VII.

History

The early history of South Africa dates nearly 3 million years to Australopithicus africanus, one of the earliest human ancestors. Archaeological evidence indicates that people resembling the San (bush people) and the Khoikhoi inhabited southern Africa thousands of years ago. The San were traditionally hunters and gatherers while the Khoikhoi were nomadic and herded cattle. Centuries before whites settled in South Africa, Bantu-speaking groups migrated from west central Africa and settled in a fertile region between the Drakensberg Mountains and the Indian Ocean. These early Bantu people are thought to be the ancestors of the modern Nguni, a people comprising the Zulu, Xhosa, Swazi, and other groups.

A.

Arrival of Europeans and the Mfecane

In 1652 Dutch East India Company official Jan van Riebeeck arrived at the Cape of Good Hope with orders to establish a fort and provision station for company ships on long journeys around Africa to Asia. Below Table Mountain, Cape Town eventually grew out of the first settlements around the Dutch fort. The original inhabitants Riebeeck encountered were the San and the Khoikhoi. At first, company officials bartered with them for cattle and set up gardens to grow fresh produce. By 1657 it became evident that the company’s farming efforts were inadequate, so a small number of company employees were released from their contracts and given land to work as independent farmers supplying the company’s needs. Khoikhoi livestock also proved insufficient for the needs of ships that stopped at the Cape, so the independent farmers, called free burghers, began raising livestock as well.

By the 1660s pressure on the Khoikhoi and the San increased as more of their land was taken by European farmers. The Dutch East India Company encouraged Dutch, German, and French Huguenot immigration between 1680 and 1707 to what later became known as the Cape Colony. The colonists, mostly farmers and cattle herders, became known as Boers (Dutch for “farmers”) or Afrikaners. They developed their own distinctive culture and language (Afrikaans) and practiced their own form of Calvinism, a Protestant religion. During the second half of the 17th century slaves were imported from Asia and other parts of Africa. By the early decades of the 18th century, after two short wars, the Khoikhoi had lost most of their lands to the European settlers; large numbers of them had died as a result of newly introduced diseases such as smallpox, and many of those who remained were placed in positions of servitude. In the same period the San were forced north by the colonists and many were eliminated for cattle raiding. Sexual relations between members of these ethnic groups resulted in the emergence of a distinct group that became known as the Cape Coloureds.

In the 1770s the European settlers encountered Bantu-speaking peoples, who were ending several thousand years of migration. Nguni Bantu groups settled along the eastern coast of what is now South Africa while Sotho groups occupied the interior north of Cape Colony. In the early 19th century competition for land led to a period of conflict and forced migration among Bantu-speaking peoples known as the mfecane (Nguni for 'the crushing'). It is estimated that hundreds of thousands died during the wars, entire groups disappeared, and centralization resulted in the creation or strengthening of several Bantu states, including the Zulu, Swazi, and Sotho kingdoms.

The mfecane fundamentally altered the political and social configuration of the entire region. It was set in motion by one of the great military geniuses of the 19th century, Shaka, who ruled the Zulu kingdom. He introduced a type of spear with a long blade called an assegai, organized a regimental system based on age groups, and introduced new strategies of warfare. The kingdoms, or states, that emerged from the mfecane came into direct conflict with white expansion in the 19th century.

A.1.

Early British Settlement

British forces twice occupied the Cape region, in 1795 and in 1806; in 1814 Britain was granted the Cape Colony in a treaty drawn up at the Congress of Vienna, at which European powers negotiated the end of the Napoleonic Wars (1799-1815). After 1820 thousands of British colonists arrived in South Africa and demanded that English law be imposed. English became the official language in 1822, Khokhoi workers were given protection under new labor laws in 1828, and slavery was abolished in 1833.

These measures were bitterly resented by Afrikaners and resulted in the Great Trek, in which thousands of Afrikaners migrated northward, some settling in Natal and others continuing east across the Orange River and north across the Vaal River. From 1835 to the early 1840s, between 12,000 and 15,000 Afrikaner families, accompanied by slaves and servants, left the Cape Colony because changes introduced by the British were intolerable.

A.2.

Cape Frontier Wars

As settlers moved across the country they encountered resistance from the Bantu-speaking people, and in particular from the well-armed Xhosa, who had been moving slowly south and southwest for hundreds of years and were also in search of land. The Afrikaners and the Xhosa clashed along the Great Fish River, and in 1781 the first of nine frontier wars took place. For nearly 100 years, the Xhosa fought the Cape Colony settlers, first the Afrikaners and later the British. The British also encroached on Xhosa lands, precipitating several of these bloody wars. In the Fourth Frontier War, which lasted from 1811 to 1812, the British forced the Xhosa back across the Great Fish River and set up forts along this boundary.

In 1818 differences between two Xhosa leaders, Ndlambe and Ngqika, ended in Ngqika’s defeat, but the British continued to recognize Ngqika as the paramount chief. He appealed to the British for help against Ndlambe, who retaliated by attacking Grahamstown in 1819 during the Fifth Frontier War. The Xhosa prophet Maqana Nxele emerged at this time and promised “to turn bullets into water.” He led the Xhosa armies in several attacks, including the one on Grahamstown in 1819, and was subsequently captured and imprisoned on Robben Island. After this war the British made a futile attempt to declare the area between the Great Fish River and the Keiskamma River neutral territory. More fighting took place, however, until eventually all Xhosa territories were incorporated into the Cape Colony.

B.

The Establishment of the Afrikaner Republics

In Natal the Afrikaners who had migrated during the Great Trek were confronted with the Zulu kingdom. On December 16, 1838, an important battle between the Afrikaners and the Zulu, the Battle of Blood River, led to the defeat of the Zulu and the establishment of the Republic of Natalia by 1840. The battle remains of symbolic importance to many Afrikaners because their ancestors were said to have made a covenant with God for victory.

After the British declared the coastal region of Natal a crown colony in 1843 and annexed it to the Cape Colony in 1845, most of the Afrikaners left and headed west and north where they joined other Voortrekkers (Afrikaans for “pioneers”). They settled inland, north of the Orange River, and further north in the Transvaal region (north of the Vaal River). The governor of the Cape Colony, Sir Harry Smith, gained control of the region between the Orange and Vaal rivers in 1848, and the territory was renamed the Orange River Sovereignty. Smith’s move was overturned by the British government, however. The British government recognized the independence of the Transvaal territories in 1852 at the Sand River Convention, and recognized the former Orange River Sovereignty as the Orange Free State in 1854 at the Bloemfontein Convention. By the late 1850s the Transvaal territories beyond the Vaal River had coalesced into the South African Republic. Although attempts to unite the two Afrikaner republics were unsuccessful, they maintained a close relationship in the following years. They shared policies that separated blacks and whites and allowed no equality between the races.

The Afrikaners in the Orange Free State encountered the Basotho king Moshoeshoe, who was ruling a loose group of chieftaincies from the mountain of Thaba Bosiu (in present-day west central Lesotho). From the 1830s when Afrikaners and British began settling the surrounding territory, Moshoeshoe demonstrated great skill in protecting his land and subjects by playing one group of white settlers against the other. After the Orange Free State was established in 1854, the Afrikaners and the Basotho fought extensively over the boundaries of their territories. Although the Basotho had also fought with the British in the late 1840s and early 1850s, Moshoeshoe asked the British to incorporate Basotho lands into a protectorate to prevent further attacks by Afrikaners. The protectorate of Basutoland was created in 1868. This area ultimately became the independent nation of Lesotho.

In 1856 Natal was split from the Cape Colony and reestablished as a separate colony, with representative government. In 1872 the Cape Colony received self-government from Britain, which meant the government was independent except in foreign and economic affairs. After the discovery of diamonds in 1867 in Griqualand West, an area claimed by the South African Republic, Britain renewed its expansionist policy into Afrikaner territory, annexing Griqualand West in 1871 and the nearly bankrupt, politically unstable South African Republic in 1877.

The British were unresponsive to Afrikaner needs and there were fundamental differences over taxes. The Transvaal Afrikaners decided to fight for independence. The British were defeated at the battle of Majuba in February 1881, which led to the British decision to restore self-government. In 1883 Afrikaner leader Paul Kruger was elected president of the republic.

B.1.

The British in Natal

Before 1879 the Thukela (Tugela) River was the boundary between Zululand and Natal. Cetshwayo, who became the Zulu king in the 1870s, assembled an army estimated at 60,000 and refused to disband it when the British insisted that he do so. British troops invaded in January 1879 but were not prepared for the terrain, and a large number of them were killed in the Battle of Isandlwana. In July 1879, however, the British won a battle in the Zulu capital of Ulundi. This defeat permanently neutralized the Zulu military.

B.2.

The Boer War

In 1885 Britain annexed Bechuanaland (now Botswana), thwarting President Kruger’s plan to expand Afrikaner territory to the west. Vast gold deposits were discovered in the southern Transvaal in 1886. The mining industry was financed by the British and thousands of English miners, called Uitlanders (foreigners) by the Afrikaners, entered the Transvaal.

Kruger refused to grant civil equality to Uitlanders and taxed them and foreign companies heavily. After negotiations failed, British financier Cecil Rhodes, prime minister of the Cape Colony, encouraged the Uitlanders to revolt in 1895. They were supported by a small invading force under the command of Leander Starr Jameson. The raid was a failure and although Rhodes was absolved of any involvement, he was forced to resign as prime minister.

Relations between the Cape Colony and the two Afrikaner republics worsened after British statesman Alfred Milner became governor of the Cape Colony in 1897. In October 1899 Kruger declared war. The Boer War (also known as the South African War), which lasted for two and a half years, pitted the might of the British Empire against the Afrikaners. After some initial success, the British forces occupied all major urban centers by mid-1900. British forces, which have been estimated at 500,000, far outnumbered a force of about 90,000 in the Afrikaner armies.

The Afrikaners, however, continued to wage a costly guerrilla war until 1902. Toward the end of the war the British used a “scorched-earth policy” in which Afrikaner farms were destroyed and thousands of women and children were held in concentration camps. More than 20,000 Afrikaners were said to have died in the camps. In addition, more than 14,000 blacks from the region died in concentration camps during the war. Under the terms of the Treaty of Vereeniging, signed on May 31, 1902, the Transvaal territories and the Orange River Colony (as the Orange Free State became known in 1900) became British crown colonies. In 1906 and 1907 they were given constitutions as self-governing colonies.

C.

A Segregated Nation

With the South Africa Act of 1910 the British parliament established the dominion of the Union of South Africa with the four colonies as its provinces. A clause in the act provided that the policies of the provinces toward blacks would be retained and could be changed only by a two-thirds majority vote of parliament. In Cape Province (formerly the Cape Colony), Coloureds and a few blacks could vote, a right not available to them in the other three provinces.

Discrimination against nonwhites was inherent in South African society from the earliest days. Before World War I, Indian leader Mohandas K. Gandhi led the struggle to assure civil rights for Indian residents. Despite some government concessions, including abolition of the poll tax, the Indian population retained second-class status after the war. South African blacks had an even lower status in the white-dominated state. Urban blacks lived in segregated areas and could not hold office. They had no viable unions, and technical and administrative positions were closed to them.

Politics were focused on differences between English-speaking South Africans and Afrikaners as well as racial differences. Party politics gathered momentum after elections were held in 1910, and the first parliament was formed. The South African Party (SAP) was formed by members of the coalition who won the 1910 election. A former Afrikaner commander, Louis Botha, became prime minister. General Botha and the SAP tried to bridge the differences between the two major white groups, but Afrikaners, particularly those in the Transvaal and Orange River Colony, rejected these efforts.

One of the first moves of the new parliament was to pass the Natives Land Act of 1913 which prevented blacks, except those living in Cape Province, from buying land outside so-called reserves. The land allotted to these reserves made up 7 percent of the total land of the country. Because of the limited amount of land available to blacks, the act also ensured that the migratory labor system would continue and cheap black labor would be available in the mines and industries.

C.1.

Politics During the Two World Wars

In 1914 General J. B. M. Hertzog founded the National Party (NP), which emphasized Afrikaner language and culture. It used as one of its slogans “South Africa First,” in contrast to the SAP, which appeared more strongly tied to the interests of the British Empire. Botha’s commitment to Britain in World War I increased Afrikaner resentment, and in the 1915 election the NP received relatively strong support. Botha himself led the South African forces that conquered German South-West Africa in 1915. This former German colony eventually became a League of Nations mandate under South African supervision in 1920.

While the SAP won the largest number of votes, it only controlled 54 seats in the parliament while the NP controlled 27. Botha was therefore forced to enter a coalition with the smaller Unionist Party in order to govern. After Botha died in 1919, he was succeeded by General Jan Christiaan Smuts.

Official politics in South Africa from the 1920s continued to be dominated by the conflicting positions of the two white groups. Hertzog and the NP insisted that reconciliation between Afrikaners and British be based on full equality between the two groups. His party therefore demanded that the Afrikaans language be given equal status with English, that the country have a separate flag, not the British Union Jack, and that South Africa have the right to secede from the British Empire.

In 1918 a secret organization known as the Broederbond (Afrikaans for “association of brothers”) was established to advance the Afrikaner cause and interests. This organization became a powerful vehicle for the preservation of Afrikaner language, culture, and traditions. Above all, its aim was to find ways for Afrikaners to attain positions of power throughout the society. The Broederbond was exclusively for Afrikaners who were over 25 years old, male, Protestant, and specially invited to join.

In 1921 leaders of the country’s gold-mining industry decided to replace white labor with black labor in an effort to cut costs. This move led to a major uprising in March 1922 called the Rand Revolt. Prime Minister Smuts declared martial law and used the military to contain the revolt. The revolt resulted in 200 dead. The real impact of the Rand Revolt came in 1924 when Hertzog’s NP, with the help of white labor, unseated Smuts at a time of rising black militancy. The result was the protection of white workers and the exclusion of blacks from managerial positions.

During the economic depression of the 1930s a coalition was formed, and Hertzog and Smuts became dual leaders of the new United Party. Britain’s declaration of war against Germany in 1939, however, split the coalition. Hertzog, who tried to keep South Africa neutral, was replaced as prime minister by Smuts, and the Union declared war on Germany on September 6, 1939, thereby entering World War II. Because of pro-German sentiment among Afrikaners, however, the Union did not quickly pass a draft law. All members of the Union’s armed forces were volunteers and their only combat action occurred in East and North Africa and Italy.

C.2.

Apartheid Instituted

In 1948 the all-white NP came to power with Daniel F. Malan as prime minister. Segregation and inequality between races had existed as a matter of custom and practice in South Africa, but after 1948 they were enshrined in law. The NP won the general election that year in a coalition with the smaller Afrikaner Party. The United Party, led by General Smuts, became the official opposition. The United Party mainly had an urban base with substantial support from English-speaking South Africans, while the NP’s support was drawn almost entirely from Afrikaans-speaking South Africans.

At the heart of the NP’s legislative agenda was apartheid (Afrikaans for “separateness”), a doctrine of white supremacy promoted as a program of separate development. Once in power, the NP extended and legalized white economic exploitation, political domination, and social privilege. These tenets were reinforced with a harsh and intrusive security system, separate and unequal education, job discrimination, and residential segregation. Such fundamental rights as protection against search without a warrant and the right to a trial were violated. A severe anti-Communist law was passed in 1950. It equated Communism with any struggle for political, economic, or social change, and served as an excuse to arrest many of the government’s opponents.

The Group Areas Act was also passed in 1950. It specified that separate areas be reserved for each of the four main racial groups: whites, blacks, Coloureds, and Asians. Stringent pass laws that restricted and controlled black access to white areas were implemented across the nation in 1952. Blacks without passes who remained in urban areas for more than 72 hours were subject to imprisonment. Millions were arrested for such violations. Marriage between whites and blacks was outlawed.

Beginning in the 1950s the government divided the black population into ethnic groups and assigned each group to a so-called homeland, also referred to as a bantustan. Ten of these territories were eventually established; Bophuthatswana, Ciskei, Gazankulu, KaNgwane, KwaNdebele, KwaZulu, Lebowa, Qwaqwa, Transkei, and Venda. The Development Land and Trust Act of 1936 had augmented the amount of land blacks could own from 7 percent to 13 percent, and these areas became the basis for the bantustans.

Prime Minister Malan retired in 1954 and was succeeded by another NP leader, Johannes G. Strijdom, who removed legal obstacles to the further implementation of apartheid. To assure support for the program, the Supreme Court was filled with six judges sympathetic to apartheid who would hear constitutional questions, a step that received parliamentary approval in 1955. NP control of the Senate was effected by their increased membership from 77 to 89 in elections that same year. Shortly after the 1958 elections for the House of Assembly, in which the NP members increased their seats from 94 to 103, Strijdom died.

Strijdom’s replacement was Hendrik F. Verwoerd, an uncompromising supporter of apartheid who implemented the concept of separate development of the races through the bantustan, or homeland, policy. In 1959 the government passed the Promotion of Bantu Self-Government Act, an unsuccessful attempt to diffuse international criticism of apartheid by offering blacks the right to participate in a political process within the bantustans. The act, which ended black representation in the national parliament, defined blacks as citizens of bantustans, although they retained their South African citizenship. The economic advantage of the policy from the government’s point of view was that it would relieve the government of welfare obligations to millions of blacks without losing the benefits of an abundant supply of cheap black labor. The policy was vehemently opposed by blacks who saw it as a further erosion of their rights because it forced them to accept citizenship in remote, underdeveloped bantustans.

By the end of the 1970s all of the bantustans had become nominally self-governing. Although called self-governing, they were in fact entirely dependent on the national government and incapable of sustaining 75 percent of the country’s population. Thus, most blacks continued to live in white areas. The vast majority of those who lived in the bantustans commuted to white areas as part of an enormous migrant labor force.

D.

Resistance to Apartheid

In 1912 the South African Native National Congress was founded by a group of black urban and traditional leaders who opposed the policies of the first Union of South Africa government, especially laws that appropriated African land. In 1923 the organization was renamed the African National Congress (ANC). At first its main agenda was to protect voting rights for blacks in the Cape Province. For nearly 50 years it pursued a policy of peaceful protests and petitions.

During the 1950s, while the South African government passed and implemented oppressive apartheid laws, black South Africans responded by intensifying their political opposition. The ANC dramatically increased its membership under the leadership of Albert Luthuli and Nelson Mandela became one of the organization’s principal organizers. Although the membership of the ANC was largely black, it was a multiracial organization with white and Asian members, some of whom assumed leadership positions.

After decades of receiving no response to demands for justice and equality, the ANC launched the Defiance Against Unjust Laws Campaign in 1952, in cooperation with the South African Indian Congress, an Asian antiapartheid political organization. The campaign was a nonviolent one in which apartheid laws were deliberately broken. After several months of civil disobedience and 8,000 arrests, rioting broke out in a number of cities, which resulted in considerable property damage and 40 deaths. Black protest and white repression continued. In 1956 three black women were killed when thousands of them confronted the police because of their inclusion under amended pass laws, which had previously applied only to black men.

Despite the ANC’s increasing militancy, its aims were still reformist, seeking to change the existing system, rather than revolutionary. In 1955 the ANC brought together nearly 3,000 delegates of all races in Kliptown in the Transvaal to adopt the Freedom Charter. This remarkable document, which affirms that South Africa belongs to all its people, remains to this day the clearest statement of the guiding principles of the ANC. It emphasizes that no government can justly claim authority unless it is based on the will of the people and the people in South Africa had been robbed of their birthrights to land, liberty, and peace by a form of government founded on injustice and inequality. It stated that, “Every man and woman shall have the right to vote for and stand as candidates for all bodies which make laws.”

In 1958 Robert Sobukwe left the ANC; he founded the Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC) in April 1959. The PAC insisted on a militant strategy based exclusively on black support in contrast to the ANC’s multiracial approach. Black attitudes toward the liberation process changed dramatically after the Sharpeville Massacre on March 21, 1960. White police opened fire on a mass demonstration organized by the PAC, killing 69 blacks and wounding more than 180. The Sharpeville Massacre led to violence and protests throughout the country. The government declared a state of emergency and arrested many members of the PAC and the ANC. In April 1960 the PAC and ANC were banned.

In 1961, in response to the government’s actions, the ANC organized Umkhonto we Sizwe (Zulu for “Spear of the Nation”) to conduct an armed struggle against the regime. On December 16, 1961, when Afrikaners were commemorating the Battle of Blood River, Umkhonto’s first act of sabotage took place. From its inception, however, the underground organization refused to engage in terrorism against civilians and only attacked symbolic targets, police stations, military offices, and other government buildings. The PAC’s military wing, in contrast, attacked white civilians.

On a trip to several other African countries in 1962, Nelson Mandela arranged for ANC recruits to undergo military training abroad. The South African government, concerned with the potential of Umkhonto to cause increased unrest, passed new legislation that gave the police broad powers of arrest without warrant. In July 1963 police raided Umkhonto’s secret headquarters in the Johannesburg suburb of Rivonia and arrested most of its leadership. Mandela, who was already in prison at the time, was put on trial with the other Umkhonto leaders, all of whom were sentenced to life imprisonment. With the imprisonment of the nationalist leadership and the earlier banning of the ANC and PAC, South Africa entered a decade of enforced calm.

The government held a referendum in October 1960 to decide whether South Africa should become a republic and on May 31, 1961, the country officially became the Republic of South Africa. In addition, it chose to withdraw from the Commonwealth of Nations before it was forced to leave because of apartheid policies. The government continued to implement repressive legislation. A 1963 act provided for detention of up to 90 days without trial for the purpose of interrogating anyone even suspected of having committed or intending to commit sabotage or any offense under the Suppression of Communism Act or the Unlawful Organizations Act. The Terrorism Act, passed in 1967, provided for the indefinite detention without trial of suspected terrorists or persons in possession of information about terrorist activities.

Prime Minister Verwoerd was assassinated in September 1966 and John Vorster, who had been minister of justice, police, and prisons, was chosen to succeed him. One of the important challenges facing South Africa during Vorster’s tenure as prime minister was the increasing hostility of states surrounding South Africa. Angola and Mozambique achieved independence in 1975, and their new governments were opposed to the South African government’s policies of apartheid. Liberation struggles were underway in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and Namibia in the mid-1970s, causing an atmosphere of unrest.

In the late 1960s Stephen Biko and other black students founded the Black Consciousness Movement (BCM), which was loosely based on the Black Power movement in the United States. In South Africa it emphasized black leadership and non-cooperation with the government or with bantustan leaders, who were considered collaborators with the government. The BCM was involved in establishing the South African Students’ Organization (SASO) for black students. In 1969 SASO split from the National Union of South African Students (NUSAS), a white-led but nonracial liberal organization, and from the University Christian Movement. Biko, the president of SASO, believed blacks had to provide their own leadership in the liberation process. SASO and the Black Peoples Convention (BPC), a coalition of black organizations, held rallies in September 1974 to mark the independence of Mozambique, despite a government ban on such meetings. Many were arrested, including several of the leaders, who were then prosecuted and sentenced. The BCM had a formative influence on students and young South Africans, who played a crucial role in the liberation process. In September 1977 Stephen Biko died after being mistreated while in police custody.

The 1970s witnessed the emergence of a Zulu-based ethnic organization called Inkatha, which became the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP). The IFP was led by Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi and rejected early by the ANC because the ANC opposed its exclusive ethnic character and close cooperation with the existing white power structure. These differences turned into violent confrontations in the late 1980s and early 1990s. In 1991 investigations revealed that the South African government had given covert training and financial support to Inkatha in an effort to foster division among black organizations in the country.

The 1970s were also marked by a new and revitalized phase of black trade unionism even though government restrictions continued to limit unions’ political effectiveness. The dependence of the South African economy on black workers created a powerful political and economic force, and from the 1970s onward this growing power was demonstrated by a series of illegal boycotts and strikes. The growth of militant worker and youth organizations in this period was a clear indication that banning the nationalist movements had not ended black resistance. It was not until 1981 that black trade unions could be officially registered and black workers were given the right to strike. The power of the black trade union movement continued to grow and played a central role in ending apartheid and in the transition to black majority rule.

D.1.

Struggle with the United Nations

Beginning in 1952 the General Assembly of the United Nations took up the issue of South Africa’s racial policies annually. The tone of early UN resolutions and declarations was civil, even conciliatory, reflecting the hope that South Africa might be convinced to reform. The General Assembly at first simply called upon South Africa to recognize its obligations to end racial discrimination under the UN Charter. The assembly subsequently “regretted” South Africa’s refusal to end apartheid.

After the Sharpeville Massacre in 1960, a UN Security Council resolution blamed South Africa for the shootings, and the UN General Assembly’s first successful sanctions vote against South Africa occurred two years later. South Africa’s unwavering policy of whites-only representation on sports teams resulted in their expulsion from the Olympic Games and a dozen other international sports federations in the 1960s.

After World War II the UN made several attempts to control South Africa’s administration of South-West Africa. The UN General Assembly voted in October 1966 to terminate South Africa’s mandate over South-West Africa, which was renamed Namibia, and established a council to assume responsibility for the territory. South Africa rejected all UN actions and proceeded to integrate the territory into its own economy.

In June 1971 the International Court of Justice ruled that South Africa’s presence in Namibia was illegal. The situation became critical when the Angola-based South West Africa People's Organization (SWAPO) stepped up its campaign of guerrilla attacks on targets in Namibia. South Africa responded by building up defenses, attacking Angola, and aiding the rebels who were fighting the Cuban-supported Angolan government. The war continued for almost 20 years until peace talks, sponsored by the United States, resulted in independence for Namibia in 1990. In 1974 South Africa was suspended from the UN General Assembly, and by the 1980s General Assembly resolutions referred to apartheid as a crime against humanity. This was a reflection of growing international opposition to apartheid.

D.2.

Deepening Crises

A major confrontation between protesters and South African police occurred in the black township of Soweto, near Johannesburg, on June 16, 1976. Thousands of black high school students demonstrated against a government ruling that required certain high school subjects to be taught in Afrikaans, which was seen as the language of oppression. At least 575 people were killed, and rioting and confrontations between police and students spread throughout the country. This led to a new phase in the liberation process in which black youth became deeply involved. Many left the country to join the liberation movements while others continued to work with the underground resistance movement.

By the 1980s the psychological, financial, and human costs of maintaining order were increasing as the cycle of repression, black violence, and white counterviolence accelerated. In May 1983, in an effort at limited reforms, Prime Minister P. W. Botha introduced a constitutional amendment that created a tricameral parliament with three racially separate chambers: one for whites, one for Asians, and one for Coloureds. The amendment was approved the same year by a referendum open to white voters only. Elections to the Coloured and Asian legislative bodies were held in August 1984. But 77 percent of the eligible Coloured voters and 80 percent of the Asian voters boycotted the elections because the new plan continued to exclude blacks.

The structure of the new tricameral parliament gave the appearance of power-sharing, but white control of the presidency and the predetermined numerical superiority of the white chamber ensured that real power would remain in white hands. Most important, the new arrangement continued to exclude South Africa’s black majority, who were not allowed to vote or stand as candidates for election. Reaction to the constitutional amendment was the exact opposite of what the white government intended. Beginning in September 1984 there were violent confrontations throughout the country and the government declared successive states of emergency.

A crisis of unprecedented magnitude and duration was precipitated by the constitutional changes and other grievances such as chronic black unemployment, inadequate housing, rent increases, inferior black schools, and an ever-increasing crime rate, especially in the black townships. The government’s plan to restore law and order through a policy of modest reform with continuing repression failed. Between 1984 and 1986 prohibitions against interracial marriages and racially mixed political parties were repealed and rights to conduct business and own property in designated urban areas were extended to blacks. At the same time, over 2,000 blacks were killed and as many as 24,000 arrested and detained in confrontations with security forces. The government’s limited reforms were rejected by blacks, who wanted apartheid abolished, as well as by conservative whites who felt that the reforms had already gone too far.

International financial institutions began to regard South Africa as unsafe for investment. This, combined with increasing demands for international sanctions, led more than 200 U.S. companies to pull out of South Africa during the 1980s. The rand was devalued, and foreign investment virtually dried up. White South African emigration increased dramatically. Throughout 1987 and 1988, President P. W. Botha approved some limited changes while rejecting others. Although he refused to hold talks with the ANC, a group of white South African business leaders, academics, and politicians saw the need to begin such a dialogue and met with exiled leaders of the ANC in Senegal. Some whites recognized that the country’s deteriorating economy and increasing international isolation could not be reversed without far-reaching changes.

E.

Negotiations and Change

F. W. de Klerk succeeded P. W. Botha in 1989 as head of the National Party and later that year as president of South Africa. Soon after taking office, de Klerk permitted large multiracial crowds in Cape Town and Johannesburg to march against apartheid. He met with Archbishop Desmond M. Tutu and other black leaders, ordered the release of many black political prisoners, and lifted the ban on antiapartheid organizations such as the ANC. With the release of Nelson Mandela from prison in 1990, serious negotiations began over the transition to a post-apartheid South Africa.

The negotiation process proved long and difficult. De Klerk’s NP was unwilling at first to consider transferring power to the country’s black majority and tried vigorously to institute minority veto power over majority decisions. The ANC then staged general strikes and other nonviolent protests to try forcing the NP to change their position on the issue. The Convention for a Democratic South Africa (CODESA), which opened in December 1991, finally led to a compromise between the NP and the ANC. Eventually, as a result of compromises on both sides, an agreement was reached on November 13, 1993, which pledged to institute a nonracial, nonsexist, unified, and democratic South Africa based on the principle of “one person, one vote.” A Transitional Executive Council was formed to supervise national elections and install new national and provincial governments.

South Africa’s first truly nonracial democratic election was held on April 27, 1994, and was declared “substantially free and fair” by the Independent Electoral Commission. Nearly 20 million votes were cast and the ANC received an impressive 63 percent, just short of the two-thirds majority that would have given it the power to write the new constitution on its own without negotiating with other parties. The NP won a surprising 20 percent of the votes because of substantial support from Coloured and Asian voters who feared ANC domination. Only two other parties were able to win the 5 percent minimum for a cabinet seat in the coalition government: Buthelezi’s Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) and the Freedom Front, a coalition of right-wing white groups.

The ANC won substantial majorities in seven of the nine newly established provinces, the exceptions being in the Western Cape region where the NP defeated the ANC, in part because of the support of Coloured voters, and in KwaZulu-Natal where the IFP was credited with a majority of the votes despite a number of voting irregularities. The PAC and the liberal Democratic Party had limited appeal for the electorate and made poor showings. Nelson Mandela was elected president of a coalition government by the National Assembly, and he chose Thabo Mbeki as one of two deputy presidents. Former president F. W. de Klerk was chosen by the NP as the other deputy president. In June South Africa rejoined the Commonwealth of Nations.

F.

Majority Rule in South Africa

Although all apartheid legislation was repealed, South Africa remained a country of extreme contradictions. Mandela’s government faced the challenge of restructuring the economy and redistributing economic benefits, providing housing and health care, and improving employment possibilities and educational opportunities.

F.1.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission

Another challenge Mandela’s government faced was how to handle the widespread allegations of human-rights violations and other atrocities committed by the former government during apartheid. In a move toward uncovering past events without further polarizing the society, the government created the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

On April 15, 1996, this 17-member commission began conducting hearings, presided by Archbishop Desmond Tutu. The purpose of the commission was to collect and investigate victims’ accounts from the period of 1960 through 1994, to consider amnesty for those who confess their participation in atrocities, and to make recommendations for reparations. The commission was established in the hope that it would foster healing and prevent such crimes from happening again.

Many people in South Africa, however, wanted punishment for those responsible for the crimes, and the commission’s compromises involving amnesty and confession were a source of controversy. Exposures of atrocities pointed to the highest levels of the apartheid regime. A former chief of the South African police force admitted that he had ordered acts of terror with the knowledge and approval of then President P. W. Botha and the cabinet. Activities of the ANC as well as the apartheid regime came under the scrutiny of the commission. In 1998 the commission released its final report, which condemned actions of all the major political organizations during the apartheid period.

F.2.

New South African Constitution

The South African parliament approved a new constitution in May 1996. The right-wing Freedom Front abstained from the vote in parliament. The representatives of the IFP did not participate in the session at all. IFP representatives refused to participate mainly because the party advocates more autonomy for the provinces than the ANC is willing to allow. The new constitution excludes any discrimination based on race, gender, age, or sexual orientation, and abolishes the death penalty.

One day after adoption of the new constitution the NP decided to split from the coalition government. The NP contended that the new constitution did not provide shared power at the executive level or any form of joint decision-making. The NP also hoped that by leaving the government it would be able to establish itself as a viable opposition party.

In September 1996 the Constitutional Court declined to certify the new constitution because it failed to meet the terms of the interim constitution regarding the role of provincial government. The court ruled that the new constitution gave the nine provinces substantially fewer powers than the interim constitution required. By the end of the year, members of the Constitutional Assembly redrafted the constitution to meet the court’s requirements, and the final version was approved by parliament in December. The new constitution was implemented in stages between 1997 and 2000.

F.3.

Recent Developments

In late 1997 President Mandela retired as party leader of the ANC and was replaced by executive deputy president Thabo Mbeki. Mandela, who announced in 1996 that he would not seek another term as president, groomed Mbeki to succeed him. In June 1999 legislative elections the ANC won two-thirds of the seats in the National Assembly and selected Mbeki as South Africa’s president.

In the early 21st century South Africa grappled with high unemployment, poverty, and a growing AIDS epidemic. Under Mbeki, the government extended the country’s infrastructure, bringing electricity and water to millions of South Africans, and built thousands of new houses for the poor. The government has pledged to provide those same basic necessities to the millions of South Africans who have not yet received them. In April 2004 parliamentary elections the ANC won almost 70 percent of the seats in the National Assembly, which reelected Mbeki as president.

In 2006 South Africa became the first country in Africa, and the fifth in the world, to legalize same-sex marriage. The Constitutional Court had ruled in December 2005 that the country’s Marriage Act was unconstitutional because it did not include same-sex unions in the legal definition of marriage. The South African constitution’s bill of rights prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation. The court gave the South African parliament a year to amend the country’s marriage laws. The Civil Union Act, which went into effect at the end of November 2006, officially guarantees that married same-sex couples have all of the legal rights associated with marriage.

The History section of this article was contributed by N. Brian Winchester and Patrick O’Meara. The remainder of the article was contributed by Anthony Lemon.