A History of South Africa

by Leonard Thompson

  In March and early April, violence escalated to even higher levels in KwaZulu and the Johannesburg area. Nigerian reporter Dele Olojede described the tragic situation in a typical war-torn township—Umlazi, just south of Durban—in a New York newspaper on March 27: “The township, a collection of mud huts and red-brick matchbox homes scattered over the slopes of conical hills, is a virtual chessboard of exclusive ANC- or Inkatha-controlled neighborhoods. Thrown into the mix is an assortment of warlords, gangsters, and thugs who enforce political codes that allow anything but plurality. Mere valleys—or sometimes a collection of burnt-out huts—divide the territories.”59 On March 28, the IFP staged a massive demonstration in Johannesburg. Thousands of Zulus, armed with their “traditional weapons,” marched through the city center. Snipers shot at them on the way, and when they reached Shell House, the ANC headquarters, the ANC security officers opened fire. By day’s end fifty-three people, mostly IFP demonstrators, lay dead.60

  Mandela, de Klerk, the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC), and the Transitional Executive Council worked hard to end the strife and bring Buthelezi into the fold. The IEC extended the deadline for registering for the election, and de Klerk recalled the old parliament to make several amendments to the interim constitution, increasing the range of issues on which the provinces would be able to legislate and permitting the provinces to devise their own constitutions. But Buthelezi continued his brinkmanship, supported by his nephew, King Goodwill Zwelethini, who declared that all of the territory ruled by Shaka in his prime in the 1820s should be reconstituted as an independent Zulu kingdom. Mandela and de Klerk made a final effort to satisfy the IFP on April 8, when they met Buthelezi and Zwelethini at Skukuza in South Africa’s largest game reserve, the Kruger National Park. If the IFP would come into the election, they would suspend the deadline for registration and Zwelethini would be recognized as the constitutional monarch of the new KwaZulu/Natal province, with his own police and a secure stipend. Buthelezi rejected the offer. The ANC and the National party then decided to proceed with the election without the IFP and to subdue the IFP by force. On March 31, de Klerk declared a state of emergency in Natal and ordered troops to concentrate there. In a last desperate effort, Buthelezi persuaded Mandela and de Klerk to allow a foreign group of seven members to mediate, headed by Henry Kissinger, the former U.S. secretary of state, and Lord Carrington, Britain’s former foreign secretary; but because the two sides disagreed about their terms of reference, most of the foreigners returned home within forty-eight hours without achieving anything. However, Washington Okumu, a Kenyan member of the group and an old friend of Buthelezi, met Buthelezi at the Johannesburg airport, where Okumu pointed out that if the IFP stayed out it would be isolated and defeated in a bloodbath. Buthelezi then decided to compete in the election—a decision that was eased by an agreement he concluded with de Klerk and Mandela (which was kept secret at the time) transferring three million acres of KwaZulu land to the Zulu monarch, so that he would not fall under the financial control of the new national government. Buthelezi registered his party on April 19, a mere week before the election, and the electoral commission made last-minute arrangements to include the IFP by adding an IFP sticker at the bottom of the ballot sheets.61

  Meanwhile, the election campaign developed into a personal contest between de Klerk and Mandela. De Klerk aimed to capture the white vote; he explained that the Conservative party’s vision of an Afrikaner Volkstaat was unrealistic because Whites were a minority in every district in South Africa. Since the National party had transformed itself into a multiracial party, de Klerk also expected to attract Coloured voters, who spoke Afrikaans and shared white fears of Africans. He claimed that it was he who had been responsible for the end of apartheid and that only the National party had the knowledge and experience to run a government. He was optimistic because he seemed to assume that the ANC would not be able to mount an effective campaign.62 Once again, de Klerk underestimated his opponents. The ANC managed to create quite a sophisticated electoral machine, and drawing on the advice of Americans who had assisted Bill Clinton in his 1992 presidential campaign in the United States, it held numerous peoples’ forums, where leaders listened to groups of potential voters. It also published a Reconstruction and Development Program, which set out plans to improve the quality of life for the African masses by creating jobs, redistributing land, providing low-cost housing, extending the supply of electricity and clean water, and improving education. Mandela was an indefatigable and highly successful canvasser among Africans (although he spoke extremely slowly), but he also took great pains to reassure the white, Coloured, and Indian minorities, emphasizing his goal of reconciliation between the races.63

  The election was unexpectedly peaceful. To cope with the crowds, it took place over four days, April 26 to 29. Television viewers throughout the world saw long lines of Africans waiting patiently, often for many hours, to get to the polling stations and cast their votes. For former voteless people, it was the experience of a lifetime; for some it took on the aura of a religious experience. Nevertheless, by the standards of western democracies, it was seriously flawed, and not only in KwaZulu, where the IFP had only a week to prepare. That was not surprising. There was no voters’ roll or accurate census of African areas, and there was a huge shortage of buildings suitable as polling stations and people qualified to operate them. Many areas were so completely dominated by one party that rivals had not been able to campaign there and people were too scared to vote against the tide. Although the IEC itself was not well led and contained many inexperienced and inefficient workers, it did try to overcome these deficiencies. Inevitably, though, there was much confusion as nearly twenty million people (estimated to be 86 percent of the electorate), many of them illiterate, sought to vote. In many cases, people voted more than once, pirate polling stations were set up, underage youths were permitted to vote, ballot papers did not arrive in time, partisan officials stuffed ballot boxes with returns supporting their party, boxes were tampered with after leaving the polling stations, and counting procedures were corrupt.64

  On May 6, when the IEC eventually announced the results, the National party and the Democratic party denounced them, and the European Union’s observer mission declared that the election “fell short of what South Africans as well as foreigners expected.” However, the IEC, the Commonwealth, and the Organization of African Unity observers asserted that the election was substantially free and fair. There had, undoubtedly, been many errors in the process, including bargaining between the ANC and the IFP about the KwaZulu/Natal figures. Yet the gross official figures were quite close to the pre-election polls and were probably a reasonably accurate reflection of reality. The ANC had won 62.65 percent of the votes and 252 seats in the National Assembly, the National party 20.39 percent of the votes and 82 seats, and the IFP 10.54 percent of the votes and 43 seats. Mandela was elected president and Mbeki first deputy president, and under the sunset clauses de Klerk became second deputy president. The National party obtained 5 other cabinet positions and the IFP won 3 seats in the cabinet. The ANC became the majority party in seven of the nine provinces. In the western Cape, more than a million Coloured people, who shared with Afrikaners their language, religion, culture, and many of their genes, joined Whites to give the victory to the National party, while in KwaZulu/Natal the IFP won a clear victory over the ANC. All the other parties did abysmally. Viljoen’s Freedom Front won only 2.17 percent of the vote (9 national assembly seats), the Democratic party won only 1.73 percent (7 seats), and the PAC only 1.25 percent (5 seats). In large measure, the election was a racial and ethnic census. The National party had wide support from Coloureds as well as Whites, but the ANC and PAC were overwhelmingly African, the IFP was overwhelmingly Zulu, and the Freedom Front and the Democratic parties were overwhelmingly white.65

  On May 10, 1994, three hundred and forty-two years after the Dutch East India Company formed a settlement at the Cape of Good Hope, leading to the importation of
slaves from Asia and tropical Africa and the conquest of his people, Nelson Mandela took the presidential oath in the presence of the secretary-general of the United Nations, forty-five heads of state, and delegations from the United States, Russia, China, Japan, Germany, and Great Britain. Reconciliation was the dominant theme of his inaugural address. “Out of the experience of an extraordinary human disaster that lasted too long, must be born a society of which all humanity will be proud. . . . Never, never, and never again shall it be that this beautiful land will again experience the oppression of one by another.”66 Mandela also paid a cordial tribute to his old rival, de Klerk, who was sworn in as second deputy president. De Klerk had started the process with a wondrous break with the past, but it was Mandela who then called the shots and whose vision of a free South Africa triumphed.67

  CHAPTER 9

  The New South Africa, 1994-1999

  The Legacy of Apartheid

  As the euphoria that marked the election and the inauguration died down, it became apparent that in South Africa, as in many other countries, although the creation of a democratic constitution was a vital step forward, it was merely a skeleton that might or might not lead to the growth of a democratic society. The tasks that confronted the new government were awesome. The country was racked by the cumulative effects of colonialism, apartheid, and urbanization. According to the United Nations Human Development Program, in 1994 the level of human development in South Africa ranked ninetieth out of 175 countries, behind Thailand, Malaysia, Brazil, and Cuba, but ahead of the Philippines and Indonesia.1 The judiciary, bureaucracy, army, police force, and municipal administrations were all dominated by white men who had been brought up in a racist milieu and had been trained to serve the apartheid state. The country had one of the greatest gaps in the world between rich and poor, and although new multiracial classes were forming, the gap marked primarily a division between races. The most accurate measure of these differences was provided by a detailed census that was held in 1996—before substantial changes had taken place since the transfer of political power. That census revealed the enormity of the problem. Most white South Africans were well-to-do, well educated, and well housed. Most Africans, like most people of tropical Africa, were poor, badly educated, and ill housed. The conditions of the Coloured and Indian members of the population were in between those of Whites and Africans.2

  The Mandela government inherited a particularly intractable education situation: nineteen separate education departments—one for each race and one for each Homeland, and so on; immense disparities between the buildings and the equipment in schools created for Whites and those created for Blacks; a dearth of qualified teachers; and the inordinate cost of raising the “black” schools to anything like the level of the “white” schools. Moreover, the established syllabi and textbooks were devised under the apartheid regime, and there was an imbalance between the focus on the humanities and the national need for industrial skills. The higher education system had similar disparities and imbalances. The universities that the apartheid government created for African students were grossly inadequate. In 1994, 24 percent of the adult African population had no schooling at all, 37 percent had attended only primary school, 22 percent had some secondary education, and only 6 percent had some higher education. Africans had gained the dignity of full citizenship, but most of them were not equipped to prosper in the country where they now formed the political majority.3

  South Africa had an inordinate number of marginalized people. Illegal immigrants swarmed into the country—most of them refugees from the civil war in Mozambique. Although the previous government had returned thousands of “illegal aliens” to their countries of origin—88,575 in 1992—vast numbers remained, and the influx continued. Police estimated that in 1993 there were more than one million illegal immigrants in South Africa, but the number was probably more than three million. Furthermore, at least eleven thousand members of the ANC’s military wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe, had returned to South Africa by the end of 1993. Most of the illegal immigrants and former guerrillas had no preparation for civilian life.4 According to the 1996 census, 46 percent of the African population, more than fourteen million people, were under twenty years old. Many of these young people were raised in families with high rates of divorce, teenage pregnancy, and children born outside of marriage. With that background, millions of youths were socialized in lawless gangs, which contributed to the rampant crime that was a hallmark of the society.5

  South Africa was an exceptionally violent society. Whereas in previous generations Whites had a near monopoly of firearms, by 1994 South Africans of all races owned modern weapons, including AK-47 assault rifles, most of which, like the illegal immigrants, came from Mozambique.6 According to the South African Institute of Race Relations, the annual murder rate per one hundred thousand people in 1990-91 was four in France and Germany, ten in the United States, and fifteen in the Netherlands. In South Africa it was ninety-eight. South Africa was also the unchallenged leader in the rates of rape and serious assault.7 Cape Town and Johannesburg vied for the title of murder capital of the world. In 1994, Tony Leon, the leader of the Democratic party, asserted that in Cape Town only one in ten murderers was caught and that only one in a hundred of those who were caught went to trial. Throughout the country carjackings were commonplace, and competition between rival African taxi companies erupted into shooting wars in all the major cities. Industrial strikes also led to bloodshed. Africans murdered Whites on isolated farms in the north, but Africans were both the victims and the perpetrators of most violent crimes.8 Property was also in jeopardy in some areas. Vacationers and shoppers returned to find squatters occupying their houses, and the police did nothing about it.9 In 1995, police reported that at least 278 crime syndicates were operating in South Africa.10 Such were the conditions that the Mandela government inherited.

  To cope effectively with these problems South Africa needed a robust economy, but the economy that the Mandela government took over was not in good shape. The recession that began in 1988 continued through 1992, and although recovery started in 1993, the gross domestic product per head was still far below the 1988 level. The inflation rate hovered around 10 percent overall (the cost of food rose at a far higher rate), foreign reserves had shrunk to an abysmal low, and personal taxes were already very high. South Africa did have excellent economic potential: valuable mineral resources, a well-developed infrastructure, sound financial institutions, and skills and experience in engineering, the legal and medical professions, and business management. But apartheid had distorted and damaged South Africa’s potential. As a result of economic sanctions, South Africa had pursued increasingly isolationist economic policies, and confidence in the country’s future had been undermined. Structural flaws, such as protective tariffs and high wages in relationship to productivity, meant that South African products were not competitive in international markets. Professional and managerial skills were almost all in white hands, because successive generations of black citizens had been denied access to education and training. The high level of black unemployment perpetuated poverty and crime. Finally, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, changes in the global political economy, which emphasized deregulation, liberalization, and privatization, imposed harsh constraints on the new regime.11

  The Polity

  Soon after his inauguration, Mandela completed the Government of National Unity in terms of the interim constitution. As his first deputy president, he appointed Thabo Mbeki rather than Cyril Ramaphosa, the former trade union leader who had been a highly successful ANC negotiator in 1993 and early 1994. That made Mbeki, aged fifty-one, heir-apparent to the seventy-six-year-old president. Son of a veteran ANC and Communist party stalwart and Robben Island prisoner, Mbeki had been in exile since 1961. After completing a master’s degree in economics at Sussex University in England and undergoing military training in the Soviet Union, Mbeki became Oliver Tambo’s right-hand man in the ANC in exile. He is a gifted, hard
-working, energetic man, at ease with educated people, but he lacks Mandela’s liberation-struggle credentials and common touch. His collected essays, Africa: The Time Has Come, reveal a man repulsed by racism, intensely proud of being an African, and imbued with a vision of a South African democracy, an African Renaissance, and a global system purged of capitalist excess.12 De Klerk, as leader of the National party, assumed office as second deputy president.

  In accordance with their share of the vote in the election, eighteen ANC members, six National party members, and three Inkatha Freedom party (IFP) members formed the rest of the cabinet. Two of the cabinet ministers were women. Mandela placed ANC colleagues in most of the important portfolios; but he gave the National party finance, where experience was paramount, in order to send cooperative signals to the business community. The result was a truly multiracial cabinet. Including the president and his two deputies, the cabinet contained sixteen Africans, eight Whites (two of them ANC members), and six Indians or Coloureds. Especially significant appointments were those of Buthelezi as minister of home affairs; Joe Modise, former commander of the ANC guerrilla force Umkhonto we Sizwe, as minister of defense; and Joe Slovo as minister of housing. It was also an inexperienced cabinet. As Mandela himself admitted, many ANC members were “men and women who have been taken literally from the bush and without previous training . . . have been asked to run the government of such a highly developed country as South Africa.”13