Africa

by Guy Arnold

  The failure of his détente exercise led Vorster to adopt his military approach to his neighbours: first the intervention in Angola and later the policy of destabilization that became a feature of the 1980s after he had fallen from power. On 14 May 1975 Vorster finally revealed details of his visit to Côte d’Ivoire and talks with Houphouët-Boigny over 22–24 September 1974 when they had discussed improving relations between South Africa and independent African states. At the beginning of 1975 the OAU uneasily continued to back the October 1974 initiative by the Presidents of Zambia, Tanzania, Mozambique (Samora Machel) and Botswana to find a peaceful solution for the problems of Southern Africa although there was growing opposition to the contact. The OAU, while supporting the initiative, was simultaneously strengthening the liberation movements in case the initiative failed. Smith, meanwhile, was holding back from negotiations about a settlement in the hope that a white backlash against Vorster would develop in South Africa for ‘betraying’ the white Rhodesians. By 15 March 1975 there had been 15 South African-Zambian meetings. There were also growing divisions in the black Rhodesian ranks while Mugabe distrusted Kaunda’s manoeuvres, a distrust that never really changed. On 12 February 1975 Vorster flew to Monrovia for talks with President William Tolbert. The transcript of their talks was leaked to The Times by the President’s brother, Stephen. When, 10 days after the details of the meeting had appeared, Vorster answered questions in Parliament, his main concern was over a statement by Tolbert when Vorster told him: ‘We do not want an inch of South West Africa’s territory and I would be only too pleased to get South West Africa off our back.’

  President Sekou Touré of Guinea condemned the Monrovia talks: ‘To hold a dialogue with the supporters of apartheid is to add to the racists’ injury to Africa, an injury inflicted by Africa itself.’ Touré called on all African governments to ‘reject all proposals for dialogue with South Africa until the day when the indignity which now soils our continent through apartheid completely disappears’.31 By March 1975, especially as the excitement of the Portuguese colonial collapse in Southern Africa opened up new possibilities, there was a danger that Africa would split between those who favoured and those who opposed dialogue. Kaunda throughout was careful to inform the OAU Chairman (Somalia’s Siad Barre) and other African leaders of the moves he was making with regard to South Africa. Smith was determined to sink the Pretoria–Lusaka initiative. He was helped in this by the continuing guerrilla struggle, which he emphasized by arresting ZANU’s Ndabaningi Sithole on charges of actively encouraging the recruitment of guerrillas. It was at this point, to force Smith to do a deal, that Vorster told him he was withdrawing his forces from Rhodesia. By April 1975 the Lusaka ‘four’ – Zambia, Tanzania, Botswana and Machel (still waiting to assume the presidency of an independent Mozambique) – found themselves under increasing attack from critics in the OAU as well as all the southern liberation movements. These critics were temporarily stalled when Vorster gave an undertaking to Kaunda that all South African forces would be withdrawn from Rhodesia by the end of May. Then on 7 April the OAU Council of Ministers met in Dar es Salaam and President Nyerere produced what became known as the Dar es Salaam Declaration. Part of the conclusion reads: ‘African objectives in southern Africa are unchanged. They are: independence for the whole country on the basis of majority rule in both Rhodesia and Namibia; and an end to apartheid and racial discrimination in South Africa. Africa’s strategy should be to separate the two issues as far as practical, and to give priority to ending the colonial situation in Rhodesia and Namibia.’ Following the Dar es Salaam Declaration, Vorster told the South African Parliament that ‘détente and dialogue’ were over.32

  In any case, dialogue or détente was bound to be over once South Africa intervened in Angola. The intervention is well documented.33 In March 1975 Savimbi visited a European capital to meet a senior BOSS official to request aid, which was refused. On 14 July South African troops crossed the Namibian border into Angola where they overcame MPLA and UNITA resistance and then attacked SWAPO bases. On 21 August Savimbi met a South African general in Namibia when he obtained a promise that South Africa would provide UNITA with military instructors and train 6,000 of its troops. These trainers arrived in Silvo Ponto, central Angola, in September. At that time the South African objective was to help hold Nova Lisboa (Huambo) for UNITA as MPLA forces were then advancing southwards. After a clash with advancing MPLA forces the South African instructors at Silvo Ponto requested reinforcements and a huge shipment of equipment in C-130s was flown in to the town. More South African troops moved across the border into Angola. Then, on 9 October, Pretoria ordered the formation of the ‘Zulu’ column that was to be its main strike force. On 14 October Operation ‘Zulu’ began and it moved up the Angolan coast. By 26 October the ‘Zulu’ column had taken Sa da Bandeira from the MPLA; two days later it took the town of Moçamedes, on 3 November Lobito and on 5 November Benguela. On 10 November Savimbi flew to Pretoria to see Vorster to tell him that Kaunda and other conservative African leaders hoped that the South African forces would remain in Angola after independence on 11 November; Vorster, who was also under pressure to do so from Washington, agreed. On 11 November Pretoria ordered ‘Zulu’ to advance to points just short of Luanda; however, the column suffered heavy casualties at the hands of the MPLA outside Novo Redondo and though the South Africans took the town on 14 November their commander requested Pretoria for reinforcements, but the request was refused. The ‘Zulu’ commander was recalled while his troops remained in Novo Redondo. The MPLA, meanwhile, much to the embarrassment of Pretoria, put four captured South African troops on show at a press conference. Nigeria, which up to this point had refused to recognize the MPLA government, now did so on the grounds that South Africa had invaded its territory. On 20 December Savimbi was again obliged to fly to see Vorster after he had said he was about to withdraw; Savimbi managed to persuade him to keep his troops in Angola, but only for a short time. Britain and France warned South Africa that they would be unable to support it at the UN Security Council debate on Angola scheduled for January. On 31 December Kaunda changed his stance and said South Africa should withdraw its forces from Angola by 9 January 1976. On 22 January South Africa decided to withdraw and on 4 February 1976 announced that all its troops had been withdrawn to within 50 kilometres of the Namibian border and remained in Angola only to protect the Cunene Dam. On 25 March all South African troops were withdrawn into Namibia.

  The Angola invasion was a disaster and humiliation for South Africa. It had kept its intervention strictly limited (2,000 troops) but this still led to a huge Communist presence in Angola, which changed from being part of the cordon sanitaire guarding South Africa into a hostile state under a Marxist-style government. Moreover, the African states of the region ceased to see South Africa as invincible while Malawi, Lesotho and Botswana began to withdraw their labour. The debacle was a contributory cause of the next disaster, the Soweto uprising of June 1976. The retreat from Angola marked the end of Vorster’s political predominance. He had initiated dialogue in 1970; proceeded to détente in 1974; then switched to a more aggressive intervention policy in Angola in 1975. And each in turn had failed. From 1976 onwards Vorster was on the defensive. Especially galling for Vorster, who had spent years claiming to act as a bastion for the West against the advance of Communism, his actions had done much to ensure that such an advance took place. The Russians had much to gain and little to lose in Southern Africa at this time. As Yuri Kornilov wrote in Tass, 11 October 1976: ‘The Soviet Union’s stand on the problems of Southern Africa is clear and definite: the Soviet Union has no, and cannot have any “special interests”, neither in south nor in north, nor in any other part of Africa. The USSR does not look for any benefits for itself there. It only strives for the sacred right of every people to decide its own destiny, for the right to choose its own way of development. This is our unwavering principle, which the Soviet people will never abandon.’ The Russians, who were blamed by the West fo
r far more than they ever managed to achieve, could be forgiven for this flight of high-sounding principle. In part, however, it was a response to a speech made by Kissinger in Lusaka the previous April in which he said the US would work for majority rule throughout the region. In the circumstances, the USSR had to emphasize that the United States and Britain were primarily interested in preserving the position of the ‘imperialist monopolies’. Although African states such as Zambia were wary of the Communists, they had no interest in upsetting the Russians or Cubans in Angola since the West had begun to change course precisely because of the Soviet threat in the region. The Soviets, in other words, had become an excellent source of pressure for change and the Africans were doubtful about the apparent changes in Western policy.

  THE SOWETO UPRISING

  The barbaric division between black and white that apartheid maintained had been explained in coldly logical terms by its principal architect, Verwoerd: ‘There is no place for him (the black) in the European community above the level of certain forms of labour. What is the use of teaching a Bantu child mathematics when it cannot use it in practice?’ In 1969 the hard-line Afrikaners, who became known as the Verkramptes, split from the National Party because of Vorster’s ‘concessions’ to blacks to form the Herstigte Nasionale Party (Refounded National Party – HNP) under Albert Hertzog and though they had been easily defeated by Vorster in the 1970 election, they remained a force to be reckoned with. Vorster’s 1970 victory allowed him to proceed without hindrance with his policy of dialogue. As events in Portugal in early 1974 foreshadowed the coming end of the Caetano regime, Vorster called an election for that April, which he again won easily, so that he could proceed with his new policy of détente. However, when the economy slowed down in 1975 as a result of world recession HNP pressures were increased. Then, when news of the Angola intervention became known on 22 December 1975, two months after the ‘Zulu’ column had been sent into Angola, only to be recalled weeks later, HNP pressures upon the government became even more demanding in the wake of the Angola debacle. ‘Having exerted fairly massive pressure on Smith to surrender white rule in Rhodesia, the government was now running away from “black Communists”, its tail between its legs, leaving white South African prisoners behind. It was a scenario tailor-made for the verkramptes.’34 In January 1976, in an attempt to appease the hard-right Verkramptes, Vorster brought Dr Andries Treurnicht into his government though not the cabinet. Treurnicht was the most outstanding of the Verkramptes still in the NP who stood uncompromisingly for Afrikaner dominance and exclusivism and as such was a constant reminder that Vorster was deviating from the true path. Vorster made Treurnicht Deputy Minister of Bantu Education and believed he had sidelined him. The Ministry for some time, under his predecessor Punt Janson, had been involved in a departmental battle over the use of Afrikaans as a medium of instruction in Bantu schools. There was massive African resistance to the idea. Treurnicht at once insisted that African children would have to be taught maths and history in Afrikaans.

  On 17 May 1976 black pupils of Orlando West Junior Secondary School in Soweto came out on strike against the Afrikaans ruling. Treurnicht refused to back down. On 14 June Leonard Mosala, a Soweto urban councillor, warned that if the Afrikaans medium ruling was not relaxed immediately ‘it will lead to another Sharpeville’. He was right. On 16 June the shooting started. Soweto, in any case, was a powder keg constantly bedevilled by a huge crime wave, and many who lived there saw it as a ‘ghetto’ or ‘concentration camp’. According to a survey 75 per cent of those who lived in Soweto saw it as their only home and refused absolutely to regard their designated homelands as home. At this time black unemployment was rising by 100,000 a year while twice that number were entering the labour market and despite the advances of 1973 – the wage increases that had followed the international pressures associated with the Guardian report – the position of black labour generally was no better. The cost of wage rises had to be met in one of three ways: lower profits, loss of white jobs or – what actually happened – a cutback in black employment. White employers had demanded higher productivity from their black workers to enable them to economize on the total black labour they employed. The result was increasing unemployment, which was made worse by recession and inflation that between them had eroded the value of the wage increases won in 1973. By 1976 blacks were faced with soaring food and transport costs and the opposition of a white working class grimly determined to defend job reservation in its favour.35 Young blacks in the schools saw almost no job prospects ahead of them and reacted to the Treurnicht ruling as the last straw; their placards, when they turned out to demonstrate, described Afrikaans as the ‘oppressors’ language’. The ruling had taken no account of the fact that few teachers knew Afrikaans; it was purely doctrinaire.

  Some 15,000 schoolchildren marched towards the school where the strike had begun on 16 June: they were met by a line of armed police who opened fire and an unknown number of children were killed or injured. The police estimate was 25 dead and 200 injured. The children fled and proceeded to riot, smashing Bantu Administration offices, liquor shops or other property associated with white authority. The police responses were savage and included the beating and torture of children. The riots spread to other Johannesburg area townships. The police attempted to isolate the townships: they used helicopters to drop tear gas and co-ordinate their operations but this was not always possible since the townships were often obscured by smoke clouds from the many fires that had been started. The day after these riots erupted Treurnicht said it was for the ‘Bantu’s own good’ that he learned in Afrikaans but a few days later M. C. Botha, his minister, announced that Afrikaans had never been compulsory and that the ruling would be relaxed. The riots then spread to the townships of Natal and some rioters appeared on the edge of white suburbs and in the centre of Johannesburg. After eight days of rioting there was a lull; 176 rioters had been shot dead and several thousand had been injured. Then on 27 July a wave of arson against African schools began in the Transvaal, Orange Free State and Natal. The Soweto Students’ Representative Council (SRC) condemned the arson and called for a return to school, but it had lost control of the situation. On 4 August spontaneous violence erupted in the townships across the Rand while in Soweto the students attempted, with only limited success, to prevent workers going to Johannesburg. On 11 August the rioting spread to the townships round Cape Town and later to Port Elizabeth. Addressing a NP audience, Jimmy Kruger, Minister of Police, said: ‘He (the Bantu) knows his place, and if not I’ll tell him his place.’ On 23 August a three-day general strike was called in Soweto; the following day, assisted by the police, hundreds of Zulu hostel dwellers rampaged through Soweto. The same day unrest broke out among the Coloured population of Cape Town where students held solidarity demonstrations. The police resorted to tear gas and bullets. Vorster and Kruger praised the conduct of the police and Vorster said, ‘There is no way of governing South Africa other than by the policy and principles of the National Party.’ The schoolchildren attacked the shebeens – the illegal drinking houses and beer halls – in protest against their parents’ generation for avoiding a confrontation with the whites and turning instead to drink. The Rand Daily Mail identified 499 individuals who had died in the troubles although unofficial estimates suggested a figure of well over 1,000 and 10 to 20 times that number injured. Many youths fled the country to join the ANC. Soweto was a massive turning point. As the country began to recover from the upheaval, the Johannesburg Sunday Times said: ‘16 June proved that the main debate in South Africa is between the effective power of the Nationalist government, on the one hand, and the potent but unchannelled power of the black urban masses on the other.’36 In Parliament the conservative white opposition leader, Sir de Villiers Graaff, said: ‘The old order has gone – it was destroyed in the economic and racial shambles created by this government. It was choked in the smoke of Soweto and many other black and brown townships… Anyone who does not realize this is sleepin
g through a revolution.’37