Whisky and braai cleared path to peace in Angola
Brazzaville honours key figures in the clandestine talks that ended SA's Namibian border war
Only once. That is how many times a white South African had been honoured for bringing about peace: FW de Klerk shared the Nobel peace prize with Nelson Mandela.
Until Tuesday.
Congolese President Denis Sassou N'G uesso hosted a world-class event in Brazzaville to honour the combined role of white South Africans, Cubans and Angolans in bringing peace to Southern Africa 26 years ago.
Speakers and delegates included President Jacob Zuma, Catherine Samba-Panza, the first female president of the beleaguered Central African Republic, Martti Ahtisaari, former president of Finland, 2008 Nobel peace laureate, special UN envoy to the Great Lakes region and former Irish president Mary Robinson, former ANC treasurer Mathews Phosa and Jean-Yves Ollivier, French businessman and intelligence middleman.
Ollivier, an Algerian-born commodities trader with a formidable network of global contacts that included presidents, ministers and intelligence personnel, played a key role behind the scenes in brokering a series of meetings culminating in the signing of the Brazzaville Protocol in 1988.
It ended South Africa and Cuba's involvement in the Angolan war.
Ollivier initially brokered a meeting in 1986 between PW Botha and French president Jacques Chirac. But Chirac cancelled the meeting at the last minute when a furious N'Guesso, a fiercely pro-ANC leader who headed the Organisation for African Unity, threatened to boycott an upcoming Franco-African summit.
Ollivier said he decided to persuade N'Guesso personally to facilitate negotiations between Angola, Cuba and South Africa to end the war.
This led to a meeting between the Congolese president and the then US assistant secretary of state for African Affairs, Chester Crocker, and Angolan interior minister Kito Rodrigues, in April 1987 to discuss a future peace deal with US mediation.
He also set about bringing together key players behind the scenes in a series of secret and informal meetings. One of the first was held on a game farm near Hotazel in the Kalahari Desert in 1986.
Ollivier, then-foreign affairs minister Pik Botha, Mozambican cooperation minister Jocinto Veloso, Angolan interior minister Rodrigues and influential French diplomat Jean-Christophe Mitterrand, the son of François Mitterrand, were among those present.
"We flew in with various small aeroplanes. It was all very top secret because no one could know at the time that we were talking to the Angolans," said former foreign affairs director-general Rusty Evans, who headed the department's Africa division at the time.
He described the meeting as an "ice breaker" with plenty of robust, whisky-fuelled discussion around the braai. He recalled Pik Botha "throwing the bones" at one point to divine the future.
"The meeting created personal rapport between key players and people who had influence on key players," he said. "In particular, it gave us entre to Paris."
Brazzaville, a visibly prosperous city of about 1.5million inhabitants, lies sprawled over hills dotted with massive tropical trees on the banks of the Congo river.
It was here, on May 13 1988, that Pik Botha, defence minister Magnus Malan and several diplomats met their Angolan and Cuban counterparts to discuss the withdrawal of Cuban and South African troops from Angola.
Ironically, when Zuma arrived on Tuesday, South Africa was again burning - there were six violent service delivery protests on that day alone.
But 25 years ago, Botha and his team had done the maths: South Africa could no longer keep fighting against the Angolan army backed by 50000 Cuban troops. Namibian liberation fighters were stepping up attacks at home and too many white soldiers were returning in coffins from a war their families had no idea they were fighting.
"We had to talk," said Botha.
An official meeting held in Cairo on June 24 1988 was crucial to the outcome of the negotiations.
"I read books and asked for briefings on Fidel Castro and the Cuban delegation beforehand. We were nervous. So much was at stake," he said.
Botha recalled having "harsh words" with Cuban negotiator Jorge Risquet.
"There was a full day of talks. He called me arrogant and said we're losing the war militarily. We were hurting, that's true. But I talked statistics.
"We've lost less than 40 men - you've lost more than 4700 soldiers.
"You've lost over 20 MiGs. We've lost one Mirage F1 fighter."
In Brazzaville this week, Risquet's gait was an old man's stiff walk, but he is still bearded and gesticulates wildly.
Remembering the Cairo talks, he said: "Botha and myself were at the bar. We ordered whisky."
Botha took up the story: "Then Risquet said: 'I'm going to put 15000 more Cubans in Angola. I said: 'OK, then South Africa would have to put another 1000 troops into Angola.'
"He exploded, saying I'm arrogant. We looked at each other and Risquet said: 'You want us to withdraw?' And I said: 'You withdraw and say you've won independence for Namibia, and the war is over. I withdraw and tell my white voters we got rid of the Cubans.
"We both win."
Further negotiations were held in New York and Cape Verde, and on December 13 1988 Cuba, South Africa and Angola signed the Brazzaville Protocol in the Congolese capital.
A final agreement signed in New York on December 22 mandated the withdrawal of Cuban and South African troops from Angola.
It paved the way for the end of the war in Angola, Namibian independence, the release of Nelson Mandela from prison and the advent of democracy in South Africa.