Transcript South African Survivor: The National Party`s Survival in the Context

South African Minority Rule in the Context of the Cold
War
Jack Hartigan
Department of Government , Colby College, Waterville, ME
Question & Background
Question: Under what conditions, both international and domestic, was South
Africa able to sustain minority rule longer than other states in Africa?
The National Party would not have been able to sustain minority-rule
until 1993 if it were not for the Cold War:
Background: Apartheid South Africa was a pariah. Long after the legacies of
colonialism faded from the African continent, South Africa remained ruled by a
white minority. The National Party—a pro-apartheid political party—governed
South Africa until the Nelson Mandela was elected as the first black,
democratically-elected president of the Republic of South Africa in 1994
South Africa’s Strategic Importance to the West:
• Deep water ports centered around an important shipping lane
• Rich in natural resources
• Geographically important
• Balances Soviet advancements in the area
Hypothesis:
I. South Africa leveraged its staunch anti-communist stance to attract foreign
support in order to perpetuate the regime.
II. South Africa’s economic advantage helped perpetuate rule South Africa had
a strong security service that helped perpetuate minority rule
III. Minority rule was much more consolidated in South African than in other
African states
Cold War Dynamics Helped Perpetuate National Party Rule in Three
Ways:
Argument: The South African minority regime was able to sustain whiteminority rule so much longer than the rest of the continent because Pretoria
effectively leveraged external Cold War support, to develop three areas crucial
to the regimes survival: the military, the economy , and state security systems.
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Findings
Findings
1) The West Generously Supported the South African Defense
Force (SADF)
• South Africa went looking for willing partners to supply military
technology after the unilateral arms embargo against the National
Party regime in 1964
• However, moral issues were soon replaced by geostrategic interests
• South Africa found two willing partners in France and Israeli
• France subverted the ban buy claiming that they only sold weapons
that could be used in external defense.
• An impossible claim to support
• Israel took a strong interest in helping the SADF
• Fancied themselves as bothers whom faced similar
geopolitical situations
• SADF and Israeli Defense Force (IDF) cooperation began in earnest
in 1974 when Israeli Defense minister Simone Peres made a secrete
visit to Pretoria to meet with SADF leadership. In 1975, as a direct
result of that meeting, the first Israel-South Africa agreement (ISSA)
was born.
• In 1975, South Africa was the recipient of a majority of Israeli’s
military exports, a sum that reached just shy of $200 million (in 1975
dollars)
• By 1976, that number had had risen to almost $700 million and would
continue to rise peaking in 1990
Nuclear Option
• Perhaps the most interesting example of western support for the
South African regime came in the form of nuclear technology that was
eventually developed to have offensive capability.
• America’s nuclear cooperation with South Africa commenced in
earnest during the Eisenhower administration under the ‘Atoms for
Peace’ program.
• In return for technology, participant countries would have
to pledge not to develop offensive nuclear weapons
• U.S. trained 94 South African Scientists and developed
SAFARI-I
• South Africa supplied Israel with tons of yellowcake
• Israeli eventual helped South Africa develop six nuclear warheads
until the programs termination in 1986
• Western support insured military advantage
2) Massive Economic Growth and South Africa’s Place in the Global
Economcy Perpetuated White Rule:
• While South Africa enjoyed a military superiority over the region that
was crucial in keeping the white National Party in power, perhaps just
as crucial was the massive economic growth that South Africa
experienced in the later decades of the twentieth century.
• Because of the way the economy was structured, South Africa
became a relatively attractive place for foreign direct investment
• Traditionally, the black population has served white farmers, mining
magnates, and industrialist with a supply of cheap labor
• The South African economy grew five percent each year from 1948
until 1968, a pace of growth that was only topped by the post war
economy of Japan
• In 1976—at the height of South Africa’s economic growth plan —
blacks represented 71% of the population, but only took home 23% of
the pay. Furthermore, the National Party set the official absolute
minimum that a black family of six could survive on at $123.65 per
month in 1975. In the same year it was reported that 63.5% of black
families took home less than $92 per month.
• Between 1943 and 1978, direct investment in South Africa increased
4,000 percent from $50 million per year to over $2 billion ( Between
1970 and 1970, foreign direct investment liabilities as a percentage of
GDP were thirty-five percent. That means that an amount equal to
thirty–five percent of South Africa’s GDP or about $6.1 billon was
either equity capital, long-term capital, or short-term capital from
abroad.
• Meant that National Party Could Afford tools of oppression
3) South Africa Relied on Western Powers to Develop Effective
State Security Apparatus
• in 1951, the Nation Party set aside plots of particularly undesirable
land for resettlement (often forced) of the black population. These
black ‘homelands’ or Bantustans were semi-autonomous regions
where black citizens could expect to have some level of selfgovernance.
• The National Party was by and large comprised of securocrats; they
believed that state security should be at the heart of government.
• The first of these services was the Bureau of State Security (BOSS)
created in 1969.
• Since the creation of South African’s notorious BOSS,
the CIA and BOSS have been thick as thieve
• When newly appointed defense minister PW Botha came to power in
1978, he took immediate steps to phase out BOSS and replace it the
Military Intelligence Division (DMI)
• The new DMI was to become a hybrid of old BOSS
intelligence structures mixed with units of the SDAF and
South African Police (SAP) special branches.
• After the reorganization of the SADF in 1979, DMI would
come to command all SDAF and SAP special forces
units including the Recces, South Africa’s version of the
British Special Air Service (SAS). Aside from direct
control over Recces, the DMI would recruit many
recently emigrated members of Rhodesian SAS (RSAS)
and Selous Scouts
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