African Activist Archive

A number of conditions in the late 1980s forced South Africa's white leaders to drop their hardline resistance to change and embark on a more complicated strategy of cautious reform linked with a more covert style of repression. The defeat of the South African Defence Force (SADF) in 1988 by Cuban and Angolan forces was a blow to white South Africa's sense of invulnerability. Years of international sanctions had stalled the South African economy. Continued defiance by opposition groups in South Africa - despite years of repression - showed some white leaders that the "total strategy" of trying to smash regional and local opposition was not working. Well before President F.W. de Klerk's February 1990 announcement that Pretoria would release Nelson Mandela and unban groups such as the African National Congress (ANC), splits had developed in the white community. Many of the ruling National Party's more powerful constituents, especially business leaders, had been communicating with the ANC and were convinced that a negotiated transition to political democracy held the best hope for saving capitalism in South Africa. There is abundant evidence, including secret government documents and testimony from South African police and military officials, revealing a conscious government strategy to destabilize the democratic movement through assassinations, sabotage, and support for vigilantes spreading random violence. Dropping the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act still left in place some federal restrictions and dozens of state, city and institutional sanctions and divestment laws accounting for billions of dollars of blocked investment and trade. ACAS should stand firmly against lessening U.S. pressure on the South African government until either (1) a democratic election is held and is judged to be free and fair by the international community, or (2) mass democratic forces such as the ANC, Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), and the South African Council of Churches (SACC) say sanctions should be dropped. ACAS should support efforts to build direct links between community organizations in South Africa and here, which could help prepare for the likely drop-off in activism here when South Africa becomes democratic. The report mentions Bush administration policy, Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Herman Cohen, students, faculty, township uprisings, and politically oriented tours.

African Activist Archive

South Africa: What Kind of Transition?

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