Untold Apartheid South Africa War Against Neighbors

For years Pretoria has been waging a war in defense of apartheid well beyond its borders, with severe consequences for its neighbors. Since 1980 in the 8 majority-ruled states of the region South Africa has:

• Invaded three capitals (Lesotho, Botswana, Mozambique) and four other countries (Angola, Swaziland, Zambia & Zimbabwe)
• Tried to assassinate two prime ministers (Lesotho & Zimbabwe)
• Backed dissident groups that have brought chaos to two countries (Angola and Mozambique) and less serious disorder in two others (Lesotho and Zimbabwe)
• Disrupted the oil supplies of six countries (Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, and Zimbabwe)
• Attacked railways providing the normal import and export routes of seven countries (Angola, Botswana, Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland, Zambia, and Zimbabwe)

More than 100 000 people have been killed, most of them starved to death in Mozambique because South African-backed rebel activity prevented drought relief. Famine was used as a war weapon.

More than one million people have been displaced. The largest single group is Angolans fleeing various South African invasions. But all the majority-ruled states have had to care for refugees of South African attacks and destabilization.

Between 1980 & 1984 South African cost the region $10 billion, thus more than all the foreign aid these states received in the same period. The biggest single component ($3 billion) was direct additional military expenditure. Direct war damage ($1.6 billion), higher transport and energy cost dues to disruption ($1 billion), losses of production, exports and other revenue ($1.8 billion) and lost and deferred economic development ($2 billion). Thus the price of destabilization is not simply seen in the dead and displaced in the enlarged military budgets. Its also seen in lost development and reduced living standards.

Military action creates economic havoc. Economic havoc lowers morale amongst defense forces and fosters dissatisfaction and a sense of hopelessness. The ordinary people of the Southern Africa region are suffering so that the minority rule can continue in South Africa.

These actions are part of a coherent South African strategy to use the neighboring states in the defense of apartheid. The neighbors are wanted as a barrier against guerillas and thus, it is naively hoped, against rebellion inside South Africa. But Pretoria also wants to use them both as hostages to head off international sanctions, and as a useful export market in the region for South African industry. Its moves are strategically important in its effort to become self-sufficient in the face of sanctions. Disruption and poverty in the neighboring states is used for propaganda at home and abroad as “proof” that Black majority rule does not work.

South Africa Dominates the economies of the three smallest states (Botswana, Lesotho, and Swaziland.) It is the main trading partner of Zimbabwe and Malawi and the main source of imports to Zambia. Zimbabwe is the most industrialized of the region’s majority-ruled states and is pivotal in any independent economic development- yet South African corporations have a very large stake. The Anglo American Corporation of South Africa is everywhere. There are 275 000 legal migrant workers from the region in South Africa: half from Lesotho and they provide the country’s main source of income, while nearly 60 000 come from Mozambique.

The apartheid regime dominates transport. Its ports and railways handle most imports and exports for Lesotho and Botswana, half for Zambia, Zimbabwe and Swaziland and increasing amounts for Malawi. A single South African company controls most forwarding of imports and exports even those passing Mozambique.

All the above gives South Africa immense power over its neighbors. While the West has yet to make up its mind about sanctions against South Africa, South Africa has already imposed sanctions against its neighbors and demonstrated its effectiveness. All of the majority-ruled states that have transport links with South Africa have been subject to embargoes, border closures, and rail and port delays. Sometimes these are imposed as punishment for an anti-South African statement in a public forum like the United Nations (UN) or the then Organization of African Unity (OAU), but more often it is an attempt to extract political concessions, such as the signing of non-aggression pacts.

This economic power is also used, often by private companies rather than the government, to undermine efforts by governments to delink from South Africa. But the most important role of economic power is to create dependence, which in turn allows South Africa and its allies to say that the sanctions against South Africa would rebound on the neighbors.

The neighboring states are also of direct economic importance to South Africa as they are a useful source of foreign exchange. The region imports goods worth $2.4 billion from South Africa and sends only $400 million in the other direction. Even after other payments are taken into account, South Africa has a balance of payments surplus with the region of at least $1.5 billion a year. This simply means that foreign exchange earned by the majority-ruled states in exports to Europe, the United States and Japan becomes available for South Africa.

The majority-ruled states of the region have recognized this. With the independence of Zimbabwe in 1980, they formed the Southern African Development Co-ordination Conference (SADCC) “to liberate Our economies from their dependence on the Republic of South Africa, to overcome imposed economic fragmentation, and to coordinate our efforts toward regional and national economic development.” This marked a psychological turning point in the region, the majority-ruled states were working together and there was a genuine opportunity for coordinated development that reduced dependence. SADCC and the neighboring states became one of South Africa’s main targets and regional relationships changed dramatically. Hence 1980 is taken as the main starting point of the next series of post.

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Adapted from the Book: Beggar Your Neighbours by Joseph Hanlon