at this stage within strategic management circles—but rather to gauge public opinion about a movement away from the previous security posture of confrontation and repression to a new posture based on engagement and accommodation. Reforms announced: February 1990 When F. W. de Klerk became president in 1989, he was able to build on the previous secret negotiations with Mandela. The first significant steps towards formal negotiations took place in February 1990 when, in his speech at the opening of Parliament, de Klerk announced the repeal of the ban on the ANC and other banned political organisations, as well as Mandela's release after 27 years in prison. Mandela was released on 11 February 1990 and direct talks between the ANC and the government were scheduled to begin on 11 April. However, on 26 March, 11 protestors were killed by police in the Sebokeng massacre, and the ANC announced on 31 March that it intended to pull out of the negotiations indefinitely. The talks were only rescheduled after an emergency meeting between Mandela and de Klerk, held in early April. Early "talks about talks" Groote Schuur Minute: May 1990 On 2–4 May 1990, the ANC met with the South African government at the Groote Schuur presidential residence in Cape Town, in what were touted as the first of several "talks about talks", intended to negotiate the terms for more substantive negotiations. After the first day of meetings, a joint statement was released which identified the factors held by the parties to constitute obstacles to further negotiations: the government was concerned primarily about the ANC's ongoing commitment to armed struggle, while the ANC listed six preliminary demands, including the release of political prisoners, the return of ANC activists from exile, and the lifting of the state of emergency. The outcome of the talks was a joint communiqué known as the Groote Schuur Minute, which was released on 4 May and which canvassed, though rarely in decisive terms, many of the seven obstacles that had been identified. The minute consisted primarily in a commitment by both parties to "the resolution of the existing climate of violence and intimidation from whatever quarter as well as a commitment to stability and to a peaceful process of negotiations". The parties agreed to establish a working group, which should aim to complete its work before 21 May and which would consider the terms under which retroactive immunity would