, 21, 29–34, 126, 141;

152 growth, 33–34; merger with National Party, 141; origins, 29–30; policies, 31, 60–61 Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), 109– 10, 111, 119 Derry, 11, 35 Dublin, 91 Duncan, Patrick, 6–8 Eglin, Colin, 19, 62–63 Elections, 18, 19–20, 21, 27–29, 37–41; assembly elections, 37–38; byelections, 22, 25–27, 75; council elections, 39 Fatah, 117 Faulkner, Brian, 89–92, 109–10 Gush, Emunim, 92 Herut, 113–14 Hirsch, Morris, 8, 9, 10 Herstigte Nasional Party (HNP), 21, 58, 106–7 Hume, John, 37, 90, 130 Hunger strike, 36, 39 Institute for a Democratic Alternative for South Africa (IDASA), 58 Indaba (KwaZulu/Natal), 92–100 Independent Liberals, 11–12 Independent Party (South Africa), 29–30, 141 Inkatha, 55, 92–100; relations with PFP, 55–56 Internal Settlements, 87–102; motives behind, 88–89; in Northern Ireland, 89– 92; in South Africa, 92–101; types of, 87–88 Irish Republican Army (IRA), 92, 117– 18, 129 Israel, 5, 11–14, 42–44, 50, 77–83, 112– 16, 120–22, 125 Jabotinsky, Vladimir “Ze’ev,” 112–13 Johannesburg, 19–29, 30, 55, 56, 58, 64 KwaZulu, 20, 92–100, 102

Index Labor Party (Israeli), 2, 12–14, 112, 113, 114, 117, 119, 120, 122, 127, 130 Leon, Tony, 10, 62, 64 Liberal Party (Israeli), 114 Liberal Party (South African), 5–8 Liberal parties, 1–5,17, 49–50, 117–20; conclusions, 137–38; failures, 4–14; media use of, 17; ripeness for success, 4–5; rules for, 136–37 Lijphart, Arend, 51–52, 131–34 Likud, 114–16, 117, 120, 121, 122, Malan, Wynand, 27, 29–30 Mandela, Nelson, 56 Mapam, 42 Mass Democratic Movement (MDM), 32 McGuinness, Martin, 117 McNally, Nick, 8, 10 Meretz, 13, 42–43, 77–83; leadership, 78– 80; origins, 42–43; policies, 43, 77–78, 80–82, 118, 121, 122, 123, 132, 141– 42 Molteno Plan, 50–51 Napier, Oliver, 10, 64–66 Natal, 6, 21, 23, 25, 27, 28, 29, 53, 55– 57, 58, 59, 61, 62, 92–101, 107 National Council, 100–101 National liberation movements, 29–30 National Party, 2, 6, 7, 17, 18, 20, 22, 25– 27, 29, 31–34, 53–54, 57–58, 63, 64, 96, 98, 100, 106–7 National Religious Party, 116 National Unifying Force, 10 Neeson, Sean, 72 Netanyahu, Benyamin, 115–16 New Republic Party, 21–28, 57, 92, 94, 96, 98, 107 New Ulster Movement (NUM), 34 North Down, 39, 75 Northern Ireland, 5, 34–42, 50, 64–77, 89– 92, 109–11, 125 Official Unionist Party. See Ulster Unionist Party O’Neill, Phelim, 35, 68 O’Neill, Terence, 35, 109

Index Paisley, Ian, 37, 121 Palestinians, 12–14, 43, 78–79, 80–81, 102, 116, 118, 122–23 Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), 13, 14, 81, 131 Paton, Alan, 6–7 Peace Now, 13 Peres, Shimon, 13, 122, 127, 130 Progressive Federal Party (PFP), 2, 21– 24, 36, 51–64, 93–94; and Buthelezi, 93; and Indaba, 93–94; leadership, 62– 64; origins, 21–22; policies, 51–61; and strategy, 22–24 Progressive Unionist Party (PUP), 7, 18– 20, 50–51, 62–63; leadership, 62–63; origins, 18–19; policies, 19–20, 50–51 Progressive Reform Party (PRP), 20–21 Rabin, Yitzhak, 77, 78, 79, 83, 127 Ratz, 13, 42 Real IRA, 91 Reform Party, 20–21 Republican Sinn Fein, 117 Rhodesia, 5, 8–10, 88–89, 107–9 Rhodesia Action Party (RAP), 108–9 Rhodesia Party (RP), 9–10 Ross, Neil, 21 Sarid, Yossi, 13, 77–80 Savory, Alan, 9 Schwartz, Harry, 19–20 Settler colonies, 1–2 Settler politics, 105–18 Settlers, 1–2, 17, 87–88, 105–18 Sinn Fein, 37, 40–41, 129, 130 Shamir, Yitzhak, 114–15 Sheli, 12

153 Shinui, 13, 42, 43 Slabbert, Frederik van Zyl, 10, 19–20, 25– 27, 56, 58, 125 Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP), 36–37, 38, 40–41, 125 South Africa, 2, 4–8, 18–34, 50–64, 92– 101, 105–7, 125 South Africa Defence Force (SADF), 19 Stormont, 2, 35, 37 Suzman, Helen, 2, 18–19, 51, 61 Swart, Ray, 21, 25, 27 Tambo, Oliver, 34 Tehiya, 115–16 Terrorism, 91–92, 117, 122 Trimble, David, 111, 129 Ulster Liberal Party, 10–11 Ulster Unionist Party (UUP), 34, 35, 36, 38, 111, 118–19, 125 Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), 91 United Democratic Front (UDF), 29, 30– 31, 55–56, 99 United Party of Northern Ireland (UPNI), 7, 18–21, 107 Vanguard Party, 89, 110 West Bank, 13–14, 114–16, 122 West Belfast, 11, 35 Women’s Coalition, 36, 145 Worrall, Denis, 20, 27–30, 141 Zionism, 5, 121–22, 123 Zucker, Dedi, 13, 78 Zulus, 95–96

About the Author THOMAS G. MITCHELL is an independent researcher. He is the author of Native vs. Settler: Ethnic Conflicts in Israel/Palestine, Northern Ireland, and South Africa (Greenwood, 2000). Born in the United States, he was educated in Israel, lived briefly in Rhodesia, and conducted research in Northern Ireland and South Africa. His doctoral dissertation was on international settlements in South African settler societies.