Africa: The Old and the Unexpected
There is always something new
out of Africa," said the ancient Greeks, as recorded by Pliny the Elder.
The contemporary Africa-watcher, however, might be forgiven for
wondering whether it is not all more of the same. In 1984, as in 1983,
events in southern Africa and the devastating drought and famine which
cost the lives of countless tens of thousands again dominated the year.
For Nigerians, the new year began with yet another military government,
which had ousted the elected civilian administration on the last day of
1983. In Chad, civil war ground on with no solution in sight. Libya’s
unpredictable leader, Colonel Muammar al-Qaddafi, continued to make
headlines with stories ranging from the killing of a British policewoman
in London to his dabbling in the affairs of Chad and other countries.
At the United Nations, the controversy over Namibia continued to set
records as the longest running debate in that organization’s history.
And U.S. suggestions that its policy of "constructive engagement" with
South Africa was succeeding continued to be greeted with skepticism in
many quarters.
Looking more carefully, several new and quite unexpected things came
out of Africa in 1984. Amid much pomp and ceremony, Mozambique’s
president, Samora Machel, and the South African prime minister, P.W.
Botha, signed an "Agreement on Non-Aggression and Good Neighborliness"
on March 16. Machel hailed the agreement, popularly known as the Accord
of Nkomati, as a victory for peace. He moderated his terminology later
in the year, and Tanzanian President Julius K. Nyerere, chairman of the
Front Line states, said in November—after also becoming chairman of the
Organization of African Unity—that the agreement was a "defeat" and a
"humiliation" for Africa. Swaziland then revealed that two years earlier
it had secretly signed a nonaggression pact with South Africa which
went further than the pact with Mozambique. Angola and South Africa had
also signed an agreement, one month before the Nkomati accord, which led
to a phased but uncompleted withdrawal of South African troops from
Angola. And the Organization of African Unity finally broke the deadlock
over the Western Sahara. This came at the price of Morocco’s withdrawal
from the organization and a walk-out by Zaïre, but the predicted
collapse of the organization did not occur.
Economic development was the most important long-term concern for the
continent in 1984, and for the West in its relations with Africa, but
drought and uneasiness over security continued to hamper this
development. "Africa is now the weakest component of our interdependent
global economy," Secretary of State George Shultz said in February 1984.
"Declining African markets and growing regional insolvency are a
significant drag on global recovery, with a particular impact on Europe.
In short, the West cannot afford—and we will not sit idly by and
watch—the accelerating decline of Africa’s economy." To encourage
African governments to pursue policies compatible with the American view
of economic recovery, the Administration went to Congress for a
five-year, $500-million aid program, beginning with $75 million for
fiscal year 1985. Fruits of this economic policy initiative for Africa
are to be allocated to countries that have undertaken certain policy
reforms—that is, after they have implemented them.
By contrast, the limits on Soviet influence in Africa remained
evident, although the Soviet Union continued to be more forthcoming in
its economic dealings than it had been a decade ago. As a result of
their colonial experience, African countries inherited neocolonial
structures that rely heavily on trade with the West. But trade with the
Soviet Union has jumped sharply, especially in northern Africa due to
oil exports, and in some other countries due to growing imports of
Soviet commodities. Soviet aid remains generally limited to essential
defenses, diplomatic support and technicians. Foreign Minister Andrei A.
Gromyko spoke of a "broad political spectrum" of international ties,
and among the states receiving more economic credits in the last few
years was Morocco.
Most African countries have a strong desire to be genuinely
nonaligned, and, with the possible exception of Ethiopia, no sub-Saharan
country could be described as a Soviet satellite or even an
unconditional ally. However, countries combating the South African
military threat, particularly Angola, have nowhere else to turn for
assistance. The new Soviet leader, Konstantin U. Chernenko, said that
solidarity with young liberated nations has been and will continue to be
a cornerstone of Soviet foreign policy.
The American policy of "not sitting idly by" was particularly
pronounced in southern Africa; the State Department’s Africa desk, led
by the assistant secretary of state for African affairs, Chester
Crocker, was engaged in "defining an agenda" or "identifying a regional
strategy." At the beginning of the year, Secretary Shultz said the
strategy was to build an overall framework for regional security, bring
about an independent Namibia and encourage positive change in the
apartheid policies of South Africa itself. After a series of complex
maneuvers, U.S. negotiators made it clear that they, at least, believed
they were closer than ever before to achieving a package involving the
final withdrawal of South African troops from Angola, implementation of
U.N. Resolution 435 leading to Namibia’s independence, and the phased
withdrawal of Cuban troops from Angola.
Something new was coming out of Africa. But each new development
brought new questions, some of which will take months, if not years, to
answer.
II
Under the Accord of Nkomati, Mozambique and South Africa undertook to
respect each other’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, refrain
from interfering in each other’s internal affairs, recognize the right
of self-determination and independence as well as the principle of
"equal rights of all peoples," refrain from the threat of force against
each other, prevent their respective territories from being used for
acts of aggression against each other, and promote good neighborliness.
Each side agreed to eliminate from its territory all bases, radio
stations and other facilities that were being used by forces hostile to
the other, and the two nations agreed to set up a joint security
commission to supervise and monitor the agreement.
Many friends of the Mozambique regime were stunned by the agreement,
and the African National Congress, which had been using Mozambique as a
rear base in its guerrilla war against the apartheid system, reacted
angrily. A statement from the ANC national executive committee accused
Pretoria of using "so-called nonaggression pacts" to reduce independent
states in the region to the status of South Africa’s own "Bantustans,"
or black homeland areas. They called for an intensification of the
offensive against South Africa.
At the time of the Nkomati agreement, Mozambique had been at war for
almost 20 years. Its liberation war against Portuguese colonial rule had
gone on for a decade until the peace agreement of 1974 leading to
independence. But by then Rhodesian troops were already operating inside
Mozambique in an attempt to block the infiltration of Zimbabwean
guerrillas. The Rhodesian war had a devastating impact on the newly
independent nation’s fragile and vulnerable economy and infrastructure.
Then in the 1980s, the Mozambique National Resistance movement (MNR),
massively backed by South Africa, began escalating its efforts, and
war-weary Mozambique was plunged into its third consecutive conflict.
After the Nkomati agreement, Machel observed that the struggle
against the MNR had left his country with "severe wounds." No one knew
the number of people murdered, maimed or mutilated by the "bandits," as
they are described in Mozambique. By the end of 1983, MNR fighters were
operating in all of Mozambique’s ten provinces and numbered about
15,000. Psychologically most important in understanding Mozambique’s
decision to sign the agreement was the fact that, as a result of MNR
attacks against supply routes, thousands of people had died or were
dying from starvation.
In the Portuguese colonial era, Mozambique had been developed as a
transit country for the African hinterland and South Africa. Sanctions
against Rhodesia cost dearly and South Africa applied economic pressure
by reducing the flow of its goods through the port of Maputo, limiting
the influx of Mozambique labor to its mines and terminating the
preferential agreement on gold prices. Bare shops and shelves, unending
queues for the little that was available, rationing, arrested
development, a total absence of foreign investment and, finally, the
need to reschedule the national debt were all symptomatic of the
horrendous price Mozambique was paying.
On their side, the South Africans had become deeply involved in
supporting the MNR, which they inherited from Rhodesia in March 1980
after Robert Mugabe’s victory in the pre-independence elections. In a
three-day airlift following that vote, the South African Defense Forces
(SADF) evacuated MNR personnel from Rhodesia, moving them straight into
military barracks in Pretoria.
This adopted force was soon unleashed against Mozambique. By early
1981 white farmers in southeastern Zimbabwe were describing an "armada"
of helicopters passing overhead at night from South Africa heading into
Mozambique. It was estimated that one airlift carried up to 1,000 men
and their equipment. By sea and air, trained MNR personnel and their
equipment were brought into Mozambique, a sophisticated radio network
was set up, SADF instructors were based inside Mozambique at MNR camps
consisting of up to 800 huts, and the MNR’s clandestine Voice of Free
Africa radio station broadcast its message from studios of the South
African Broadcasting Corporation near Johannesburg. All the indications
were that Pretoria was determined to overthrow the Marxist government on
its borders and that it was not too far from success. Why, then, did
Pretoria sign the Accord of Nkomati?
Although South Africa is militarily and economically the region’s
superpower, the fact is that it was confronted by mounting difficulties
in 1983 and early 1984. The Mozambique resistance had not developed a
viable leadership or set of alternative policies. South Africa had also
suffered a military reverse in southern Angola in late 1983 when its
large-scale invasion, Operation Askari, ran headlong into Angolan tanks
and sophisticated Soviet weaponry, blunting the offensive and curtailing
South Africa’s future ability to intervene.
Most important, the South African economy was under pressure. Gold
prices, which in early 1980 peaked at $850 an ounce, fell to $340 an
ounce in New York by mid-1984. Gold exports accounted for 49 percent of
South Africa’s export revenue in 1983; for every dollar the price drops,
South Africa loses almost $20 million. Nor was South Africa spared the
drought which affected much of the continent. In 1981 South Africa’s
maize crop was 14 million tons, leaving an export surplus after domestic
consumption of around seven million tons. The predicted 1984 crop was
put as low as 3.5 million tons, leaving an import requirement likely to
cost at least $500 million.
The strain of the gold slump and the drought had to be borne by the
currency; the rand plummeted from a value of 85 cents in March to just
under 50 cents at year’s end. Three years ago the rand was worth $1.30.
In addition, and in contrast to most of South Africa’s main trading
partners, inflation in 1984 remained up around 12 percent. Finally,
defense spending accounted for 21.5 percent of the total budget in 1984.
The war in Namibia/Angola and topping up the budget of Namibia cost
over $1 billion. No figures are available for South Africa’s support for
destabilization actions in Lesotho, Mozambique and Zimbabwe, for it has
never publicly admitted such a role, but the bill is obviously
considerable. Clearly, by early 1984, the costs of confrontation, when
viewed against the backdrop of the weakened economy, presented a telling
argument for a regional policy of diplomacy.
The decision to pursue a shift in policy occurred in the last quarter
of 1983, according to State Department officials closely involved in
the "constructive engagement" process. These officials say the U.S. role
consisted of assisting communication and building confidence. The first
round in the decisive series of public talks occurred in Swaziland in
December 1983 when Mozambique verbally spelled out the principles upon
which any agreement must be based. In February, South African Foreign
Minister Roelof F. "Pik" Botha, accompanied by the minister of defense,
General Magnus Malan, traveled to Maputo where they saw President
Machel.
The South African negotiators carried with them their draft of the
proposed agreement demanding the total removal of the ANC from
Mozambique. This draft was very different from the one they finally
signed. "It went so far that it would have meant we could not even have
Miriam Makeba in Mozambique to give a concert," one senior Mozambique
official said. The essence of the Nkomati accord was that Mozambique
undertook to prevent the ANC from using and traversing its territory for
attacks on South Africa, and South Africa undertook to end its covert
support for the MNR. It is noteworthy that South Africa, which has
always denied involvement with the MNR, tacitly admitted such
involvement by signing the Nkomati agreement. The weakness of the
agreement was that while Mozambique could fairly easily, if
acrimoniously, check the ANC, there was no mechanism to halt MNR
activities inside Mozambique. Indeed, there is substantial evidence that
South Africa pumped at least 1,000 MNR personnel into Mozambique’s
southern Maputo province on the eve of the agreement and resupplied MNR
arms caches.
By August there were indications that the accord could be in danger
of foundering amid suspicions that "elements" in South Africa were still
supporting the MNR. By late in the year, Mozambique and U.S. officials
were saying that these "elements" were members of the Portuguese
government and members of the Portuguese community in South Africa,
which numbers almost one million, including many persons who had fled
Angola and Mozambique on the eve of independence. A senior U.S. diplomat
visited Lisbon in November and raised the concern about involvement by
members of the Portuguese government with both Prime Minister Mario
Soares and Foreign Minister Jaime Gama. Mozambique President Machel made
a state visit to Malawi and spoke in no uncertain terms about
infiltration into Mozambique through that country.
Several attempts were made, in Africa and Europe, to arrange a
"cessation of armed activity," but peace in Mozambique still appeared to
be a very long way off. The objective of continued destabilization
seemed to be to force the government into a coalition with the MNR,
perhaps as an example for Angola. That being the case, has Mozambique,
as its critics insist, been guilty of naïveté in signing an agreement
with South Africa and trusting South Africa to keep its part of the
bargain?
If there were firm evidence that South Africa was breaking the March
16 agreement then the answer would certainly be affirmative. But senior
Mozambique officials have long known and said, privately, that it would
take at least two years to deal with the bandits. Machel is said to have
told a visitor late in the year that probably no more than 30 percent
of the MNR fighters were responsive to orders from the group’s central
headquarters. Machel’s expectation, obviously, did not correspond with
that of some outsiders, who seemed to think the war would end before the
ink of the agreement was dry, and that if it did not, South Africa must
be breaking its word. Although the security situation has deteriorated
in the southern Maputo province and areas across from the Malawi border,
it has improved in the center of the country where roads, such as the
one from Zimbabwe to Beira, can be traversed with relative impunity
these days and where the oil pipeline and railway are rarely targets.
There are many negative judgments to make on the Nkomati accord: that
it was a defeat and humiliation for Africa, that military might
prevailed, that South Africa’s international credibility has been
enhanced, that it is a serious setback for the ANC and the fight against
apartheid. But there is also a positive side. As no country bordering
on South Africa now allows, officially or unofficially, passage to ANC
guerrillas, can South Africa continue to pretend that its enemy is
external? Or must it finally address itself to where the real threat to
apartheid lies? Can it now, when a significant military attack occurs,
bomb one of its neighbors to placate its white constituency? Is it only a
coincidence that South Africa has suffered its worst sustained outbreak
of violence and demonstrations this year? Or has the message "this is
first and foremost your struggle" gone home in the townships? And is it
not a signal for the ANC to reexamine its strategy of relying heavily on
support from neighboring countries, for independent African states
could never have withstood South Africa’s military might.
Only time can
answer these questions, but the curious irony of the Nkomati deal may
well prove to be that it contributed to the acceleration of the struggle
within South Africa itself.
III
The Nkomati accord, the news that Swaziland had signed an agreement
two years earlier, and the ongoing discussions between Angola and South
Africa all put new pressure on other southern African states,
particularly Botswana, Lesotho and Zimbabwe. When Botswana President
Quett Masire met President Reagan at the White House in early 1984, he
asked for Washington’s support to help prevent South Africa from forcing
him to sign an agreement. Lesotho found it necessary to state publicly
that it had no intention of signing any agreement with Pretoria and, as
both countries are tied to South Africa in a common customs union and
can easily be held to ransom, any such agreement would seem to serve
little purpose other than scoring another political point for Pretoria.
Certainly neither could be seen as aggressors against South Africa and,
for Lesotho, the opposite was the case: South African troops attacked
Maseru in 1982 and South Africa is known to support the rebel Lesotho
Liberation Army.
It was Zimbabwe which appeared to pose South Africa’s main regional
foreign policy dilemma. The largest foreign mission in Harare—trade, not
diplomatic—is South Africa’s, and Zimbabwe was South Africa’s main
trading partner on the continent in 1983, with two-way trade amounting
to some $350 million. Further, Zimbabwe provides South Africa with a
trade gateway to Zaïre and Zambia. Although Zambian official statistics
show no trade with South Africa, some reports say South Africa has
overtaken Britain as the largest source of Zambian imports. But
Zimbabwean Prime Minister Mugabe consistently, to Pretoria’s irritation,
refused to countenance ministerial-level contacts with South Africa,
and Zimbabwe’s ministers and media continued to denounce apartheid.
Even so, during the first eight months of 1984 relations appeared to
have distinctly improved. In February, security and military officials
from both governments met in Harare when the Zimbabweans produced
evidence of South African involvement with dissidents operating in
southeast and central Zimbabwe. To underscore the point, they then
provided details about the white farmers murdered by South African
trained and armed dissidents. The question was obvious—was South
Africa’s objective to kill the white farmers of Zimbabwe?
After that meeting there was no further evidence of infiltrations
from South Africa until the beginning of August on the eve of the
congress of the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union. Two groups,
together numbering about 60, were seen crossing into Zimbabwe in the
area where the borders of Zimbabwe, South Africa and Botswana meet. By
year’s end the security situation had begun to deteriorate sharply with
the murder of two senators, one a member of ZANU and one a member of
Joshua Nkomo’s Zimbabwe African People’s Union, and mob violence against
ZAPU supporters.
With elections due early in 1985 and ZANU talking increasingly of a
one-party state, tempers were becoming increasingly frayed. Three
prominent members of ZAPU, the most important being its
secretary-general, Cephas Msipa, resigned from the party, but his
resignation came only after Mugabe had dismissed all ZAPU members from
the ZANU-dominated coalition government following the murder of the ZANU
senator. Bishop Abel Muzorewa, freed from several months’ detention
late in 1984, said his United African National Congress party would
field candidates in all constituencies. But it seemed unlikely that he
could improve upon or even hold on to the three seats he won in 1980,
and the indications were that Zimbabwe was heading for a polarization
between ZANU, with the 80 percent Shona majority, and ZAPU, supported by
most of the country’s remaining, Ndebele-speaking population.
IV
On the other side of the continent, South Africa’s occupation of
southern Angola became the focal point for an evolving strategy of
negotiation under the U.S. State Department’s curtain of "constructive
engagement." The transition from destabilization to diplomacy was so
sudden that one South African magazine, The Financial Mail, likened it
to a Transvaal thunderstorm.
In December 1983, the South Africans had penetrated more than 150
miles into Angola in their biggest operation in three years, although
they had occupied parts of southern Angola continuously since 1981. The
South African military said it was "a pre-emptive strike on SWAPO
[South-West Africa People’s Organization] positions before the annual
rainy season offensive"; but in terms of their own losses it was the
costliest invasion of southern Angola since the seven-month Operation
Savannah in 1976. The Angolan army was prepared for the attack, to the
surprise and dismay of its opponents.
What had escaped South African military intelligence, or had been
ignored, was the appearance in Angola of a considerable amount of new
and sophisticated Soviet defense equipment, including MiG-23s,
technologically superior to the South African Mirages; sophisticated
helicopter gunships equipped with rockets and cannons; ground-to-air
missiles; and a new radar system. This hampered the South African
invaders in sending ground troops too far ahead or attacking by air.
Ironically, according to American business and intelligence sources,
Cuban troops were not only not involved in this fighting but have not
fired on the South Africans since 1976 (and are garrisoned in towns).
Nonetheless, the issue of "linking" the withdrawal of Cuban troops from
Angola to the independence of Namibia dominated each stage of the
delicate and often secret negotiations, which were designed to give the
process a higher profile in Washington and an acceptable face in
Pretoria.
The South African government proposed a 30-day disengagement
beginning the first day of 1984 if the Angolans would ensure that there
were no infiltrations into Namibia by SWAPO guerrillas. This was
rejected. The Angolan president, José Eduardo dos Santos, countered with
a letter to the United Nations accepting in principle a 30-day truce
with two conditions: the withdrawal of all South African forces from
Angolan territory, and a promise from Pretoria to initiate the process
of independence for Namibia within 15 days of the start of the truce.
The South African offensive had caused great concern in some Western
capitals because it increased the risk of internationalizing the
conflict in the region by inviting direct confrontation with the Cuban
troops in Angola and possible Soviet intervention. On January 5, 1984,
the Soviet press repeated publicly the warning issued privately six
weeks earlier in an unprecedented meeting between Soviet and South
African delegations in New York: that such incursions would not be
tolerated in future; "aggression cannot be left unpunished." On January
6, the United States and Britain abstained from a U.N. Security Council
resolution condemning the invasion and demanding an unconditional
withdrawal of South African forces. On January 8, South Africa announced
it was beginning to withdraw; General Malan said the dispute should be
solved by negotiation rather than military force, and Pik Botha said his
government would not object to direct talks between SWAPO and the
administrator-general of South-West Africa (Namibia). He rejected
Angolan conditions, however.
Meanwhile, the Zambian president, Kenneth Kaunda, had written to the
South African prime minister suggesting that if he were serious about
finding a solution he should give Namibia its independence as a
"Christmas gift." Botha’s reply indicated a willingness to arrange talks
with SWAPO, and offered to guarantee their safety if they would send a
delegation to Windhoek. Kaunda offered SWAPO an aircraft and said he
would accompany them. SWAPO leaders declined the risk of Windhoek but
reiterated their willingness to hold direct talks with the South African
government.
South Africa sent a high-level delegation from military intelligence
to an unpublicized meeting in Lusaka on January 30. Both sides took the
meeting seriously. The South Africans found SWAPO free of rhetoric and
open to discussion. The SWAPO leaders noted the high level of the South
African delegation, led by a member of the powerful State Security
Council (the decision-making body in South Africa), and its military
composition, which indicated a willingness to consider a cease-fire in
the 18-year-long war.
The following day, P.W. Botha told the South African parliament that
his army had begun to withdraw from southern Angola as the first step in
a hoped-for cease-fire. He said the cost of retaining Namibia had
become too high, and he urged political leaders in Namibia to find an
acceptable solution to bring the territory to independence. During the
current financial year, he noted, "South Africa had made direct and
indirect assistance available to the territory amounting to about R560
million [then $450 million]," not including security spending of about
$320-$400 million, and had further guaranteed loans of $550 million.
"Our determination [to protect South-West Africa] has exacted a heavy
price—in material, in international condemnation, and in the lives of
our young men," he said.
Economic and military reality had altered political will; what
remained was to fit together the pieces of an international jigsaw
puzzle. America, with its diplomatic and financial muscle, was standing
by to act as broker. "South Africa stands at the crossroads between
confrontation and peace," Botha declared. A British newspaper, The
Guardian, put it differently: "The iron fist of destabilization is now
decorously clothed in the velvet glove of diplomacy."
On February 16, an Angolan delegation led by the interior minister,
Alexandre "Kito" Rodrigues, met in Lusaka with Crocker and a South
African delegation led by Pik Botha. They agreed to set up a joint
military commission to monitor the disengagement process in southern
Angola and to "detect, investigate and report any alleged violations of
the commitment of the parties." As South Africa withdrew, Angola would
reestablish its sovereignty and ensure that no Cuban troops or SWAPO
guerrillas moved into the area. The communiqué added that "a small
number of American representatives could participate in the activities
of the joint commission at the request of the parties."
The United
States set up a liaison office in Windhoek, and over the next few months
the commission monitored the hesitant South African withdrawal from
Cuvelai, 120 miles north of the Namibian border, to Evale and, finally,
to Ngiva, 20 miles from the border, where it stalled.
These events of the first six weeks of 1984 set a pattern for the
delicate fabric of negotiation that unfolded throughout the year, the
fiber intricately woven in Washington and the bold design completed by
the parties involved. "What happens is reciprocal," an American official
said. "South Africa withdrawing is a change; geographical distance is a
change. Each change offers the parties new choices. What chances are
they willing to take? Each decision builds confidence for moving on to
the next stage." Crocker and his deputy, Frank Wisner, spent much of the
year shuttling to southern Africa or the Cape Verde islands off the
west coast, a refueling stop for South African Airways often used as a
diplomatic meeting place.
A subject pointedly avoided has been the difficult issue of Jonas
Savimbi’s rebel group, the National Union for the Total Independence of
Angola (UNITA). American officials, concerned that mere mention of UNITA
could destroy the process, spoke instead of "getting the foreigners out
so Angola can solve its own problems." Savimbi has highly placed
friends in Washington and other capitals, and receives financial and
diplomatic encouragement for his operations despite his close alliance
with apartheid. UNITA is often glibly labeled as "pro-Western" because
it is opposing a Marxist administration, but Western business interests
operating in Angola say UNITA could be better described as
"pro-Savimbi." They express doubts that he would settle for minority
shareholding in government and feel he could be more difficult to deal
with than the present government, which they have come to respect for
its efficiency in business dealings despite the American government’s
refusal to establish diplomatic relations. The fact that UNITA, which
characterized itself as a "liberation movement," fought for a time in
Angola alongside the Portuguese army that it was supposed to be fighting
against, and received supplies from them to fight against other
guerrilla movements, does raise questions about its motives.
Savimbi spent the year trying to secure his place in the negotiating
process and to prevent his organization from being bargained off for
other concessions. After seizing more than 100 foreign hostages,
including British, Czech and Portuguese technicians, he demanded direct
negotiations and a coalition government. If his offer was rejected, he
said, UNITA would carry its acts of violence into the cities. Later in
the year, pylons near Luanda were attacked more than once, cutting
electricity to the capital. The Angolan government accused the South
Africans of continuing their aggression by halting direct attacks but
increasing support for UNITA, and said a clear demonstration of
continued South African support for Savimbi was his presence in Pretoria
at the swearing-in of P.W. Botha as state president in September.
An oil pipeline was damaged in the northern enclave of Cabinda in
June, an attack which UNITA claimed but which oil company officials say
was carried out by remnants of another group. It was the first attack on
an American target, highlighting the presence in Angola of Western oil
companies, including American, French, Brazilian and Belgian firms.
These businessmen who deal with the Angolans directly speak highly of
their relations with the Angolan government, which one Western oilman
described as "a clean operation. We just move in with our technical
operation and get on with it. We regard Angola as a very go-ahead area."
Oil accounts for 90 percent of Angola’s foreign exchange earnings,
expected to reach $1.98 billion in 1984. Foreign exchange earnings are
up 19 percent from 1983 and 34 percent from 1982, though there have been
problems in meeting production targets for diamonds because of UNITA’s
sabotage and smuggling. According to the government planning ministry,
the manufacturing and mining sectors have recently recorded their
highest levels of economic growth. The overall food production target is
expected to increase by about 17 percent this year, although
agricultural output has been hit by drought, security problems and
absenteeism among agricultural workers.
Since independence in 1975, Angola has been the rear base for SWAPO’s
war in Namibia, an arid but mineral-rich territory on its southern
border with a population of just over one million people. Strict
implementation of the Lusaka accord between South Africa and Angola
would mean that SWAPO would be excluded from the neutralized zone in
southern Angola, and would confront serious impediments to infiltration.
South Africa has given the continued presence of SWAPO guerrillas in
southern Angola as a reason to delay its withdrawal; another reason
given for the delay was "bad weather."
South Africa released almost 100 Angolan and Namibian prisoners
during 1984, including Andimba Ja Toivo, a founder of SWAPO who had
served 16 years of a 20-year sentence. He was promptly appointed to the
SWAPO politburo and later elected secretary-general, effectively number
two in the party. If South Africa’s intention was to divide SWAPO, it
seems to have failed, but it signaled a dramatic step toward fulfilling
one of the conditions of U.N. Security Council Resolution 435. On March
11, P.W. Botha went a step further, saying South Africa was willing to
take part in a peace conference of all parties involved in Namibia, with
no preconditions. SWAPO had earlier indicated it would meet the
administrator-general if he were the designated representative of the
South African government.
Hints of South Africa’s real strategy emerged publicly on April 27,
when P.W. Botha told the parliament in Cape Town that "the people of
South-West Africa, including SWAPO, cannot wait indefinitely for a
breakthrough on the Cuban question. If the political parties, including
SWAPO, can in the meantime come to some agreement with regard to the
future of their country, South Africa will not stand in the way." In
Lusaka, President Kaunda contemplated, as a way out of the impasse, a
regional settlement which could be endorsed later by the United Nations
"ex post facto." He enticed SWAPO into a meeting attended by the
administrator-general and the Multi-Party Conference, but SWAPO’s
position had been strengthened by the defection to its ranks of some key
MPC leaders. The meeting collapsed, but it brought into the open South
Africa’s strategy of trying to draw SWAPO away from Resolution 435 and a
seven-month transition to elections and into protracted constitutional
negotiations with the internal parties; SWAPO, militarily weakened but
politically strong, demurred.
Another means of avoiding a U.N. peacekeeping force was floated by
P.W. Botha in June, during his tour of six European capitals, when he
suggested that West Germany resume its colonial role in Namibia or that
the Western contact group (Britain, Canada, France, West Germany and the
United States) take over administration, defense and economic aid for
the territory. They all declined (the German government called it a
"propaganda exercise"), and European leaders were bluntly critical of
South Africa’s policies. Crocker, meanwhile, was working on a formula to
extend the Angola-South Africa truce and the joint commission to
include SWAPO.
In September, the Angolan government gave a written commitment on
Cuban withdrawal, but ruled out any reconciliation with UNITA. At about
the same time, the Angolan press reported that 1,500 armed rebels of the
National Front for the Liberation of Angola (FNLA), including their
chief of staff, had given themselves up with 20,000 civilian supporters
and pledged allegiance to the government. Soon another senior FNLA
exile, a former joint prime minister in the tripartite government of
1975, announced his return to the country. These events seem to indicate
a decrease in support from their main backer, President Mobutu Sese
Seko of Zaïre.
Angolan and South African military leaders, meeting at Ngiva in
November, agreed that there were political decisions to be made and a
ministerial meeting would be necessary. Then, in late November, the
Angolan government made public its five-point negotiating position: the
withdrawal of all South African forces from southern Angola; a pledge by
the South African government to "honor and contribute to"
implementation of U.N. Resolution 435; a cease-fire agreement between
South Africa and SWAPO; a statement by the Angolan government that it
will proceed with the withdrawal of Cuban troops when the implementation
of Resolution 435 is under way; and the signing of a procedural
agreement between Angola, South Africa, Cuba and SWAPO, with the U.N.
Security Council as guarantor. Accompanying this was a detailed written
proposal for the phased withdrawal of 20,000 Cuban troops over three
years; 5,000 Cuban soldiers would remain in the north to protect Luanda
and the Cabinda oilfields. The South Africans have demanded the
withdrawal of all Cuban troops from Angola in three stages to be
completed no later than 12 weeks after implementation of Resolution 435
begins, a position that Angola and the other Front Line states found
untenable. "Angola cannot make concessions which would be suicidal to
its national integrity. . . ." Pretoria also wanted a joint peace
commission set up to monitor the Cuban troop withdrawal, assurances that
the Cubans will not be replaced by other foreign forces, and limits to
be set on the number of Soviet bloc advisers working in Angola. The
Front Line states regarded these demands as interference in Angola’s
internal affairs.
The fact that there was a written proposal on which to negotiate,
however, made the Africa bureau of the State Department almost
optimistic, and Crocker told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s
subcommittee on Africa that "we are closer to the threshold of Namibian
independence than ever before. The underbrush has been cleared away.
Though negotiations are at a sensitive stage, we have reason to believe
we may be close to the fundamental political decisions on implementing
Resolution 435 and agreement on the Cuban troop issue in Angola. We have
identified the basis for a settlement and are committed to succeed."
By the end of 1984, more "linkages" had been identified. Angola
cannot withdraw Cuban troops until South Africa stops supporting UNITA;
South Africa will not do that until the Angolan government agrees to
talk to Savimbi. On the other side, South Africa refuses to complete its
withdrawal from southern Angola unless SWAPO is removed from the area
and monitored; Angola cannot take that action until South Africa and
SWAPO agree to a cease-fire.
V
The aims of South Africa’s regional policy seem clear enough: to
prevent neighboring states from hosting SWAPO and ANC guerrillas, and to
make economic links tight enough to eliminate the specter of sanctions
and disinvestment. But there is no single term adequate to describe the
heavy blend of destabilization and détente that has evolved as South
Africa’s strategy after several shifts in emphasis over the past decade.
"Don’t speak of destabilization," officials in Pretoria say; "call it
our forward policy."
Many explanations have been given for the change in South Africa’s
behavior in 1984, including its economic weaknesses, the high cost of
the war and Western pressure. These are all valid. But there is another
aspect: the South African leadership orchestrated the wars with a
political objective in sight, sort of "shooting their way to the
bargaining table." The cynical view in Pretoria is that "détente failed
because the black states were not well enough motivated to talk to
‘racist’ South Africa openly. Destabilization helped to provide that
motivation." The nonaggression pact with Swaziland, signed in 1982 at
the height of destabilization but not made public until after the
Nkomati accord, would seem to reinforce this view.
Each regional agreement has an interlocking benefit for South Africa
at home as well as for its security in the region. The Lusaka accord can
reduce defense costs; the Nkomati accord has potential for business and
tourism; these opened the way for a European tour by a South African
premier—the first since Jan Smuts’ in 1946—which offered some
international respectability, as well as the opportunity for financial
discussions in Switzerland; Namibia’s independence, moreover, would ease
economic and military strains.
But the most difficult pressure for South Africa to contain,
militarily and psychologically, is on the home front, and 1984 saw the
swelling of internal dissent coupled with continued ANC attacks on
economic and military targets. With their access routes sealed off, this
suggests a strong presence within the country, including no doubt many
young people who fled after the Soweto clashes eight years ago and have
returned as combatants. Young ANC guerrillas continue to appear in court
charged with treason. But in policy at home as much as in regional
strategy, 1984 was a watershed for Afrikaner rule in South Africa; it
will never be the same again.
VI
P. W. Botha was sworn in as the first executive state president under
a new constitution that allows limited representation by coloreds and
Indians but still excludes the three-quarters of the population who are
black. Few people inside or outside the country approved of the new
constitution. It caused deep divisions within Botha’s Afrikaner
constituency and, coupled with the gloomy state of the economy, was made
palatable only by the foreign policy footwork that included regional
accords and official reception in Europe.
In a climate of demonstrations, detentions and arrests, a majority of
the colored (mixed-race) and Indian populations boycotted parliamentary
elections to express their disapproval, and on September 3, the day the
new constitution came into force, riots broke out in black townships
costing at least 44 lives by the time the new parliament opened two
weeks later. General unrest continued through the rest of the year and
work stoppages showed the potential muscle of the new black trade
unions. The coalition of opinion actively working for the dismantling of
apartheid broadened its base as well as seizing the international
spotlight, and later in the year some prominent businessmen, including
Afrikaners, began to openly criticize aspects of apartheid.
The new tricameral legislature includes separate chambers for whites,
coloreds and Indians. Each group has executive authority over its own
"community" affairs such as health services, education, agriculture and
housing, while the cabinet controls "general" affairs, retaining the
powers of defense, law and order, finance and foreign affairs. The only
bodies in which direct bargaining between the races is likely to occur
are the standing committees. The new cabinet contains only two nonwhites
and neither has a specific portfolio. The new constitution makes
"special provisions" for black affairs in the office of the president.
In his opening address to the new parliament, Botha said, "Democratic
political participation must also be further extended among our black
communities," but he gave no indication of any concrete plans for the
extension of black political rights. Nor was there any suggestion that
he meant the black majority. A cabinet committee is studying
constitutional arrangements for urban blacks. But the new Aliens
Amendment Bill deprives nine million rural Africans of their South
African citizenship, declaring them "aliens," relegating them to dusty,
impoverished homelands, and imposing heavy fines on anyone who employs
them in white-designated areas.
Such "influx control" policies have been tightened since Botha took
power in 1978, but recently, as the economy pinched, some prominent
businessmen began to publicly criticize the policy as economically
disastrous, politically divisive and internationally damaging. Aside
from moral considerations, they said, influx control was not working and
had not worked anywhere else; throughout history people had been drawn
to urban areas. The new constitution offers blacks no protection from
forced relocation, often called "black spot" removals or,
euphemistically, "ethnic consolidation," where white-designated lands
are sealed off by police while the villages are razed and the population
taken away to the homelands.
The government has admitted that it has relocated almost two million
blacks since 1960, and conceded further that there has been "an element
of force in some removals," but says relocation is now
"development-oriented." In the Cape townships of Langa and Guguletu,
that meant that development funds were halted to persuade people to
move, part of a plan to shift the entire black population of Cape Town,
numbering more than a quarter of a million, to a vast new township on
the sand dunes of False Bay, almost 30 miles away, by the year 2000.
Later in the year Botha hinted at some unexpected second thoughts. "Like
it or not," he told the Cape provincial congress of his National Party,
"the free Western world is extremely sensitive to large-scale removals
of people who are moved just for the sake of moving them."
The easing of "business apartheid" has been recommended by a
government commission, which proposed the opening of "defined central
business districts" for trading by members of all races and the further
desegregation of public facilities including cinemas and public
transport. It concluded that the Group Areas Act was "not
indispensable," but said residential areas must continue to be racially
separated. A government decision to allow blacks to live and work in the
western Cape, long a preference area for coloreds, was a small
concession strengthening the hand of the new colored MPs who had
campaigned for integration. The pillars that uphold the Group Areas Act
and the rest of the apartheid system are the Immorality Act and the
Mixed Marriages Act, which make sexual relations and marriage across the
color line illegal. These show no immediate signs of crumbling,
although a government commission recommended some changes and the Labour
Party, which dominates the (colored) House of Representatives,
campaigned strongly against these laws as well as in favor of black
representation in parliament.
Discontent, simmering in black schools since early 1984, erupted
around the June 16 anniversary of the 1976 clashes in Soweto and again
in August on the eve of voting for the new parliaments. There had been
no previous referendum of coloreds and Indians to determine their
response to the new constitution, as there had been with the white
electorate in November 1983. The whites’ favorable response strengthened
the government’s hand against dissenting Afrikaners such as the
Afrikaner Volkswag, or "People Guard," formed as a rival to the
Afrikaner Broederbond to oppose the "reformist" policies of government.
The Volkswag welded feuding conservative Afrikaners into a political
force which could threaten some National Party seats in the next white
election if associated parties agree to run single candidates.
A central element in organizing black demonstrations against the
constitution was the United Democratic Front, a broadly based, nonracial
coalition of more than 600 organizations including ratepayers’
associations, trade unions, community and church groups. The UDF was one
year old in August when it achieved its first major objective—a low
poll in the colored and Indian elections. "A spirit of defiance against
race rule is alive in the land," a UDF leader said at the anniversary
rally. "We speak with one tremendous voice from the Cape Peninsula to
the northern Transvaal and from our eastern shores to Kimberley."
Building on its successes in 1984, the UDF, which named among its
patrons Nobel Peace Prize winner Bishop Desmond Tutu and several persons
banned or imprisoned, including Nelson Mandela, may go on to
consolidate its support and make specific political demands such as the
release of political prisoners for a national convention. Still, there
are fears that the organization, or its leaders, may be banned.
A UDF president, Archie Gumede, and executive members of the
affiliated Natal Indian Council, a passive resistance movement founded
by Mohandas Gandhi 90 years ago, gained international attention when
they took refuge in the British consulate in Durban after they had been
released from detention by the Supreme Court and then ordered redetained
by the government. They remained in the cramped offices of the
consulate as British relations with the South African government
deteriorated, finally provoking a reaction that damaged South African
credibility, especially in Europe, when Botha announced that four South
Africans released on bail by a British court would not return to Britain
to face charges of illegally exporting arms components to South Africa
in breach of the U.N. embargo. Three of the Durban Six, as they were
called, left the consulate to protest against the linking of their
sit-in with the so-called Coventry Four, and they were immediately
detained by security police. The Times of London warned that "a broken
international promise inevitably means a loss of credibility," and
questioned whether the South African government could now be trusted in
Namibia negotiations. Two of the remaining three fugitives were
redetained when they left the consulate.
When the new constitution took effect on September 3, the worst
rioting since 1976 spread through townships in the Vaal triangle south
of Johannesburg, an industrialized area of high unemployment and heavy
retrenchment with the highest cost of living in the country. A
"stayaway" from work had been organized to protest rent increases, and
several people died in a wave of attacks on black councillors and their
offices and property. By the end of the year, more than 200 people had
died amid millions of rands worth of damage to shops, schools,
libraries, houses and churches. Several local councillors resigned.
"South Africa can hardly afford to allow its black urban complex to
remain flashpoints that can explode at any moment," said an Afrikaans
newspaper, which identified the causes of the demonstrations as the
black education system and poor economic and social conditions,
triggered by the increases in rent.
"The complete disenfranchisement and exclusion from all
decision-making bodies compels the black man to vote with a petrol
bomb," said Ntatho Motlana, chairman of Soweto’s influential Committee
of Ten. The government reacted to this vote by sending the army into the
townships and gagging dissent in 22 districts to prevent political
demonstrations at the funerals of those who had died. Gatherings to
commemorate the 1977 killing of Black Consciousness movement leader
Steve Biko were canceled.
Then, for two days in early November, between 300,000 and 800,000
workers stayed away from their jobs in the biggest mass protest in South
African history. The "stayaway" was initiated by the Congress of South
African Students to support demands for: the withdrawal of army and
police from the townships; resignation of community councillors; a stop
to rent and bus fare increases; the release of detainees and political
prisoners; reinstatement of dismissed workers; withdrawal of an "unfair"
general sales tax and other taxes; democratically elected student
representative councils at black schools; and abolition of educational
age requirements for blacks.
The demands drew a broad range of support and marked a new phase in
the history of anti-apartheid protest with the coalescing of action by
students, community groups and organized labor. Its success brought home
to other sectors of the society just how dependent they are on the
labor of black workers and how deep the level of black discontent has
become.
The key role played by trade unions, including those which had
previously concentrated on shop-floor issues and avoided political
involvement, highlighted the strength of organized black labor. Two
recent disputes had developed into tests of strength. The Metal and
Allied Workers Union and the South African Boilermakers’ Society held a
joint ballot which overwhelmingly supported strike action, the first
time an emerging, mainly black, union had undertaken such action with a
long-established union. And the first threatened legal strike by black
mineworkers was settled after a bloody and costly dispute in which at
least seven gold-miners were killed, about 500 injured and a
considerable amount of mine property destroyed. The National Union of
Mineworkers, which saw its membership grow from four percent of the
country’s half a million black miners in 1983 to 20 percent in 1984,
warned that bargaining will get tougher as the membership grows larger.
Coupled with nonwhite discontent was the turbulence of the economy;
white South Africans had been living beyond their means for the past
three years and now faced the reckoning. The finance minister of ten
years was replaced with a younger man, a rising star of 44, Barend du
Plessis. Du Plessis rapidly drew protests from businessmen, bankers and
consumers when he introduced an austerity program with measures to curb
consumer spending, cut imports, reduce inflation and strengthen the
rand, at a time when expensive new infrastructures were required for
constitutional reform and when the expectations of other racial groups
were at an all-time high, demanding a larger slice of the cake in
improved education, health and social services. The good news he served
up to his financial constituency on his return from the annual meeting
of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank was the
country’s relative creditworthiness abroad.
At the close of 1984, the Afrikaner rulers of South Africa still had a
long way to go to gain international acceptance and economic stability.
The phrase "neo-apartheid" to describe the current situation was not
coined by radical opponents but by a conservative financial journal, The
Economist of London, which argued that there had been no shifting of
course and that the co-option of coloreds, Indians and urban blacks was
always part of National Party strategy. "Neo-apartheid" meant the
weakening of classical apartheid through economic change, the
dismantling of some bits of "petty" apartheid and the extension of
limited political rights to coloreds and Indians, coupled with the
retention of a racially biased franchise, harsh implementation of influx
control through forced removals and continued restrictions governing
where people live and work.
Source: foreignaffairs.com
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