TRC Final Report

Volume 6

Section 3

Chapter 6

Subsection 3

KONSERWATIEWE PARTY

27. The Conservative Party (CP) was founded in March 1982 under the leadership of Dr Andries Treurnicht who, until earlier that month, had been Transvaal leader of the National Party and a minister in President PW Botha’s cabinet.

28. After serious differences of opinion between Treurnicht and the cabinet on issues such as mixed sport in schools and intimations that Indian and coloured representatives might soon become part of the decision-making process, Treurnicht and fellow cabinet minister Ferdi Hartzenberg resigned their posts.

29. On 9 March they were expelled from the NP and, together with fifteen other right-wing MPs, founded the CP on 20 March 1982.

30. The CP grew rapidly and soon became the white right’s most important representative body. With 31 per cent of the vote in the September 1989 all-white general election, the CP became the official opposition in parliament. However, the party was dealt a devastating blow by the 1992 referendum and the reforms instituted by President FW de Klerk on 2 February 1990. Moreover, its members became frustrated with the lack of a clear policy direction in the party. In August, disaffection led to the establishment of the Afrikaner Volksunie (AVU)²²² by a breakaway group of five MPs who propagated a smaller homeland for the Afrikaner. The AVU was never able to gather much grassroots support, but the CP subsequently took over its homeland policy.

TOEKOMSGESPREK

31. The Toekomsgesprek (TG)²²³ was established in the mid-eighties as a counter to the NP’s Broederbond²²⁴, using similar structures, procedures for recruitment, initiation rites and so on. Membership of the TG was by invitation only and only after proper screening by all other members. In October 1990, the TG argued in a policy document that the CP would have to settle for a smaller state, taking cognisance of the fact that blacks had become a permanent fixture in ‘white’ South Africa. Although supposedly a political and cultural movement, evidence in amnesty applications points to its paramilitary activities.

32. Amnesty applicant Mr Daniel Benjamin Snyders [AM0074/96] testified that he had been involved with Toekomsgesprek since the mid-1980s, helping to set up neighbourhood watch groups from the CP, HNP and AWB. In late 1990, the AWB declared a ‘white-by-night’ rule for blacks in many rural towns, giving their members ‘permission’ to use violence to forcibly remove blacks who transgressed the ‘curfew’. Eugene Terre’Blanche claimed that Adriaan Vlok gave them the go-ahead for this ‘crime prevention exercise’.

33. Toekomsgesprek’s defence system grew rapidly, as did the other activities with which it was tasked at the Volksberaad²²⁵. These included burning down NP offices, taking charge of the commando system, making bombs with explosives obtained from the mines and joining forces with the SADF and the SAP. The country was divided into regions and commanders were appointed.