Work in Progress Issue no.62/63 - Paths to Power, South Africa and Namibia face the future
- WIP
- Authors: WIP
- Date: Dec 1989
- Subjects: WIP
- Language: English
- Type: text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/112045 , vital:33541
- Description: The political map of Southern Africa is being radically redrawn. The most vivid examples of this are the pre- independence elections in Namibia, giving the Namibian people their first opportunity to exercise control over their destiny, and in South Africa the release of the seven jailed ANC leaders by a president whose predecessor swore to let them rot in jail. Even in Angola major shifts are taking place below the surface while the war drags on. Savimbi’s fighters still receive weaponry from their traditional allies, but their Western support is no longer a certainty. Establishment American voices have, for the first time, been raised against his brutal tactics. The East-West, capitalist-communist rivalries that have fostered the 14-year Angolan war are everywhere crumbling. This has been graphically symbolised by the breaching of the Berlin Wall. And as the bricks fall at the Brandenburg Gate, they take with them decades of conventional wisdoms on both sides of the Wall. In Eastern Europe, the idea that socialist economics are an adequate alternative to political democracy has been destroyed, probably permanently. For socialists, the challenge now is to demonstrate that democracy is not, as their foes maintain, the exclusive preserve of capitalist economics. The massive changes in Eastern Europe have not left the West unaffected. And they have for the first time wrought a convergence of United States and Soviet opinion on South Africa that has impacted powerfully on Pretoria. Under FW de Klerk the National Party is now hard at work attempting to restructure both the material conditions under which the process of change takes place and the economics of the society its successors will inherit. Facing a reviving and increasingly confident opposition, the National Party is now led by politicians who recognise that no minority has ever successfully held on to power without facing a revolution. Its attempts at social engineering continue both in the bantustans and in the urban areas, where concessions on group areas serve to reinforce rather than eradicate the physical separation of communities of different races - strengthening De Klerk’s own thrust for a post-apartheid society rooted in'groups' and racial separation. Economically, too, reinforcement of the existing order is underway. Deregulation and privatisation are designed not so much to 'free' the economy, but to weaken the trade union movement in the short term and, in the long term, to entrench capitalist interests so deeply that whoever inherits political power is capable of no more real a transformation than changing the colour of parliament. Nor has De Klerk abandoned his government's traditional policy of divide and rule. Today he is seeking to force a divison between between the military formations of the ANC and what he hopes will become a 'political' ANC, ideally coalesced around the released seven and Nelson Mandela. Within the opposition, however, a significant momentum is developing towards greater rather than lesser unity - both between the ANC and its internal allies and more generally, among the majority of antiapartheid and democratic forces. Despite this, the democratic movement would be foolhardy to ignore the lessons of Namibia. The first of these is that the simple assertion by the popular movements of their representivity is not in itself a guarantee of overwhelming support. Secondly - and this is a message De Klerk’s strategists will have received and understood - that, through the DTA, Pretoria has for the first time succeeded in creating an organisation capable of winning sufficient legitimacy to gain the votes of almost one in three Namibians. * A steady increase in inflation has forced us, reluctantly, to increase the price of WIP - an increase so far limited to subscriptions. Full details are published on the inside back cover of this edition. For this new annual rate, however, subscribers will be getting eight editions rather than the current six - a first step, we hope, to WIP becoming a monthly journal.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: Dec 1989
- Authors: WIP
- Date: Dec 1989
- Subjects: WIP
- Language: English
- Type: text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/112045 , vital:33541
- Description: The political map of Southern Africa is being radically redrawn. The most vivid examples of this are the pre- independence elections in Namibia, giving the Namibian people their first opportunity to exercise control over their destiny, and in South Africa the release of the seven jailed ANC leaders by a president whose predecessor swore to let them rot in jail. Even in Angola major shifts are taking place below the surface while the war drags on. Savimbi’s fighters still receive weaponry from their traditional allies, but their Western support is no longer a certainty. Establishment American voices have, for the first time, been raised against his brutal tactics. The East-West, capitalist-communist rivalries that have fostered the 14-year Angolan war are everywhere crumbling. This has been graphically symbolised by the breaching of the Berlin Wall. And as the bricks fall at the Brandenburg Gate, they take with them decades of conventional wisdoms on both sides of the Wall. In Eastern Europe, the idea that socialist economics are an adequate alternative to political democracy has been destroyed, probably permanently. For socialists, the challenge now is to demonstrate that democracy is not, as their foes maintain, the exclusive preserve of capitalist economics. The massive changes in Eastern Europe have not left the West unaffected. And they have for the first time wrought a convergence of United States and Soviet opinion on South Africa that has impacted powerfully on Pretoria. Under FW de Klerk the National Party is now hard at work attempting to restructure both the material conditions under which the process of change takes place and the economics of the society its successors will inherit. Facing a reviving and increasingly confident opposition, the National Party is now led by politicians who recognise that no minority has ever successfully held on to power without facing a revolution. Its attempts at social engineering continue both in the bantustans and in the urban areas, where concessions on group areas serve to reinforce rather than eradicate the physical separation of communities of different races - strengthening De Klerk’s own thrust for a post-apartheid society rooted in'groups' and racial separation. Economically, too, reinforcement of the existing order is underway. Deregulation and privatisation are designed not so much to 'free' the economy, but to weaken the trade union movement in the short term and, in the long term, to entrench capitalist interests so deeply that whoever inherits political power is capable of no more real a transformation than changing the colour of parliament. Nor has De Klerk abandoned his government's traditional policy of divide and rule. Today he is seeking to force a divison between between the military formations of the ANC and what he hopes will become a 'political' ANC, ideally coalesced around the released seven and Nelson Mandela. Within the opposition, however, a significant momentum is developing towards greater rather than lesser unity - both between the ANC and its internal allies and more generally, among the majority of antiapartheid and democratic forces. Despite this, the democratic movement would be foolhardy to ignore the lessons of Namibia. The first of these is that the simple assertion by the popular movements of their representivity is not in itself a guarantee of overwhelming support. Secondly - and this is a message De Klerk’s strategists will have received and understood - that, through the DTA, Pretoria has for the first time succeeded in creating an organisation capable of winning sufficient legitimacy to gain the votes of almost one in three Namibians. * A steady increase in inflation has forced us, reluctantly, to increase the price of WIP - an increase so far limited to subscriptions. Full details are published on the inside back cover of this edition. For this new annual rate, however, subscribers will be getting eight editions rather than the current six - a first step, we hope, to WIP becoming a monthly journal.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: Dec 1989
Work in Progress Issue no.29 - Caught in the crossfire
- WIP
- Authors: WIP
- Date: July 1983
- Subjects: WIP
- Language: English
- Type: text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/111411 , vital:33449
- Description: During July 1983? the Ciskei Transport Corporation (CTC) announced that it intended increasing bus fares on certain routes. A committee representing commuters objected to the proposed increases, arguing that commuters could not afford them, given the recent price rise in the cost of basic foodstuffs. The CTC - partly owned by the Ciskei government - dismissed these objections, and the committee duly called a boycott of all buses owned by the company. On 19 July the boycott began. The following day the press reported an 80% drop in the use of CTC buses. From this point on, police, the army, and a private army of vigilantes were used by the Ciskei administration to force commuters to use buses. In the past two months, Ciskeian authorities have indicated their willingness to use any official and unofficial, legal and extra-legal forms of violence to break the boycott. Violence has escalated, and the conflict has now become a test of strength between bantustan rulers and their unwilling subjects. The first concerted attempt to break the boycott was directed at private car owners and taxi drivers. Police established road blocks on routes in and out of Mdantsane. From then on, vigilantes under the control of police harassed car passengers, car drivers and taxi drivers. Police manhandled car passengers, using sjamboks on some occasions. Cars have been confiscated, and passengers forced to alight and return to bus stops. The brunt of the tactics used to break the bus boycott have been borne by train commuters. As with vehicle commuters, the means used to prevent them from catching trains appear to know no bounds. Civilians have been attacked, assaulted and fired on by police and vigilante groups under police control. Residents of Mdantsane put the death toll at over 60. By September, at least 67 people - most of them trade unionists - had been detained under Ciskei security legislation. In addition, over 1 000 commuters have been detained for technical offences such as curfew breaking. In September, the South African Allied Workers' Union was banned by the Sebe administration. On 4 August, the Ciskei's minister of justice declared a state of emergency. No person may be on the streets without permission between 22h00 and 04h00. No more than four people may congregate together in houses or on the streets. There have been numerous reports of assaults and torture of detainees held in the Ciskei, and a number of detainees have been admitted to hospital at various stages of their detention. As disturbing as are the number of people hospitalised are reports of the failure to hospitalise or treat other detainees injured in assaults. This is the context in which SARS, in conjunction with the Development Studies Group, is publishing a detailed report on the Ciskei. Produced by Nicholas Haysom, a research officer at the Centre for Applied Legal Studies, the report covers the political history of the Ciskei, security legislation, torture and repression in the past years, background to the current bus boycott, and methods used by the Ciskei administration to crush the boycott. There is also a section on the current schools boycott in the Ciskei, the involvement of South African security police and firms in the Ciskei crisis, and the response of people resident in the area. Subscribers to SARS publications will receive this report as part of their subscription. Copies will also be available at bookshops stocking Work In Progress, or directly from SARS
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: July 1983
- Authors: WIP
- Date: July 1983
- Subjects: WIP
- Language: English
- Type: text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/111411 , vital:33449
- Description: During July 1983? the Ciskei Transport Corporation (CTC) announced that it intended increasing bus fares on certain routes. A committee representing commuters objected to the proposed increases, arguing that commuters could not afford them, given the recent price rise in the cost of basic foodstuffs. The CTC - partly owned by the Ciskei government - dismissed these objections, and the committee duly called a boycott of all buses owned by the company. On 19 July the boycott began. The following day the press reported an 80% drop in the use of CTC buses. From this point on, police, the army, and a private army of vigilantes were used by the Ciskei administration to force commuters to use buses. In the past two months, Ciskeian authorities have indicated their willingness to use any official and unofficial, legal and extra-legal forms of violence to break the boycott. Violence has escalated, and the conflict has now become a test of strength between bantustan rulers and their unwilling subjects. The first concerted attempt to break the boycott was directed at private car owners and taxi drivers. Police established road blocks on routes in and out of Mdantsane. From then on, vigilantes under the control of police harassed car passengers, car drivers and taxi drivers. Police manhandled car passengers, using sjamboks on some occasions. Cars have been confiscated, and passengers forced to alight and return to bus stops. The brunt of the tactics used to break the bus boycott have been borne by train commuters. As with vehicle commuters, the means used to prevent them from catching trains appear to know no bounds. Civilians have been attacked, assaulted and fired on by police and vigilante groups under police control. Residents of Mdantsane put the death toll at over 60. By September, at least 67 people - most of them trade unionists - had been detained under Ciskei security legislation. In addition, over 1 000 commuters have been detained for technical offences such as curfew breaking. In September, the South African Allied Workers' Union was banned by the Sebe administration. On 4 August, the Ciskei's minister of justice declared a state of emergency. No person may be on the streets without permission between 22h00 and 04h00. No more than four people may congregate together in houses or on the streets. There have been numerous reports of assaults and torture of detainees held in the Ciskei, and a number of detainees have been admitted to hospital at various stages of their detention. As disturbing as are the number of people hospitalised are reports of the failure to hospitalise or treat other detainees injured in assaults. This is the context in which SARS, in conjunction with the Development Studies Group, is publishing a detailed report on the Ciskei. Produced by Nicholas Haysom, a research officer at the Centre for Applied Legal Studies, the report covers the political history of the Ciskei, security legislation, torture and repression in the past years, background to the current bus boycott, and methods used by the Ciskei administration to crush the boycott. There is also a section on the current schools boycott in the Ciskei, the involvement of South African security police and firms in the Ciskei crisis, and the response of people resident in the area. Subscribers to SARS publications will receive this report as part of their subscription. Copies will also be available at bookshops stocking Work In Progress, or directly from SARS
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: July 1983
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