In August 1991, Roelf Meyer and his two sons hopped on a helicopter from the Waterkloof military air base and flew to the Havelock Trout Farm, a luxurious holiday lodge shared by billionaire Sidney Frankel, a stockbroker and his group of wealthy friends in Dullstroom, Mpumalanga.
(Sidney Frankel was an alleged pdf file, accused of sexually molesting eight preadolescent boys and girls in the 1990s.)
Anyway, already at the lodge waiting for the Meters was Frankel with his wife and daughter, and Frankel’s other special guest Cyril Ramaphosa, then-Secretary General and chief negotiator of the ANC.
Ramaphosa had not been told that Roelf Meyer was coming and felt he had been trapped into the meeting.
After an awkward introduction, Meyer’s sons wanted to go fishing and Ramaphosa offered to teach them. At the dam, Roelf Meyer pierced his finger with a fish hook which got stuck deep. Ramaphosa’s wife, Nomazizi tried and failed for an hour to get the hook out. Cyril intervened.
He poured a glass of whiskey for Meyer, took a pair of pliers and said “If you’ve never trusted an ANC person before, you’d better get ready to do so”. He pressed the hook down and pulled it out. As blood spurted out, Meyer said: “Well, Cyril, don’t say I didn’t trust you.”🥺
Ten months later Roelf Meyer became the National Party’s Minister of Constitutional Development and took over as chief of the Apartheid government’s negotiating team while Cyril Ramaphosa headed the ANC’s negotiating team.