Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 November 2008
South Africa's security establishment, specifically the South African Defence Force (S.A.D.F.), illustrates important linkages between national security and political reform. The military and police influence reconciliation, for better or for worse, in all post-conflict states, especially those experiencing an interregnum between authoritarianism and hoped-for democracy, and in which no undisputed ‘winner’ has yet emerged. Alexis de Tocqueville noted long ago that ‘the most perilous moment for a bad government is one when it seeks to mend its ways’, Reform and political change, as Samuel Huntington observes, ‘may contribute not to political stability but to greater instability …[and] encourages demands for still more changes which can easily snowball’. Both suddenly unrestrained popular demands and forces loyal to the ancien régime (including the military) may threaten the process and outcome of reform.
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3 The S.A.P. is understudied but increasingly important, having grown from a force of 35,000 in the early 1980s to about 115,000 in 1993, while the budget of the S.A.D.F. under the régime headed by President F. W. de Klerk has declined in real terms.Google Scholar
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6 Frankel, op. cit. p. xv.
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8 According to Amnesty International, South Africa: state of fear, security force complicity in torture and killings, 1990–1992 (London, 1992), p. 3, ‘authorities must intervene effectively and make the security forces accountable for their actions. If this is not done, the prospects for a new South Africa will flounder’.Google Scholar
9 Quoted in ‘Force Claims’, in Cape Times (Cape Town), 10 08 1990.Google Scholar An ‘Open Letter to State President de Klerk and his Cabinet from the National Executive Council of the ANC’, in Ibid. 5 April 1991, elaborated the A.N.C.'s position.
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13 Seegers, Annette, ‘Current Trends in South Africa's Security Establishment’, International Political Science Association, Madrid, 07 1990.Google Scholar See also ‘South Africa's National Security Management System, 1972–90’, in The Journal of Modern African Studies (Cambridge), 29, 2 06 1991, pp. 253–73, by the same author.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
14 Pottinger, Brian, ‘Secret Soldiers’, in The Sunday Times (Johannesburg), 16 08 1993.Google Scholar
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17 The term ‘third force’ was not used when de Klerk fired 23 top-ranking officers in December 1992. He spoke then of S.A.D.F. members who ‘have been involved…in illegal and/or unauthorised activities and malpractices’. ‘DK Sacks Generals in Army Purge’, in The Sunday Times (London), 20 12 1992.Google Scholar
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19 See Sisk, Tim, ‘South Africa in Transition and the Politics of Uncertainty’, in Negotiation Journal (Boston), 1, 1, 01 1993.Google Scholar
20 Critics accused de Klerk of following a two-track policy: negotiating with the A.N.C. while simultaneously allowing (or encouraging) anti-A.N.C. operations by security personnel. See, for example, ‘Pretoria Using Two-Track Policy, ANC Belives’, in Southscan (London), 28 09 1990. Following the Boipotong massacre in 1992 and the A.N.C.'s (temporary) ending of negotiations, however, the Government increasingly displayed a desire for a co-operative and relatively united A.N.C.Google Scholar
21 ‘More Power to the Judge’, in Cape Times, 18 11 1992.Google Scholar
22 Meyer, Roelof, quoted in ‘FW and the Military’, in The Argus (Cape Town), 19 11 1992.Google Scholar
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25 Witnesses who came before the Goldstone Commission were unable to use the fear of self-incrimination to prevent their testifying and, in return, the Government cannot use the information against them in later trials. As many as 30 South African policemen served on the Commission's staff.
26 ‘SADF Purge Hits At Heart of Third Force’, in Weekly Mail, 23–29 December 1992.
27 Louw, Gene, quoted in ‘SADF Files Gone’, in Cape Times, 21 12 1992.Google Scholar
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29 See reference to Liebenberg, Kat, in ‘FW and the Military’, in The Argus, 19 11 1992,Google Scholar and Meiring, Georg in ‘SADF Hits Back’, in Cape Times, 18 11 1992,Google Scholar and to both Generals in ‘Why Spare the Chief?’, in The Sunday Star (Johannesburg), 27 12 1992.Google Scholar
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32 Interview with Williams, Rocky, August 1993. According to Helmer Roemer-Heitman, ‘“Yes” Puts the Army Boot on the Other Foot’, in Weekly Mail, 20–26 March 1992: ‘They are not necessarily nice guys but they are pragmatists. In the past, they were ahead of the politicians in prompting reform and they have long pushed the notion that the war is 80% political and 20% military’.Google Scholar
33 The military forcibly restrained, with warning shots, white farmers in a squatter dispute, and then later helped the police to disperse/arrest a determined group that was trying to prevent de Klerk from speaking in Ventersdorp. On the other hand, the S.A.P. did not stop a right-wing disruption of the negotiations at the World Trade Centre near Johannesburg in October 1993.Google Scholar
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51 Ibid. p. 165. Huntington implicitly disagrees when he writes in op. cit. p. 221, that ‘As society changes, so does the role of the military. In the world of oligarchy, the soldier is a radical; in the middle-class world he is a participant and arbiter; as the mass society looms on the horizon he becomes the conservative guardian of the existing order.’
52 ‘“Yes” Puts the Army Boot on the Other Foot’, loc. cit. See Strauss, Annette, ‘The 1992 Referendum in South Africa’, in The Journal of Modern African Studies, 31, 2, 1993, pp. 339–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
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56 The Zimbabwe Government arrested, and subsequently released without convicting, six white Air Force officers in mid-1992 for the destruction of 13 aircraft. Knowledgeable observers believe that former Rhodesian Special Air Service (S.A.S.) personnel in the S.A.D.F. were responsible for the sabotage. See Moorcraft, Paul, African Nemesis (London, 1990), p. 305.Google Scholar
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60 A common phrase in security circles.
61 Giliomee, ‘Democratisation and Survival in South Africa’.
62 The South African authorities depicted ‘Vula’ as an attempt to maintain armed preparedness and perhaps violence during the negotiations. According to Ottaway, David, Chained Together (New York, 1993), p. 109, the Government realised that the A.N.C. would not implement this ‘dormant revolutionary plan’ but publicised it anyway in order to drive a wedge between the A.N.C. and the S.A.C.P.Google Scholar
63 After the South African authorities had stopped a vehicle on the Swaziland border that contained rocket-propelled grenade launchers, hand grenades, pistols, and 2,800 AK-47 rounds, the A.N.C. admitted that members of Umkhonto we Sizwe had been responsible for their shipment. ‘Determination of Parties to Keep Talking Tested by ANC's Arms Blunder’, in Southern Africa Report, 12 02 1993.Google Scholar
64 The Washington Post, 21 November 1992.
65 Ibid.
66 Giliomee, op. cit. p. 29.
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68 Slovo, Joe, ‘Negotiations: what room for compromise?’, in The African Communist (London), 3rd quarter, 1992, p. 37.Google Scholar
69 ‘Generals Warn de Klerk of “Volatile” Situation’, in Southern Africa Report (London), 4 02 1994. Also, interviews with American government officials.Google Scholar