BERMUDA played host to top secret meetings between South Africa's National Party and the then-banned African National Congress (ANC), which paved the way to further negotiations leading to the end of Apartheid, it has been revealed.

The meetings between leading Afrikaner establishment members and ANC leaders, including current President Thabo Mbeki, took place under a media blackout at Lantana Cottage Club in Somerset in March 1989 and again in April 1990.

The delegation included United States Senators and members of the House of Representatives and was mediated by The Aspen Institute, an international, non-profit organisation based in the US.

After more than 17-years, these highly confidential reports were released to , following the recent death of former South African President, PW Botha and the announcement that he had been instrumental in organising the secret meetings less than five months before he resigned as state president.

In his regular internet column, , President Thabo Mbeki stated that Mr. Botha's agreement to the talks was seen as an indication that the "Botha government was ready to talk directly to the ANC".

Up until that point the ANC was banned, Nelson Mandela and several other key members of the organisation were imprisoned and the governments of the US and UK had imposed selective economic sanctions on South Africa in protest of its racial policy, known as Apartheid.

Prior to the Bermuda meetings in 1989 and 1990, anti-apartheid pressure was mounting within and outside South Africa and the Pretoria government began to dismantle shortly after they were completed.

The year 1990 brought a National Party government dedicated to reform and also saw the legalisation of formerly banned black congresses and the release of imprisoned black leaders, including Nelson Mandela in February that year.

In 1994 the country's constitution was rewritten and free general elections were held for the first time in its history. And with Nelson Mandela's election as South Africa's first black president that same year, the last vestiges of the Apartheid system were finally outlawed.

However, the meetings in Bermuda were also meant to provide senior foreign policy makers in the US Congress an opportunity to learn more about South Africa and its role in the southern African region.

According to director and moderator Dick Clark, the overall purpose of the meetings was to develop a highly informed bi-partisan core group of members who could take a leading role in pursuing a realistic and effective US policy towards South Africa and the region.

The first of these, held in May 1989 was entitled , and brought US members together with 17 South Africans for an intensive four days of discussions on the internal situation in South Africa.

The South African delegation included National Party members Willie Breytenbach and Piet Coetzer, a member of the Progressive Federal Party and staunch Anti-Apartheid advocate, Helen Suzman, Thabo Mbeki, who was the head of the ANC's International Department in Lusaka at the time, Conservative Party member and then-Minister of Information, Koos van der Merwe, then-Secretary General of the Inkatha Freedom Party, Oscar Dhlomo, as well as the former assistant editor of , Sam Mabe. The Director of the Institute for a Democratic Alternative in South Africa and member of parliament until 1986, Frederick van Zyl Slabbert, also attended the meetings.

Mr. Clark said given the nature of the conflict in South Africa, it was decided that the discussion sessions at the Bermuda conference be off-the-record and informal.

"This was necessary to encourage an open and frank exchange among the participants," he said.

He explained in his report that South Africa's strict security laws often prohibited criticism of its policies or advocacy of change and levied criminal penalties on those who made such criticisms.

"The intensity of rival views is also often such that platforms cannot be comfortably shared."

It was for this reason, he stated, that they chose not to reproduce a rapporteur's account of the deliberations, but instead presented five individual papers prepared in advance for background information of the members, as well as one summary statement.

These papers were presented by members of the South African delegation, including Fikile Bam, the director of the legal resources centre, who gave a rendering of South Africa through "black eyes", while Willie Esterhuyse, a professor of philosophy at the University of Stellenbosch, followed with a similar discussion of white attitudes and feelings in South Africa.

One of the attendees was South African politician Helen Suzman ? noted for her strong criticism of the National Party's policies of Apartheid at a time when it was almost unknown amongst whites. She also spent 36 years in Parliament defending a right of freedom of expression for all South Africans and was beside Nelson Mandela when he signed the new constitution in 1996.

In an exclusive telephone interview from her home outside Johannesburg earlier this week, the 89-year-old said she could not recall exact details of the Lantana meetings ? seeing as how much time has passed ? but did recall the two days in Bermuda being "very pleasant" with a visit to the Boer graves a highlight of her trip.

Local historian Andrew Bermingham accompanied the groups on these visits to the Boer cemetery.

Mr. Bermingham was serving in the Bermuda Police Service at that time and played a part in security arrangements for the meetings.

He recalled the numerous prominent American politicians who attended and got the impression that it was "simply an American think tank" in which they wanted to get together with South Africans and "chew over various ideas".

"But now I realise there was a lot more substance to these talks than just a fireside chat at Lantana," he told the

He realised later how at the time Nelson Mandela had been meeting in secret with PW Botha and FW de Klerk and thought perhaps the Americans saw this as an opportunity to take a lead in the changes that were taking place in South Africa.

Delegates hardly left Lantana, he said, but did request a visit to the Boer war cemetery, which Mr. Bermingham explained was in a poor state at the time, despite the single-handed efforts of David Lines and his family.

"Mr. Lines had in fact been the sole custodian of the cemetery for many years."

He explained that limited funds from South Africans had occasionally been made available, but it was not enough to do a complete renovation and many headstones were broken or knocked down.

Despite the state of the cemetery, Mr. Bermingham felt the visit held a great deal of reverence for many of the delegates who paid their respects, including lawyer Fikile Bam.

"Fikile told me he was referred to as a 'terrorist' back in South Africa, when in fact he said he was simply a 'freedom fighter and poet' and that he served ten years on Robben Island with Nelson Mandela for his actions," Mr. Bermingham said.

"He was very magnanimous about it. I recall this statement because it was 1989 and it was five years before democracy finally came to South Africa, but you could sense that already steps of reconciliation were being taken.

"It must have taken a lot for someone like Fikile to reconcile with anyone after ten years in prison."

Mr. Bermingham is convinced that given, the historic events that followed these meetings in Bermuda, they played a pivotal role in the move towards democracy.

"I don't know if the subjects of the meetings support that, but that was the general feeling. I was told that people who would never be seen standing together in one room in South Africa were enjoying each other's company in a room here in Bermuda and it was a first for many of these politicians."

He adds that both FW de Klerk, who later made a return trip to Bermuda, and Thabo Mbeki referred to the Boer soldiers buried at the cemetery as "South Africa's first freedom fighters" ? eluding to the fact, he said, that the ANC were South Africa's second.

Despite the secrecy which once again surrounded the meetings in 1990, word also reached the offices of the Bermuda Anti-Apartheid Coalition.

Co-founder, Glenn Fubler recalls the April meetings which coincided with talks on the island between UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and US President George Bush, senior.

As one of the topics being discussed was economic sanctions against South Africa, Mr. Fubler invited Cyril Ramaphosa, the general secretary of the Congress of South African Trade Unions ? the largest trade union in Southern Africa.

However Mr. Ramaphosa could not leave the meetings in Somerset and arrived at Bermuda Industrial Union offices later than expected ? thus not having much input on the discussions at all.

As for the Bermuda Anti-Apartheid Coalition, which was founded in 1981, although it was by no means a large organisation with no membership as such, Mr. Fubler says when Nelson Mandela was released in February 1990, close to 2,000 people took to the streets of Hamilton in a celebratory march.

Following the first democratic elections in 1994, the coalition disbanded, but over a period of several years focused its anti-Apartheid efforts on the Minerals and Resources Corporation Ltd., a company set up by Anglo American with its head office in Bermuda.

"We gained a lot of support for that effort," he recalls. "Members under the coalition included Margaret Carter, Thomas Nisbett, Ron Lightbourne, while Ottiwell Simmons, Julian Hall and former Premier Alex Scott were all acting members."

Mr. Fubler says he would love to organise another meeting, a "reunion of sorts", once the newly revamped Lantana was completed and thought it a good idea to have a monument erected at the resort in memory of the meetings which took place there 17 years ago and ultimately led to the end of Apartheid.