Foreword

Klaus Baron von der Ropp is not only a good personal friend of mine, but someone who shares a passion for the future of South Africa as if he were born and bred here like myself. This emotional attachment is accompanied by an incisive intellectual interest as well as an extensive network of contacts on the dynamics of transition in South Africa.

Although often marginalized by his colleagues in former West Germany for not being as politically correct in terms of the prevailing ideological passions on South Africa, current developments have vindicated some of the critical issues which he raised over the years with persistent regularity on South Africa. Such as:

• foreign policy based on the assumption that a successful revolution against the former minority regime was possible, was hopelessly misguided;
• negotiations and compromise was the only way in which the conflict could be ameliorated or resolved;
• negotiations would have to address the fears of the white minority in order to succeed
• the Afrikaners as the dominant part of the white minority should not be under estimated, particularly the wish for some form of territorial exclusion, however unrealistic.

His vindication lies in fact that throughout the process of negotiations that started on 2nd February 1990, the ANC, and in particular, Nelson Mandela, took each one of these insights as a central point of departure in their negotiations with the De Klerk government. There is no doubt that having done so, the ANC and Mandela averted a certain considerable loss of life and bloodshed in South Africa.

The author has an intimate knowledge of the South African political landscape. He knows and regularly converses with key political figures across the political spectrum from the ultra-right to the ultra-left - during his many visits to South Africa in the last thirty years. He was also - as a member of my own delegation - present during the historic Dakar Conference in July, 1987 between progressive Afrikaners and the leadership of the ANC. The author has made a point of not only attending as many important seminars/conferences/meetings as he could on the future of South Africa, but getting the documentation on them if he could not. Maybe his own origin as a member of the resettled small German-Baltic minority in Latvia enables him to often go his own way in looking at us. In short, even if the reader does not accept his conclusions, or even his remedies, one should not underestimate that Klaus Baron von der Ropp knows what he is talking about on South Africa.

Knowing our recent history, the author is able to give a refreshing insight into the "miracle" of our successful elections in April, 1994, as well as the most recent

negotiations taking place between Nelson Mandela and Constand Viljoen. In brief: By describing and analysing South Africa's most recent past, Baron Ropp identifies for the readers, some of the key challenges the democratic government of the new South Africa will have to meet. Hopefully this will be read also by those in re-united Germany who formulate this country's policy on Southern Africa. For Germany has a critical role to play in building up a future of hope for all the inhabitants of the Southern African sub-continent.

Van Zyl Slabbert