The most crucial task, Mandela wrote, ‘was reconciling the demand for majority rule in a unitary state with the concern of white South Africa over this demand, as well as the insistence of whites on structural guarantees that majority rule will not mean domination of the white minority by blacks.’ Reconciling these matters through negotiation was needed to break a ‘deadlock’, a situation in which neither side had the means to prevail by force of arms (see Chapter 1). 107 That document drew on insight into the government’s thinking gained from the secret meetings with a government working group 108 on discussions with his fellow prisoners from Pollsmoor and consultations with the ANC leadership in exile. The possibility was there in broad and vague outline in the document Mandela sent to President PW Botha in March 1989. In his Treason Trial testimony in 1960 Mandela acknowledged a phased transition to democracy as something that could be contemplated. Although it took hard negotiation and intense debate for the ANC to accept the idea of a Government of National Unity, something like it was envisaged early on.
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