Sean Barker
History 201
Section 001
4/18/2012
How Terrorist Actions by the African National Congress and Umkhonto we Sizwe Prolonged the Rule of Apartheid Government in South Africa.
On December 16, 1961, Umkhonto We Sizwe (MK), or the “Spear of the Nation” was born. Over the next 30 years, this organization would fight against the apartheid government of South Africa in an effort to end the human rights violations and racial oppression targeting non-whites living in the country. MK would act as the armed wing of the African National Congress (ANC), providing a means of armed resistance for the ANC in their struggle against the Apartheid government. MK grew from the minds of the increasingly radical ANC Youth League (ANCYL), whose figureheads included such notable individuals as Nelson Mandela, the one-time president of the ANC and the first black president of South Africa, Walter Sisulu, and Oliver Tambo. While there is no definitive record of where the idea to turn to armed resistance originated, one suggestion is that Mandela himself first pitched the idea to the ANC in June of 1960.[1] Mandela supports this suggestion in his autobiography, A Long Walk to Freedom, saying "If the government reaction is to crush by naked force our non-violent struggle, we will have to reconsider our tactics. In my mind we are closing a chapter on this question of a non-violent policy."[2] Mandela would insist that the violence carried out by MK under his leadership would target government buildings but would not result in deaths, saying “Sabotage did not involve loss of life, and it offered the best hope for future race relations.”[3] In the six months between the founding of MK and the first acts of sabotage, the MK high command would set up regional commands in main city centers, choosing members of these commands based on individuals who had the “…necessary military or technical skills.”[4] These regional commands would be responsible for carrying out the acts of sabotage in their respective regions as planned by the high command. The armed wing of the ANC served to radicalize the ANC, causing the ANC to be disregarded as a legitimate political movement by South African and foreign governments alike, while reversing the victim-aggressor roles of the apartheid government and those resisting oppression, thereby weakening support for anti-apartheid movements and prolonging the oppressive rule of apartheid.
Background and Historiography:
Although Joe Slovo, one of the leading members of the ANC, believed that the form of resistance originally sponsored by MK was not terrorism, he maintained a flawed understanding of what constituted terrorism, saying the tactic of sabotage “…would be a graphic pointer to the need for carefully planned action rather than spontaneous or terrorist acts of retaliation which were already in evidence.”[5] While the definition of terrorism remains rather controversial, Bruce Hoffman, a specialist in terrorism and counter insurgency at Georgetown University, contends that there are certain key elements of terrorism. Hoffman believes that terrorism is “ineluctably political in aims and motives, violent (or uses threat of violence), designed to have far reaching psychological repercussions, conducted by an organization with an identifiable chain of command, whose members wear no uniform or insignia, and is perpetrated by a subnational group or non-state entity.”[6] It is apparent that all of these criteria apply to MK as they carried out their acts of sabotage. Furthermore, Hoffman includes sabotage as a type of terrorist attack and not as something separate of terrorism as Mandela believed.[7] To these ends, the South African Apartheid Government declared MK and the ANC as terrorist organizations in 1960.[8] The United States Government followed suit that same year, along with the United Kingdom.[9] These moves guaranteed that little foreign aid would be provided to the resistance movement, and none from the wealthiest western nations of the time.
Morgan Norval, who has acted as CEO for the Selous Foundation that studies unconventional warfare, terrorism and subversion and has had seven books on terrorism and counter-insurgency published, also calls the ANC a terrorist organization in his book Inside the ANC: The Evolution of a Terrorist Organization.[10] Norval believes that the ANC, and by extension MK, became a terrorist organization when they moved to a policy of armed resistance. What is original about Norval’s claims is that he believes the ANC continued to be a terrorist organization after the end of Apartheid, calling them “vicious and subversive.”[11]
There are some individuals that believe that the label of “terrorist” need not stick with a group or person forever. Dr. Immanuel Wallerstein, a noted sociologist who has taught at universities all over the world, presents the argument that Nelson Mandela was a terrorist, and the ANC and MK were terrorist organizations bent on overthrowing the Apartheid government which was engaging in state-terrorism.[12] Dr. Wallerstein believes that through time, the roles have reversed, and it is now Mandela and the ANC/MK that should be lauded as heroes struggling against the Apartheid government that was actively engaging in this state-terrorism. This allows Dr. Wallerstein to satisfy the technically accurate descriptor of terrorism without condemning a group of revolutionaries that struggled against the blatant human rights violations that were sponsored by the Apartheid government, an effort seen as laudable in the eyes of most humanitarian individuals.
In contrast to these ideas, however, is that view that is held by Dr. Stephen Zunes of the University of San Francisco’s Middle Eastern Studies. Dr. Zunes also serves as the chair of the academic advisory committee for the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict.[13] Dr. Zunes believes that the non-violent struggle that took place was a major factor in the downfall of Apartheid in South Africa.[14] He acknowledges that most predictions were that the transition could only come about “through violent revolutionary cataclysm,” but provides several reasons why the non-violence proved to be a major factor.[15] This was due primarily to the economic structure of the country, which relied heavily on a black work force that cooperated with white rule, combined with the fact that there were conditions that were working against an armed overthrow of the government, conditions that did not rest so heavily on non-violent resistance.[16] Among these conditions that worked against armed overthrow was South Africa’s control of some of the richest mineral deposits in the world—including 1/3 of the earth’s gold deposits—a large military force in an area that lacked any other large conventional force, and an incredibly elaborate security system.[17] Dr. Zunes believes that this unique situation is what gave non-violent resistance its power. The Apartheid government was incredibly powerful, but the source of that power is what ultimately made it vulnerable to non-violent resistance, as the white minority regime was dependent on the black minority and the industrialized west that imported much of the mineral wealth of South Africa to maintain both modernization and oppressive power.[18] A focused, nonviolent resistance effort that included large-scale, organized labor strikes would have been able to strike the South African government where its strength would work against it, the economy.
As difficult as it can be to label the noble efforts of the ANC and MK in the resistance against the Apartheid government as terroristic, it is important to be objective in studying these groups. Thus, an objective analysis of this explosive topic should not be construed as a defense of the apartheid government, or the role which that government played in human rights violations, segregation and oppression for more than 4 decades. The ANC and MK were terrorist organizations, and continued to be such until they ceased to commit violent acts for political and ideological reasons. While the actions carried out did make these groups terrorist organizations, the term terrorist should not necessarily carry a negative connotation. Actions either are or are not terrorism, and that label exists independent of time or circumstance. Careful analysis of individual actions will reveal the effect they have, as well as the moral implications of the results, and only through this analysis can a positive or negative label be placed on the actions. In the case of the ANC and MK, the tactics used were terroristic, but they were implemented against a government that engaged in state terrorism, and grossly violated human rights. However justified these tactics may have been they nonetheless functioned to prolong apartheid rule by delegitimizing the ANC as a political movement, allowing the apartheid government to claim that they were the victim in the struggle, and weakening support for anti-apartheid movements.
Legitimacy as Political Movement Destroyed:
After the establishment of MK, both the ANC and MK would be labeled a terrorist organization, taking away the legitimacy of the ANC. While the ANC was banned in 1960, before the creation of MK, they were still seen by many as a legitimate political movement until they were appropriately designated a terrorist organization. This move drastically hurt the ANC, which operated as a legitimate political movement from 1912-1960. In fact, the ANC’s greatest pre-ban resistance period took place in the 1950s, just prior to the ban. The Defiance Campaign of 1952 saw the ANC partner with the South African Indian Congress and the Coloured People’s Congress to wage the first large-scale, multi-racial political protest. The volunteer protesters walked into facilities designated for one race only, failed to carry passes, and violated curfew.[19] The Defiance Campaign may have been one of the driving catalysts that spurred the apartheid government to pass the Public Safety Act in 1953. This act allowed a declaration of state of emergency, giving the government power to override existing laws as well as ceasing oversight by the courts.[20] This broad expansion of power would give the apartheid government the ability to arrest hundreds of resistance leaders and suspend their hearings, or arbitrarily extend their incarceration. This would leave many of the resistance leaders jailed long past the time that they should have been free to rejoin the resistance movements.
Following the banning of the group, the ANC was forced to meet clandestinely. The meetings would, of necessity, be held most often at night and in out of the way places so that the members could attempt to avoid the notice of the military and police forces that would have arrested them.[21] While the ANC was still able to muster up new members, it was undeniably more difficult to recruit individuals into a secret organization than one that can have offices on the street. The ANC was further damaged by the banning when the United States and United Kingdom followed suit the same year, as these two countries represented two of the wealthiest western nations that the resistance movement could have hoped to obtain financial and political support from.
In the 1960’s, there were few signs of resistance after the initial two years of heavy sabotage from December 1961 to June 1963.[22] This was due in large part to the high numbers of the most influential resistance members to either go into voluntary exile or face arrest.[23] In either case, many of the most influential members of the ANC and MK were separated from the resistance movement in a way that made them ineffectual in the fight against apartheid. This lack of resistance may have led the Apartheid government to believe that they had been successful in quelling rebellion. As a result the “Apartheid system grew stronger and extended its control over all aspects of people’s lives.”[24] This extended control would encase South Africa in a more rigid set of laws that would make it continually harder to make changes to the system once the resistance began to pick up steam again.
It is also important to note the large numbers of people that fled South Africa to receive military and guerilla-warfare training, of which Nelson Mandela was one.[25] Large numbers of people, predominantly young individuals, fled South Africa to receive training in exile, with hundreds swelling the ranks of MK after the 1976 Soweto Uprising.[26] The large numbers of people flocking to join MK helped to make the apartheid government see the ANC and MK as a serious threat again, which helped MK to increase the level of sabotage attacks again from 1976-1978.[27] This reestablishment of threat to apartheid rule would not help to regain legitimacy, however, as it served to underscore the image of violent revolutionaries rather than political movement.
Victim-Aggressor Roles Reversed:
After 15 years of minimal sabotage, MK would drastically increase the number of attacks in 1978. This long time period between active sabotage campaigns would allow the Apartheid government to act as though they were the injured party. The ever increasing violence and acts of sabotage against railroads, police stations, and other government properties switched the victim-aggressor roles, with MK being demonized as a group bent on destroying the economic system of South Africa. This portrayal was made easier with MK being born of (among others) the ANC and the South African Communist Party, as the Apartheid government could point to the communist ties as the “real reason” MK was bent on overthrowing the capitalist Apartheid government. [28]
Whether Chief Albert Luthuli, president of the ANC from 1952 until his death in 1967, recognized the government’s attempt to point to economic issues as the real reason of resistance, or was merely foresighted enough to see the problems that would arise from a policy of armed resistance is unclear, but he did initially seek to maintain a policy of peaceful resistance. He would ultimately be persuaded by Mandela and others that they must move to a path of violent resistance if they were to effect any changes. In June, 1961 Chief Luthuli was finally convinced at the meeting of the National Executive in Durban, saying “If anyone thinks I am a pacifist, let him try to take my chickens and he will see how wrong he is.”[29] Though Chief Luthuli was convinced of the need to move to armed resistance, he wanted to maintain the ANC as a non-violent organization. To this end, he insisted on the creation of MK as a separate entity that was allied with the ANC, thereby allowing ANC members to disavow any knowledge of armed resistance or violent action.[30]