I South Africa: Destabilizing the Region

I (Associated with The American Committee on Africa) • 198 Broadway • N.Y., N.Y. • 10038 • (212) 962-121 O I South Africa: Destabilizing the Region "South Africa has a different strategy of destabilization for each of the independent black-ruled states of southern Africa." - Witness Mangwende, Zimbabwe's Foreign Minister By Jennifer Davis, Director, American For South Africa, the arrangement armed struggle to achieve their freedom Committee on Africa was ideal. Its well-developed economy throughout southern Africa, South could dominate the region. The railway Africa was cushioned by its geography. ntil ten years ago, South Africa's lines that serviced many of the countries The South African government could white supremacist government in the region ran to South African ports; avoid fighting any major battles at Ufelt safely tucked away at the South African manufactured goods home. bottom of the continent, behind a buf dominated regional markets; hundreds The collapse of the Portuguese em fer of equally oppressive states, deter of thousands of cheap migratory pire and the achievement of in mined to maintain white minority or workers were drawn into South Africa's dependence by Angola and Mozambi colonial rule. To the west and east were mines and farms. que in 1975 cracked South Africa's pro the Portuguese colonies, Angola and Even when the 1960's brought inten tective shield, and the last remnants Mozambique, with Ian Smith's Rhodesia sified resistance to minority rule, and were shattered when Robert Mugabe bestriding the center. men and women were finally driven to became the first Prime Minister of an independent Zimbabwe in 1980. South Africa was faced by a new TANZANIA reality. It was bordered by several states which had themselves achieved in dependence by armed struggle, and could be expected to adopt a sym pathetic if not openly supportive attitude ANGOLA to the South African liberation struggle. Further, the existence of these states in spired black South Africans, already displaying rising militancy, with the • Kassinga belief that victory was possible (eg. Soweto, 1976). Several of the new states, Angola and Mozambique in particular, were pledged to building non-racial socialist societies, thus posing a double challenge to South NAMIBIA Africa's fundamental structure. And by ~ 1980, the nine independent countries of ~ southern Africa were moving to form a regional grouping, excluding South Maputo \) \ ~ ~ Africa, which became the Southern SOUTH African Development Coordinating Conference (SADCC). Here was a very LESOTHO \~ c" 0 real threat to continued South African AFRICA domination of the regional economy. Fundamentally, South African policy planners have two closely linked concerns: 1) to maintain apartheid in South government after the defeat of Por any ANC connections. In October, they Africa and control of Namibia; this tuguese colonial rule. That invasion had returned yet again. means destroying liberation forces the backing of then Secretary of State In December 1982, commandos such as the ANC and SWAPO in Henry Kissinger and the CIA, but it was crossed into Lesotho and attacked 12 ternally and intimidating neighbor eventually checked with the aid of separate '/\NC targets" killing 42 peo ing states from offering their exter Cuban troops sent in response to the ple, 30 ANC refugees and 12 Lesotho nal support, young government's desperate call for citizens. 2) to protect and expand the wealthy international assistance. South Africa's primary weapon in its private enterprise economy from It returned to the attack with raids into undercover war against Mozambique is which the minority continues to Angola in 1977. In 1981 and again in a group called the Mozambique Na draw its privileges; this means fin 1982, it launched major invasions, in tional Resistance Movement (MNR). ding new markets close by, but con volving up to 20,000 troops. South No one but South Africa claims that this trolling their development so as to Africa now maintains a permanent ar is a genuine indigenous movement. In ensure dependency and guarantee my of occupation in southern Angola, fact, the MNR was created inside that no competition is encouraged. having killed thousands of Angolans, Rhodesia by the Rhodesian Central In displaced many more, and destroyed telligence Organization after Mozam For a time South Africa seemed roads, villages, factories, food supplies, bican independence in 1975 to provide convinced that it could neutralize hospitals, and schools. information on and harass the Zimbab neighboring countries by drawing them Not only has South Africa sent its wean liberation movement ZANU into a "Constellation of States" with own troops, and mercenaries into which drew heavily on Mozambican promises of economic and technical Angola, but it has also given extensive solidarity as it entered the final years of assistance. But South Africa's naked support to a para-military, anti struggle for independence. desire to act as the controlling regional government group in Angola, the Union When Zimbabwe did become in "super-power" has made it impossible to for the Total Independence of Angola dependent, the MNR training camps construct such a Constellation on a (UNITA) . Also supplied at various were closed, and, according to The voluntary basis. times by the CIA, UNITA has played a Economist, "the MNR directorate was continual role of banditry and harass flown south to Pretoria, lock, stock and ment, increasing pressures being exerted radio station." The MNR operates as an on the Luanda government. irregular force, and according to the Efforts to Secure U.S. State Department, it receives the Control Aggression by Surrogate bulk of its support from South Africa. It is financed and armed by the South South Africa uses a complex combi Forces of South Africa African army, given logistical support nation of direct and indirect military in in the form of training, command and tervention, and economic and political Campaigns of sabotage and terrorism control equipment, helicopter transport manipulation in its effort to secure its are a major feature of South African ag and special operations. Its propaganda control of southern Africa. gression. Apart from UNITA, the Pretoria government has sponsored radio, Voice of Free Africa, broadcasts several surrogate forces, portraying from South African soil. The MNR Military Attacks them as dissident nationalist style of operation is very brutal. Stories told by survivors have a nightmare Angola movements. Such groups have been very active in Mozambique, Lesotho and quality. The largest military attacks have been Zimbabwe, where economic targets in The savage mutilations have been too mounted against Angola. By the end of cluding roads, railways, electricity, oil generalized to be explained as individual 1982, total damage inflicted on Angola, and water supplies have been frequent acts by one or other particularly sadistic a country of some seven million people, ly attacked and damaged. bandit. Mutilation is a deliberate ter was estimated at $10 billion. South rorist tactic, and an integral part of social destabilization - destabilization Africa now seeks to justify this Mozambique wholesale aggression by arguing that whose decision-making center is in Angola is providing a rear base for There have been open commando Pretoria. the South West Africa Peoples' Organiza raids, some aimed at economic installa tion (SWAPO) in its struggle to end the tions like the harbor and oil storage Pretoria regime's illegal occupation of tanks at Beira in Mozambique, and Economic Pressure some in which African National Con Namibia. It also points to the presence Mozambique of Cuban troops in Angola as proof of gress (ANC) members were ostensibly the "Soviet menace" by which it claims the targets, though not the only people Finally, South Africa has also used its to be threatened. killed. economic dominance to exert heavy South Africa first invaded Angola, In January 1981, South African com pressures. South Africa's ability to with a 6000 man force in August 1975, mandos killed 13 members of the ANC. pressure Mozambique flows partly from in an effort to prevent the MPLA na In May 1983, they returned in a bomb the close economic links established tional liberation movement from com ing raid, destroying a jam factory and during Portuguese rule. For example, ing to power as the first independent killing 6 people, only one of whom had the railway line linking the Transvaal to Mozambican minister of culture, Graca Machel, mourning together with the families of the victims at the South African attack on Mozambique, May 23, 1983. (Photo: AIM) the major port at Maputo carries some South African investment in Zimbabwe, 17 % of South Africa's overseas trade, South Africa unilaterally terminated a U.S. Role in earning important foreign exchange for preferential trade agreement dating back Destabilization Mozambique. Mozambique's railways to 1964. It also abruptly recalled some and ports provide five countries in the 80 railway trucks and diesel engines on The U.S. is heavily implicated in region with their only alternative to long term loan to Zimbabwe Railways, South Africa's program of destabiliza routing imports and exports through trucks badly needed to transport the tion. The Reagan administration admits South Africa. It is therefore, in South record maize harvest. that there is a crisis in southern Africa, Africa's interest to maintain regional Some of the attacks in Mozambique but refuses to acknowledge that South dependency on its own facilities by have been aimed also at hurting Zim Africa is fundamentally responsible for restricting the transport system in babwe. In December last year, comman the continued illegal occupation of Mozambique. dos landed at Beira and blew up most Namibia and southern Angola, the in There has been a deliberate effort to of its oil depot. The oil, destined for the human apartheid system in South Africa block the railway and the road to Zim newly re-opened pipeline to Zimbabwe itself, and the destabiliation of the in babwe, to sabotage the port of Beira, amounted to 2 V2 months supply and was dependent neighboring states.

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