From the Archive: South Africa rejoins the Commonwealth

South Africa rejoined the Commonwealth exactly 15 years ago this week following an absence of 33 years and one day.

Commonwealth Secretary-General Emeka Anyaoku, speaking at the time, spoke of his own “special sense of joy” at South Africa’s return, which he said followed “the end of apartheid and the dawn of freedom in South Africa”.

South Africa, then led by President Nelson Mandela following his election in April 1994, had formally re-applied for membership of the Commonwealth in May that year.

Chief Anyaoku had played a unique role working behind the scenes to end apartheid and immediately offered President Mandela - whose earlier confinement as a political prisoner had galvanised world opinion against the previous regime - support for the reconciliation and reconstruction of South Africa.

The Secretary-General was full of praise for Mr Mandela when he gave the opening address at the following year’s Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Auckland, New Zealand.

“To our great joy, a South Africa reborn in freedom returned to the Commonwealth fold,” he said. “Today, South Africa’s President, Nelson Mandela, takes his place among us, the embodiment of a yearning for liberty and justice that would not die and a figure whose personal tenacity and courage played such a major part in gaining his people’s freedom.”

As part of its support for the end of apartheid, the Commonwealth Secretariat sent Observer Missions to help combat political violence and to assist with the historic 1994 elections. The Secretariat also organised a high-level Commonwealth group to attend the launching of the country’s constitutional negotiations.

South Africa had first left the Commonwealth in 1961 in the wake of international condemnation of apartheid following Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd’s passing of a law that transformed the country into a republic.

On its re-admission, South Africa officially became the fifty-first member of the Commonwealth.