Political riller shines light on secret deals to end apareid

PLOT FOR PEACE is a political thriller about a man who, at a crucial point in his life, opts to change the course of history of his own accord. It tells the story of French national Jean-Yves Ollivier, known as Monsieur Jacques , whose behind-the-scenes bargaining was instrumental in bringing about regional peace and heralding the end of racial discrimination in South Africa.

Monsieur Jacques - the code name under which the protagonist operated in the 1980s - managed to connect with the political leaders in the region who shared his dream. PLOT FOR PEACE gives details on how without the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Cuban/South African troop withdrawal from Angola brokered by Monsieur Jacques , Nelson Mandela would likely have remained in prison, instead of walking out of jail a free man, destined to become South Africa's first democratically elected President.

The film explains how, with Monsieur Jacques's instrumental help, the land of apartheid and the front line states involved in the political stand-off in southern Africa at the time managed to come out of the Cold War long before the Berlin Wall crumbled.

PLOT FOR PEACE, released by Trinity Pictures in the UK and produced with the support of the Africa Oral History Archive, is a character-driven historical thriller about how Jean-Yves Ollivier's transformation into Monsieur Jacques can be seen as a metaphor for South Africa's own transformation that followed.

At 17 years old, Ollivier and one million other French nationals left their homeland Algeria after the country's 1962 independence. During his first visit to South Africa in 1981, Olliver recognized a similar fate impending in South Africa, i.e white inhabitants sleepwalking to the brink of disaster, as he recalls his experience.

In the mid-1980s, township violence raged in South Africa, while one of the Cold War's proxy conflicts devastated then-neighbouring Angola during the prolonged war. It was then that Olliver, a foreign commodity trader with connections to all stakeholders in the region, became the lifeline for top-secret contacts.

To build trust after hiding his identity, he conceived and organized a vast prisoners' exchange programme as Monsieur Jacques . With the help of this mystery man, in 1988, South Africa's forces as well as 50,000 Cuban troops began withdrawing from Angola.

Monsieur Jacques leads this action-packed documentary through a rugged landscape of moral dilemmas, leading to final victory in the end. As a matter of fact, he had the highest honours bestowed upon him by both the last impenitent stalwart of apartheid, P.W. Botha, and the first President of the new South Africa, Nelson Mandela.

Jean-Yves Ollivier, a.k.a Monsieur Jacques , leads the narrative of this fascinating documentary into an African maze of political intrigue. PLOT FOR PEACE exposes a captivating new angle on the complicating story of the end of apartheid. Driven like a thriller, this feature-length documentary reveals secrets, which were kept hidden for almost 30 years.

In exclusive interviews featured throughout the film, current and former heads of state such as Thabo Mbeki and numerous other protagonists, like apartheid's longest-serving minister of Foreign Affairs Pik Botha and South Africa's icon of resistance Winnie Mandela, bear vivid testimony about the heavy politicking behind the scenes in the 1980s. Their first-hand accounts disclose in full detail both the official and the secret dealings between the last tenants of apartheid and the Marxist regimes outside South Africa's borders.

None of the heads of state, the heads of the secret services, and anti-apartheid leaders interviewed in PLOT FOR PEACE would have previously agreed to speak about these state secrets even just a few years ago and, given their ages, most may not be able to do so in a few years' time.

LINK:	http://www.thesouthafrican.com/news/political-thriller-shines-light-on...
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