Publication: Independent Online Issued: Date: 2010-02-08 Reporter: Thami ka Plaatjie

Black South Africans owe De Klerk nothing

 

Publication 

Independent Online
Date

2010-02-08
Reporter Thami ka Plaatjie

Web Link

www.iol.co.za


It has become fashionable to accord and heap all manner of praises, eulogies and felicitations on FW de Klerk for the so-called emancipation of our people with the unbanning of political parties and the release of political prisoners on February 2, 1990.

De Klerk has earned international acclaim and was bestowed with the much coveted Noble Peace prize.

Twenty years later, he still receives unending accolades for the "sterling role" that he played to free the Africans from bondage.

I wish to argue that we don't owe De Klerk praise, nor accolades, nor any other form of expression of gratitude.

The apartheid regime was the most heinous and devious oppressive regime known to mankind.

The catalogue of its monstrous activities exceeded the atrocious bestial level of psychopaths, bandits and war criminals.

De Klerk's so-called historical announcement on February 2, 1990, was an act of conceding defeat. His regime could no longer sustain the war that his forebears started in 1652.

The forces of progress were marching buoyant, determined to make the last and final stand against the racist regime that had been declared a crime against humanity by the United Nations.

The liberation of Mozambique left the apartheid regime shell-shocked since it meant new adversarial neighbours.

The liberation of Zimbabwe, through revolutionary means, ushered into power Zanu with the installation of a new flag and the return of the ancient name of Zimbabwe.

In a desperate attempt to forestall the inevitable, the apartheid regime sponsored insurgencies and bandits like Renamo and Unita but their efforts proved to have no effect.

Attempts to repel and destroy the Cuban forces from Angola proved futile.

In the air space of Angola the South African airpower of Impalas, Mirages and Cheetahs were a poor match for the ferocious might of the Cuban MiG23.

The sheer imposing sound of the Cuban aircraft sent apartheid soldiers screaming for their mothers. The buoyant and gallant forces of Umkhonto we Sizwe and the Cubans witnessed the desperate fleeing of apartheid soldiers with tails between their shaking legs.

Apartheid power surrendered and an armistice resulted in the UN sponsored Resolution 435 which paved the way for the independence of Namibia.

The apartheid regime was faced with immense challenges on virtually all fronts. At the home front it faced incessant labour unrest under the aegis of Cosatu and Nactu. Civil disobedience crippled the local government sector since the Vaal 1984 rent uprising.

International pressure was mounting with the impending hanging of the Sharpeville Six. Schools were rendered battle fields with clashes, led by groups like Cosas, between pupils and soldiers.

Azapo's Muntu Myeza, Thami Mcwera, Lybon Mabaso and Ishmael Mkhabela gave the regime sleepless nights with lucid articles laced with Steve Biko's ideologies, mass action and targeted boycotts.

The African ecumenical community, led by the feisty Desmond Tutu Archbishop Emeritus, and the African business community led by the pondering Nthato Motlana, gave the regime little rest.

The imposition of the State of Emergency escalated violence further.

On May 5, 1987, The Rand Daily Mail reported that in 1986 alone there were 76 hand grenade attacks, 64 limpet mine explosions, one RPG7 explosion, 12 landmine explosions and 76 cases recorded of the use of Russian AK47s.

The Azanian Peoples Liberation Army (Apla) had been reconstituted with new impetus by the arrival of Sabelo Phama in exile which saw fresh attacks launched.

In a desperate attempt to undercut the growing urban resistance and defiance, the regime sponsored vigilante groups but with no success.

The forces of progress were marching gallantly towards victory.

The people's resistance was organised up to street level, with street committees and self-defence units manned by militant youth who responded to Oliver Tambo's call to render the country ungovernable.

Economic sanctions, sports isolation, coupled with the ever-increasing militant activities of the mass democratic movement, left the regime gasping for air.

Faced with a country that was engulfed in a tumultuous urban warfare, the white community no longer trusted the regime with their future and safety.

Open defiance from the white populace increased which further erroded the Nationalists' grip on power.

The insistence by Stellenbosch students to visit the ANC was embarrassing for the National Party.

An increase in the membership for the End Conscription Campaign, and increased militancy and the open defiance of conscientised white youth and white academics such as Sampie Terreblance against the futility of defending apartheid's decadence, embarrassed the regime further.

Organised business was becoming apprehensive of operating in a volatile environment whose businesses were targets of attacks and mass looting.

It soon became a public relations disaster to justify or excuse apartheid. Apartheid was nearing its sell-by date and its decaying smell was evident to all.

The regime was no longer capable of defending itself. The regime began a process of gradual surrender to give an impression of bravery.

The government released a number of ANC and PAC prisoners from Robben Island in 1987, including Sello Matsobane, Zifozonke Tshikila and John Nkosi.

In November, 1987, it released Govan Mbeki and in 1988 Harry Gwala and Zeph Mothopeng were released. Soon Japhta Masemola and Walter Sisulu were also free.

De Klerk was buying time and accruing concessions especially from the international community which was beginning to ease sanctions.

The African people have earned their freedom themselves and due regard, esteem and glory belongs to them. Praise belongs to the many buried cadres, it belongs to the many maimed and injured, and to the many countless who are now forgotten.

February 2 marks the date of surrender of the racist regime. Before the nation and the world they hoisted a white flag of defeat and capitulation. Why must we praise them for accepting defeat?

A boxer does not give his crown to the opponent that he has defeated. Such a thing only takes place in the world of phantasmagoria.

De Klerk's speech on February 2 was made out of exasperation, raising the blood pressure of his inner cabals and securocrats. Their nightmarish fears of the ultimate Armageddon were based on unfounded notions of the annihilation of the white race on a scale far greater than the Afrikaners' killings at Dingaan's kraal.

The regime was for the first time afraid; it was very afraid and was frantically and desperately in search of an escape hatch.

Heaping praise on De Klerk is sheer profligacy, hypocrisy, silly and selling out. He did not wake up loving Africans any more than he did on February 1, 1990.

That is why he now wants to create an Afrikaners-only university. We owe him nothing.

Thami ka Plaatjie is director of the Pan African Foundation.
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With acknowledgements to Thami ka Plaatjie and Independent Online.


It's arseholes like this pan azanian dingbat who propagate apartheid and refuse to let it die.

Apartheid was an ill-considered, fundamentally flawed experiment by mainly unsophisticated pioneers desperate to maintain their values and their achievements.

But officially, apartheid was short-lived, only about 45 years.

Indeed apartheid started unravelling at a serious pace from around 1988/89.

And it wasn't FW de Klerk who started dismantling apartheid. It was a host of more sophisticated Afrikaners and other South Africans led by PW Botha. PW started getting a bit old and unwell and partially lost the plot. FW did a good job in taking over the baton and getting the job finished under his leadership. But he was by means not alone in doing so. But he was the leader and he got the Nobel Peace Prize.

On the other side of the coin there were a lot of black leaders who did not want a Kenya-style uhuru-type endgame. Indeed it was ANC policy to prefer a peaceful negotiated settlement rather than violent civil war.

They did this for very good reason. They wanted to inherit the sophisticated first world country with its intellectual property from the white pioneers more-or-less intact, and not just the minerals in the ground and the beasts in the fields.

ka Plaatjies's knowledge of the Angola War is also simple nonsense.

A small fact is that the war to which he refers, that is the Angola War or the Border War or the Bush War, was over by May 1989. The Cheetah fighter only got into the SAAF's inventory in around 1997.

While it is true that the Soviet Mig23s were technically superior to the SAAF's Mirages, it was not Cuban Mig23s that caused any consternation for the SADF's troops on the ground. The Mig23s piloted by Cubans flew  top cover for the Mig21s piloted by Angolans, the latter undertaking the odd ground attack, but mainly flying about a bit. The Cuban pilots were too scared to come into range of UNITA's US-supplied Stinger anti-aircraft missiles. The Angolan pilots were too scared to come anywhere near the engagement areas and nearly always delivered their ordnance several thousand metres away, even up to 10 km away from the South African ground forces. Sometimes they dropped their bombs from above the cloud cover. Indeed the Angolan Air Force caused more destruction its own troops  by bombing them than on the SADF troops.

In the meantime the SAAF Mirages and Buccaneers flew attack sorties continuously against the Angolan forces in what became one the most heavily defended air battlespaces in the entire world, thanks to a more-or-less infinite supply of Soviet air defence equipment, missiles, radars and mobile systems, of the most modern and capable types. SAAF pilot, navigating and directing skills and tactics overcame the technical disadvantage of inferior aircraft and the SAAF pilots wreaked havoc on the Angolan ground forces.

But nothing like the havoc played upon the hapless Angolan cannon fodder by the South African's giant G5 and at times G6 long range artillery weapons.

But this was not the 1914 to 1918 type of direct and short-range cannon fodder, this was the terrifying anti-personnel airburst of a 155 mm round delivered from up to 40 km away. ka Plaatjies's famous Angolan and Cuban Air Forces never found one G5 nor G6 ever despite their enormous efforts and even the use of infantry reconnaissance patrols of battalion strength. The G5s and G6s slaughtered literally thousands of Angolan soldiers between 1986 and 1988 alone and billions of dollars of defence materiel supplied by the Soviets, East Germans and Cuba.

The SADF was so supersedent in the 1986 to 1988 campaigns that it needed to deploy just around 2 500 troops in one under-strength brigade in opposition to some 15 brigades of up to 40 000 Angolan troops supported by several thens of thousands Cuban troops and several thousand Soviet military advisors. Of these SADF troops, nearly all the were national servicemen on two year call-ups and citizen force troops on three month camps.

Yet the SADF slaughtered some ten thousand Angolan troops for the loss of several dozen of their own.

And not only was it men who perished. The SADF destroyed literally thousands of armoured fighting vehicles, infantry fighting vehicles, mobile missile launchers, anti-aircraft systems, including hundreds of main battle tanks.

For the SADF it was one long military chess game where the SA Army commander Lt Gen Kat Liebenberg wanted to emphasise non-lethal propaganda warfare rather than hard kill, especially the loss of his own troops. Even the taking of the strategic town of Cuito Cuanavale was not worth the loss of even a dozen SADF soldiers. So the South African 20 Brigade pushed the Angolan brigades around and at times attacked and even destroyed some of them as fighting units.

All of this was playing for time and once the Angolans tired of being slaughtered and the Cubans tired of dying for Fidel Castro and the Soviet Union collapsed, broke apart and exchanged communism for capitalism, the South Africans simply withdrew its small brigade and the Cubans withdrew their 50 000 troops back to Cuba, all in exchange for a peaceful implementation of the United Nations Resolution 435.

Cuba's leader and one of the last communist dictator's soon had its fighting general in Angola, General Arnaldo Ochoa Sanchez, court-martialled and executed by firing squad. Meanwhile the Cuban air force commander in Angola General Rafael Del Pino Diaz had defected to the US during 1987

The other great ally SWAPO could not believed its luck and promptly invaded South West Africa in violation of the terms of the ceasefire agreement.

The cowardly SADF and SAPS Koevoet simply remarshalled their forces within a couple of days and obliterated more than 300 of the best SWAPO special forces soldiers in just nine days, for the loss of 20 SAPS and 5 SADF men.

Once peace and a semblance of democracy were established in South West Africa with the founding of an independent Namibia, things could rapidly be progressed in South Africa.

And that is what happened.

All South Africans, black and white, can be extremely grateful that wiser heads prevailed and that we got peace instead of war. FW de Klerk was one of these wiser heads.