The Fortunes of Africa: A 5,000 Year History of Wealth, Greed and Endeavour

by Martin Meredith

  A new phase of anti-apartheid resistance began in the early 1980s. It involved a wide range of community associations, church groups, trade unions and student bodies. Local campaigns over such issues as housing conditions and educational standards grew into ambitions for national action. In 1983, a coalition of more than 300 organisations formed a United Democratic Front that cut across lines of class and colour and set as its goal a united, democratic South Africa. Activists launched a vociferous campaign for the release of Nelson Mandela, who had languished in prison on Robben Island since 1964, a largely forgotten figure. The campaign to ‘Free Mandela’ caught the public imagination, attracting support not only from a host of black organisations but from white university students and liberal politicians and gaining ground around the world. Botha dismissed out of hand any notion of releasing him, but in prison Mandela now became a potent symbol of opposition to the government.

  In 1984, a cycle of violence began that continued intermittently for nearly ten years. At the forefront were groups of black youths – ‘comrades’, as they came to be known – determined to destroy ‘the system’ and ready to defy armed police and soldiers in the dusty and decrepit streets of black townships with stones, catapults and petrol bombs. They enforced consumer boycotts, organised rent strikes, attacked government buildings and hunted down ‘collaborators’ – township councillors, local policemen and others deemed to support ‘the system’. Their trademark became the ‘necklace’ method of killing – a tyre filled with petrol thrown over a victim and set on fire. Students joined the fray, forsaking their classrooms once more. But the townships’ revolt this time was not solely a ‘children’s war’, as it had been in 1976; it was part of a popular movement involving entire communities – parents, teachers, workers, churchmen and women.

  The government responded with brutal repression, incarcerating thousands of activists in prison, licensing vigilante groups to retaliate and letting loose police death squads. But repression had only a temporary effect. Moreover, the daily spectacle of violent protest and government reprisals, shown on television screens around the world, provoked a chorus of international condemnation. Taking fright, foreign investors began unloading their South African shares. American banks decided to stop rolling over loans, starting a chain reaction that pitched South Africa into a severe financial crisis. However much Botha relied on repression to protect white power, it left South Africa without a viable political strategy, only the prospect of more violence.

  From the confines of prison, Mandela made several approaches to the government, seeking to open a dialogue that might break the fearful deadlock gripping South Africa. Despite strong misgivings among fellow ANC inmates, Mandela entered into a series of secret discussions with senior officials in 1988, proposing a meeting with Botha as a preliminary step to see if there was scope for negotiations. In July 1989, Mandela was taken in secret to meet Botha at his official residence in Cape Town. Their conversation amounted to little more than a polite discourse on South African history and culture, lasting for half an hour. Six weeks later, after months of friction with his cabinet colleagues, Botha resigned. Nevertheless, a crucial breakthrough had been made: in their encounters with Mandela, government officials had been impressed by his grasp of the central issues that preoccupied whites and found him to be a leader of considerable stature with whom the white establishment could do business.

  The National Party’s next leader, F.W. de Klerk, was as determined to protect white domination as Botha had been but sought a more pragmatic approach. On taking office as president in 1989, he initiated a reassessment of South Africa’s prospects. Forty years of National Party rule had left the white population both powerful and prosperous; the Afrikaner community, in particular, had fared well, fulfilling its long-held ambition to acquire wealth, skills and economic strength. The government’s ability to defend the apartheid system was still formidable. It possessed the means for totalitarian control and frequently used them.

  Moreover, the external threats facing South Africa had diminished. The Soviet Union, on the brink of demise, had made clear its intention to disentangle itself from African conflicts. A deal involving the withdrawal of Cuban troops from Angola was concluded in December 1988 and paved the way for South-West Africa (Namibia) to proceed with an orderly transition to independence, bringing to an end a guerrilla war against South African rule there. Soviet assistance to Mozambique was also scaled back. In 1989, the Frelimo government in Mozambique, exhausted by years of economic failure and civil war, abandoned its commitment to a Marxist-Leninist state and pronounced itself in favour of multi-party democracy. In addition, the collapse of socialist governments in Eastern Europe in 1989 had deprived the ANC of one of its main sources of military, logistical and financial support.

  De Klerk was quick to recognise the importance of these strategic openings. His close advisers argued that they provided an opportunity for the government to seize the initiative. If whites were to preserve their power and privileges, then fundamental change was needed. While the government faced no immediate difficulty, the longer political reform was delayed, the weaker its position would become. Without reform, the cycle of black opposition would intensify. The fate of neighbouring Rhodesia, where Ian Smith had turned down one favourable deal after another, only to find himself embroiled in a seven-year guerrilla war and negotiating a belated settlement that led to the advent of a Marxist government, provided a potent example. ‘When the opportunity was there for real constructive negotiation, it was not grasped,’ de Klerk concluded. ‘We must not make that mistake.’

  The mood of much of the white population favoured change. A new generation of white South Africans disliked being treated as pariahs by the rest of the world, subjected to sports boycotts, travel bans and trade sanctions. Businessmen wanted a more stable political system that would assist economic growth. Economic prosperity was becoming more important to white South Africa than racial division. On his journeys abroad, de Klerk was readily assured by Western governments of support if he changed course. From one capital to the next, the advice he received was the same: lift the ban on the ANC, release Mandela and other prisoners and start talks.

  When deciding what action to take, de Klerk assumed that because the government enjoyed such a preponderance of power, it would be able to set the terms of negotiations. He also believed there was a good chance that, if set free, the ANC, poorly organised and ill-prepared for peace, would fall into disarray, leaving the government to forge ahead with a new alliance of conservative black organisations.

  Despite signs of a right-wing backlash and deep misgivings among the security establishment, de Klerk took the plunge. On 2 February 1990, he announced the government would lift the ban on the ANC, release Mandela and prepare the way for a democratic constitution based on a universal franchise.

  Freed after twenty-seven years, Mandela walked through the gates of Victor Verster prison on 11 February, hand-in-hand with his wife Winnie, towards a waiting crowd of supporters and the ranks of the world’s media. While the outside world had expected Mandela to dwell on the suffering he and his colleagues had endured in prison, he himself was more interested in explaining what they had learned there, the understanding they had gained, the strength of their commitment to democracy which had sustained them. Not once did he express bitterness towards the white community, only against the system they imposed. The example he set had profound importance. For, if after twenty-seven years in prison, Mandela could emerge insisting on the need for reconciliation, it undermined the demands of those seeking revenge and retribution. The generosity of spirit he showed had a deep impact on his white adversaries, earning him measures of trust that ultimately laid the foundations for a political settlement.

  The route to a political settlement, however, was marked by years of tortuous negotiations and prolonged bouts of violence. On many occasions it seemed the whole exercise was doomed. An internal war broke out between the ANC and Inkatha, a Zulu natio
nalist movement, erupting first in Zululand, then spreading to the Witwatersrand, South Africa’s industrial heartland. Elements within the security establishment supported Inkatha, seeking to thwart any prospect of the ANC gaining power. Massacres by one side or the other became commonplace. All sides used death squads. White right-wing paramilitary organisations pursued their own vigilante action in a bid to provoke a racial conflagration.

  Yet after four years of turmoil, as the fever of violence abated, South Africans in their millions made their way peacefully to the polls, black and white citizens alike determined to make the election a success. Over four days of voting in April 1994, long queues formed outside polling stations, circling around city blocks and winding back along dirt roads and across fields. Many arriving in the early morning were still there late in the day, but remained patient. As they returned home, having voted, many blacks spoke of how their dignity had been restored. Many whites too felt a sense of their own liberation. Indeed, the feelings of relief that the curse of apartheid had finally been lifted were as strong among the white community which had imposed it as among the blacks who had suffered under it.

  On the day of his inauguration as president, 19 May 1994, Nelson Mandela promised South Africa a new covenant. ‘We enter into a covenant that we shall build a society in which all South Africans, both black and white, will be able to walk tall, without fear in their hearts, assured of their inalienable right to human dignity – a rainbow nation at peace with itself and the world.’

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  IN SEARCH OF DEMOCRACY

  The skirmishes over ‘Big Man’ rule that began in 1989 became an enduring feature of the African landscape. A host of opposition groups, propelled by public anger over unemployment, falling living standards and corruption, emerged to challenge one-party dictatorships and military regimes. Events abroad, in the Soviet Union and in Eastern Europe, affected the clamour for change. In its final years, the Soviet Union decided it could no longer afford to sustain client states that had relied on Soviet largesse for survival. In 1989, the outbreak of mass street demonstrations in Eastern Europe, culminating in the downfall of European dictators such as Ceauşescu in Romania and Honecker in East Germany, provided potent examples of what ‘people’s power’ could achieve. The end of the Cold War, moreover, changed Western attitudes towards Africa. Western governments no longer saw any reason to prop up repressive regimes merely because they were friendly to the West. Along with the World Bank, they concluded that one-party regimes lacking popular support constituted a major impediment to economic development; the emphasis now was on the need for democratic reform.

  Over a period of five years, many of the one-party systems that had prevailed in Africa for more than a generation were dismantled. Forced to accept multi-party politics, one dictator after another was ousted from power. Military strongmen in Benin, Congo-Brazzaville, the Central African Republic and Mali stood for election but were trounced at the polls. Two notable independence leaders, Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia and Kamuzu (Hastings) Banda of Malawi, tried to cling to office but were roundly defeated. In Ethiopia, Colonel Mengistu, denied support from the Soviet Union, was driven out of power in 1991 by a joint army of Eritrean and Tigrayan rebels and fled into exile. Eritrea gained independence two years later.

  But while many dictatorships fell, as many dictators survived. Military rulers won presidential elections in Guinea, Mauritania, Equatorial Guinea and Burkina Faso (Upper Volta) – ‘the land of honest men’. A new breed of dictators emerged, adept at maintaining a veneer of democracy sufficient for them to be able to obtain foreign aid. Even when regime change occurred, it tended to make little discernible difference in practice. Opposition leaders who won at the polls were often former ministers or members of the elite motivated not so much by democratic ideals – though that is what they proclaimed – as by determination to get their own turn at the trough of public power and money. Once installed, new governments soon reverted to the same systems of patronage and patrimonialism run by their predecessors.

  Some Big Men managed to outmanoeuvre the opposition and hold on to power until their death. In Côte d’Ivoire, Félix Houphouët-Boigny remained president for thirty-three years, dying in office in 1993 at the age of eighty-eight. In Togo, Gnassingbé Eyadéma, a former army sergeant who had participated in the assassination of Togo’s first president, entrenched himself for thirty-eight years until 2005, using brute force to suppress the opposition. In Gabon, Omar Bongo remained as president for forty-two years, using his access to the country’s oil and mineral revenues to make himself one of the richest men in the world; on his death in 2009, power passed to his son.

  The faltering steps that Africa took towards democracy were soon overshadowed by a series of upheavals that left behind permanent scars. In Somalia, the humiliating defeat suffered by the Somali army in 1978 after invading Ethiopia’s Ogaden region precipitated a civil war between rival clans and set in motion an implosion of the Somali state. In the hope of establishing a ‘Greater Somalia’, the Somali leader, General Mohammed Siyad Barre, had built a massive military force, relying on Soviet largesse in exchange for allowing the Soviet Union to use Somalia’s naval facilities on the Indian Ocean coastline. By 1977, despite its dire poverty, Somalia had acquired an army of 37,000 men, heavy artillery and a modern air force equipped with jet fighters. But when the Soviet Union decided to switch sides, preferring to back Mengistu’s Marxist regime rather than his own, Siyad was left without the support of any major arms supplier. Within weeks of the Ogaden defeat, he faced internal revolts. As the conflict spread, Somalia began to disintegrate, fragmenting into a patchwork of rival fiefdoms controlled by clan warlords. In 1991, Siyad was forced to flee southwards from Mogadishu. In the fighting that followed, rival militias reduced much of the capital to rubble. In northern Somalia, two regions declared their independence, taking the names of Somaliland and Puntland.

  Somalia’s plight was compounded by a calamitous drought in 1992 that caused widespread famine in areas already devastated by war. Foreign aid agencies arriving with relief supplies were promptly drawn into the mayhem and appealed for foreign military intervention to protect their operations. Under United Nations auspices, a multinational task force was assembled, led by the United States military. When the first US troops landed on the beaches of Mogadishu in December 1992, they were generally welcomed by the Somali population. A ceasefire was organised. But instead of limiting the scope of their intervention to famine relief, ambitious foreign officials devised plans to rebuild Somalia as a viable state. The task force grew to 20,000 peace-keeping troops, 8,000 logistical staff and some 3,000 civilian personnel from twenty-three nations. A massive complex was built among the ruins of Mogadishu to accommodate expatriate employees, complete with a shopping mall, satellite communication systems, a modern sewerage network, street lights and flower beds. But after $4 billion had been spent, the entire venture collapsed. Foreign troops became caught up in urban battles with Somali militias. After eighteen American soldiers died in an incident in Mogadishu known as ‘Black Hawk Down’, the US decided to withdraw all its forces, and other participating countries followed suit. Somalia was left in the hands of a collection of rapacious warlords without a functioning government.

  A far greater catastrophe unfolded in Rwanda. Since independence in 1962, Hutu politicians had enforced tight control over the Tutsi minority, determined to prevent any attempt to restore Tutsi rule. But they had been equally preoccupied with their own internal struggles. In 1973, the army commander, General Juvénal Habyarimana, a ‘northern’ Hutu from the district of Gisenyi, overthrew the ruling clique of ‘southern’ politicians, installed a one-party dictatorship and favoured his fellow northerners, notably from Gisenyi, with cabinet posts, administration jobs, economic opportunities and foreign scholarships; virtually all senior members of the army and security services were drawn from Gisenyi.

  Habyarimana’s corrupt regime eventually provoked opposition from other Hutu
groups. Faced with demands for political reform, his northern clique sought to keep their grip on power by rousing Hutu against the Tutsi ‘threat’. A raid launched into northern Rwanda in 1990 by Tutsi exiles based in neighbouring Uganda collapsed within days but allowed Habyarimana to foment a climate of fear and hatred. With French assistance, he embarked on a huge expansion of Rwanda’s armed forces that included a new Presidential Guard recruited exclusively from his home district.

  Under pressure from Western donors as well as from local politicians, Habyarimana abandoned his one-party system in 1991, entered into a coalition with opposition parties in 1992 and agreed to participate in peace talks with Tutsi exiles. This wave of reform enraged Hutu supremacists. In secret, a northern clique planned a counter-campaign to regain control, preparing for an onslaught well in advance by arming militias, organising murder squads, collecting death lists and whipping up ethnic hatred with relentless propaganda. An outbreak of mass violence between Hutu and Tutsi in neighbouring Burundi in 1993 intensified the miasma of fear and paranoia gripping Rwanda. The genocide that followed was caused not by ancient ethnic antagonism but by a fanatical elite engaged in a modern struggle for power and wealth using ethnic antagonism as their principal weapon.