The spymaster and the white homeland

REVISIONISM

The spymaster and the white homeland

FANIE CLOETE, emeritus professor and head of political planning during PW Botha's regime, objects to the hero worship of Niël Barnard, head of national intelligence in the late apartheid years, who passed away this week.

Image: CELESTE THERON

IN the age of increasing disinformation, it is necessary to put the astonishing half-truths that have been released about Niël Barnard these last few days in more accurate perspective for historical record purposes. 

The Encyclopedia Britannica describes revisionism as “ideas and beliefs that differ from accepted ideas and beliefs and attempt to change them, especially in a way that is considered wrong or dishonest”. It therefore amounts to an attempt to try to reinterpret and rewrite history through questionable methods.

The tribute of Jan-Jan Joubert and Johan Mostert (Die Burger, January 14, 2025) to Barnard after his death the previous day, has now put this propagandistic tactic of disinformation back into the spotlight.

Deliberate half-truths

The authors summarise many positive aspects of Barnard's personality and results of his role in the political transition process from apartheid to our current democratic dispensation. However, they ignore several more negative aspects of his complex personality and legacy of which they should be well aware.

Their assessment involves deliberate half-truths and therefore is disinformation which amounts to revisionism. I expected better from Jan-Jan and Johan.

However, the content of this revisionist tribute is entirely consistent with Barnard's own efforts to present his legacy in a much more positive light than it actually was.

In his two books about his role as spymaster and political negotiator, Barnard considers himself and his team of intelligence operators to be the most important driving forces and influencers of the political transition to democracy in the country. He is extremely critical, condescending and dismissive of all other players in this process, including ministers, senior officials and other mediators who were involved.

He creates the egotistical impression that he was the only person who really knew what to do and that all other contributions were superficial and inferior and actually only made his and his team's work more difficult.

However, the facts show the opposite. While Barnard's legacy is now under the spotlight, and with all due respect to the departed, it is therefore necessary to paint the full picture in order to reflect a more accurate image of the man and his actions.

The vast majority of reviews of his first book in 2015 contained scathing comments on him and his claims.

His second book was written in the same controversial tone and style.  Like others, Pik Botha was furious at what Barnard had said about him, while FW de Klerk was just as angry because Barnard's conversations with Nelson Mandela as a detainee were initially done with Kobie Coetsee, but soon took place with only Barnard without any other political presence or guidance.

Roelf Meyer has just confirmed in an interview on Litnet that Barnard's claims that he alone played the decisive role in the political negotiations are nonsense. 

Barnard, according to his own admission, did not even keep PW Botha fully informed of his discussions, and had no political mandate to do so. Chris Heunis, whose portfolio included political negotiation, only became aware of Barnard's so-called exploratory discussions at a late stage. However, Barnard and Coetsee deliberately kept him away from those discussions and from the progress with them.

Mandela's requests to speak with Pik and PW were simply ignored, and the ultimate meeting between him and PW was a mere symbolic formality.

Barnard determinedly tried to maintain personal control over access to and interaction with Mandela. His paranoia that he might lose control over his grip on Mandela also led to the discrediting of Heunis and some of his senior officials in the then department of political development which was tasked with the promotion and planning of the political transformation process.

On the receiving end

I was also on the receiving end of his hidden agendas and tactics. So I directly experienced how his manipulations were planned and worked. 

Barnard persuaded PW, who was already intellectually weakened after his first stroke, to this campaign of discrediting because Heunis and some of his officials were said to have violated the NP's prohibition on personal contact with black liberation organisations. However, he and Coetsee were already working on it secretly without a political mandate. PW agreed to discredit Heunis and his officials by cancelling us officials' top-secret security clearances.

PW approved this because he did not agree with Heunis and his officials' accelerated transformation proposals, and wanted to replace Heunis with the more politically conservative Gerrit Viljoen.

Barnard offered ideological resistance to black majority political rule until late in he day and even tried to insert white self-government in a homeland for white people into the final constitution. Eventually, however, he was persuaded by his chief director of political negotiation support, Joh van Tonder, that this was not feasible.  

These and other facts that put Barnard's role and actions in a more balanced perspective must therefore be read together with Joubert and Mostert's one-sided focus on what they consider to be the positive aspects of his legacy.

Unfortunately, Barnard and his supporters' attempts at revisionism will be unsuccessful.

VWB


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