Foundation chair Ivor Ichikowitz honored at 25 th anniversary of the Brazzaville Protocol.
This week’s commemoration of 25th anniversary of the December 1988 signing of the Brazzaville Protocol which took place along the humid, sun-baked banks of the river Congo on Feb 11, 2014, the day Nelson Mandela was released from prison.
Far be it to suggest that the signing of the accord was the single most important contributor to the final demise of apartheid, or the rewriting of the history of southern Africa.
But, as Mathews Phosa told me at the commemoration in Brazzaville on Tuesday, the signing of the accord set in motion something akin to a game of dominoes, where one thing led to another – and the climax of it all lives with us to this day.
“The accord came at a time when our country was in flames. The ANC had rendered the country ungovernable, but the government was also fighting – their troops being based in Angola. But no one was winning. Something had to give,” said Phosa.
The signing of the protocol was an occasion when “peace was imposed upon violence”, said Phosa.