Negotiating Justice

The book is concerned with the transfer of power in South Africa. It illustrates the issues that the ordinary South African and those entrusted with the task of building the new state were forced to consider, such as human rights, land reform, the future of the Homelands and the validity of the democratic process. The book focuses on these issues in a period that saw the spread of communal violence on such a horrific scale that many prophesied the outbreak of civil war. The book offers a way of understanding this violence by looking at how it served the perceived interests of traditional apartheid and the objectives of the whites in the 'decolonisation' period. The book also explores the way in which De Klerk's National Party changed from support for Inkatha and the idea of Federalism to an alliance of convenience with the African National Congress which made the elections of April 1994 possible.