Page 129 - SARB: 100-Year Journey

Rupert wrote: “He [Leutwiler] expressed his grave concern and said that, unless there are drastic reforms in South Africa, he did not see his way clear to continue with his role as mediator. He refused to be a spokesman for apartheid. He referred to the serious possibility that foreign banks could take possession of the assets of the South African state and semi-state institutions.”
Equally perturbing to Rupert was: “... [Your] attitude was, firstly, ‘rather be poor than to yield’, and secondly that you were not prepared to say that you were renouncing apartheid. If I understood you correctly, I am deeply concerned about this attitude.”
At the time of the letter, Leutwiler, the foreign banks and a South African delegation of the Standstill Co-ordinating Committee had already met the previous year. London, New York and Zurich, the centres of international finance, served as the regular points of contact for subsequent meetings among the parties to the negotiations, both formal and informal.
“At our first meeting with these banks, with Leutwiler in the chair, I remember telling them that they had a problem as we had blocked their funds in South Africa and couldn’t meet our commitments to repay their loans,” Stals said.
Stals also conceded that: “We all knew that the major reason for this dilemma was a political one, but we as professional bankers could not solve that problem. In the meantime, we as professional bankers were of the opinion that the only honourable way for us to handle this unfortunate situation was to come together with our lenders and seek a mutually acceptable way to get us both out of the dilemma.”
Anton Rupert. /SARB Fritz Leutwiler. /Candid Lang/RDB/ullstein bild via Getty Images
An exterior view of the building of the International Monetary Fund. /Getty Images
119