After backing the ANC's perspective on the question of ending apartheid through negotiations, the biggest and most representative gathering of anti-apartheid organisations in South Africa's history decided that the conditions for genuine negotiations did not yet exist. The conference, held in December last year, called for preparations for action on several fronts.
At the Conference for a Democratic Future on the weekend of 9-10 December over 4,600 delegates, representing more than 2,100 organisations with an estimated 15 million supporters, met to discuss a programme to intensify the struggle against apartheid and to bring greater unity to that struggle. The framework for the discussions was set by an agenda which had as its first issue 'the question of political power'.
The conference adopted the Harare Declaration of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), dating from August last year. The declaration, drawing strongly on the ANC's formulations, sets out guidelines for the process of genuine negotiations in South Africa. It makes clear that negotiations cannot occur without the necessary climate first being created by the lifting of all restrictions on political activity. It foresees negotiations between the regime and 'the liberation movement' to bring about a suspension of hostilities, followed by negotiations over the basis of a new constitution and a mechanism for drawing up the constitution. Negotiations would also cover the formation of an interim government to supervise the drawing up of the constitution and the transition to a democratic order.
Only a small minority of delegates, from black consciousness organisations, did not support the adoption of the Harare Declaration, saying they needed to discuss the issue further with the organisations they represented.
Noting that the regime's 'strategic objective remains that of reshaping apartheid' rather than abolishing it, the conference declared that the basis and climate for genuine negotiations did not yet exist. It proceeded to discuss how organisations could act 'to galvanise every section of our society — black and white — into united action against apartheid'.
The programme covered every aspect of life under apartheid, noting the achievements of the continuing campaign of mass defiance and formulating calls for further campaigns and action.
A week after the CDF, the National Education Crisis Committee (NECC) held a national conference which called for a 'Back-to-School Campaign'. This was in line with the CDF's call to defy the authorities' decision to exclude tens of thousands of black pupils from schools. In January, after the release of the final examination results in African schools showed that more than half of those who wrote had been failed, a crisis 'education summit' was held in Soweto and an interim committee elected to launch the 'Back-to-School Campaign', and to link up with the NECC and other mass-based organisations.
The CDF also called for support for the trade union campaign against the restrictive Labour Relations Amendment Act (LRAA). In December, shortly before the conference, the trade union national anti-LRAA campaign co-ordinating committee decided to continue and intensify the campaign against the act which had involved overtime bans, protest marches and a month-long consumer boycott during 1989.
The call for adequate housing and for affordable rents and service charges featured in a number of the CDF resolutions, reflecting growing activity by civic organisations in the climate created by the mass defiance campaign. Just before the conference, Transvaal civic organisations resolved to continue the rent boycott which had been in force in some areas since 1984, and to revive it in other areas. In January community organisations stepped up campaigns in the Eastern Cape against deteriorating conditions in townships, evictions and corrupt councillors.
