of the ANc-the
white man who was the symbol of evil communism to
white South Africa. 22
But suspicions soon revived because there were loose cannons in both
camps. In 1988, the ANCleadership in exile had authorized a group of ANC
militants, led by Mac Maharaj, an Indian member of the ANCexecutive
and former Robben Island friend of Mandela, to create an underground
revolutionary
network inside South Africa. This operation,
known as
Vula (the opening), did not achieve much, and Mandela probably knew
nothing about it. But in July 1990 the police uncovered it, arrested Ma-
haraj, and unearthed a mass ofVula documents, from which de Klerk con-
cluded that even then, while Mandela and his colleagues were talking
peace, they were still following a hidden agenda to overthrow the state by
force. 23
.
The anti-Axe dirty tricks were much more serious. Throughout
the
years 1990 to 1994, deadly physical struggles for power were taking place
alongside the negotiations for a peaceful settlement. In 1989, according to
the South African Institute of Race Relations, I ,4°3 people died of politi-
cal violence in South Africa. That was a record number, but it was only a
prelude to what followed. There were 3,699 political killings in 1990;