Foundation of the Dominion (1983: Doomsday)

The Dominion of South Africa is one of the states to emerge from the collapse of the Republic of South Africa over the course of the 1980s. This page explains its origins and early history.

For the history from 1990 onward, see History of the DSA. For a list of leaders, see Dominion leaders.

1983[]

1973 Bantustans (30583781200) — Reference map of South and South West Africa before 1983

Soon after the outbreak of nuclear war, the South African government (led by P.W. Botha under State President Marais Viljoen) enacts emergency measures. An impending parliamentary vote on a new constitution is postponed. Repression is especially strong in the country’s Black townships. Rationing is imposed; over the next several months it will become harsher and more strictly enforced as South Africa’s access to foreign trade diminishes. The bantustans experience the worst shortages, with many of them facing famine conditions before the year is over. For now, however, while nobody in the country is happy, neither are they restive. Organized unrest does not yet begin to spread.

Meanwhile HMS Invincible and some other British ships that had been in the Red Sea put in at Durban, now considered a friendly anti-Soviet port on the way back home. Captain Nicholas Hill-Norton has decided that the ships will return to Britain to defend the homeland, but that Prince Andrew Windsor should remain safely in South Africa because there is a good chance that he is now the sovereign. Bringing him into a zone under Soviet bombardment or invasion could destroy any hope of maintaining the continuity of the realm. So Andrew travels with a bodyguard of Royal Marines to the British embassy in Pretoria.

The fleet arrives in Britain to find no sign of any follow-up Soviet attack by air or sea. Surviving members of the British government, including the Queen, the Deputy Prime Minister, and the War Cabinet, together with a number of MPs, both Commons and Lords, have scattered to secret emergency sites around the country. A minor naval air station in Portland serves as the capital, such as it is. An aircraft is dispatched to Pretoria with additional soldiers for the protection of his Royal Highness, who also thus receives word that his mother is alive and that he is heir apparent.

1984[]

South Africa’s parliament now approves the new constitution, creating a racially segregated, tricameral parliament. Despite the emergency, Botha judges that things are stable enough to hold a referendum to ratify it, which is set for March. The Progressive Federal Party vehemently opposes it, since it enshrines racial segregation, denies any political voice to the Black majority, and includes no bill of rights. There are particularly large White-led demonstrations against it in Cape Town, Port Elizabeth, and Durban, along with others held in the capital and in Johannesburg.

The Black population also organizes against the constitution; these demonstrations are viciously put down. Botha declares martial law for two weeks leading up to the referendum in Soweto and other centers of unrest - the first time that this step is taken since the start of the emergency; certainly not the last. In the bantustans, these demonstrations merge with unrest over food. In some of the homelands, order breaks down completely. The South African government provides only minimal help.

The PFP and other opposition groups declare the referendum to be an unacceptable power grab by the National Party in the midst of a major emergency and advise their supporters to boycott the vote. This is the first organized act of resistance by the liberal and moderate White population. In the event, the constitution is approved overwhelmingly by a reduced and almost purely Afrikaner electorate. It will never be put into effect.

Meanwhile, Queen Elizabeth has died in February, the radiation to which she was exposed having badly weakened her immune system. Andrew, now King and Head of the Commonwealth, is advised to remain in Pretoria, there being no benefit to his coming to England that could outweigh the risk of travel. However, a new coterie of officials now flies to Pretoria to help Andrew set up the rudiments of a Royal Household in exile. At this point people begin to discuss the idea of relocating the entire Government to a safe country, most likely Canada, New Zealand or Jamaica. The naval and military forces that can still be deployed in Britain are now being used for relief rather than defense; but the task is insurmountable. The armed forces are suffering from the same privations as the rest of the population.

Late in the year, a new wave of unrest sweeps up and down South Africa. The government has poured resources into propping up White-owned businesses while neglecting the rest of the economy. It has shown itself unable or unwilling to provide for the country’s large non-White majority. All this finally sparks calls for its overthrow. Inkatha, KwaZulu's ruling party, declares its intention to pursue Zulu independence contingent on the annexation of certain new territories. For now it stops short of declaring independence or seizing any land, but the party's intention is clear. At a meeting in Cape Town, the parliamentary Opposition also discusses the possibility of forming itself into a true shadow government, perhaps asserting control of the Cape or Natal provinces, since the National Party government is failing so thoroughly. For now it’s all just talk, but that talk is becoming more open and more strident. And in South West Africa, SWAPO issues a formal declaration of independence from its liberated base areas in rural Ovamboland as more of its guerrillas begin to cross over from Angola, its leaders reckoning that South Africa will not be able to hold the territory.

1985[]

The year opens with crises on every front in South Africa. A huge cross-section of Whites, Coloureds, Indians and Blacks participates in a general strike to demand equitable distribution of aid and rationing as well as multiracial participation in government.

Mangosuthu Buthelezi (1983) — Mangosuthu Buthelezi

In the middle of this major action, the Zulu finally make the first move in what will become the dismantling of South Africa. Mangosuthu Buthelezi is the leader of the Inkatha movement as well as the chief administrator of the kwaZulu bantustan and ceremonial prime minister to the Zulu king. Citing the country’s many crises, he announces the creation a “free zone” covering the core part of the homeland and some adjacent areas outside it, in which he will govern without any regard for the national government. It’s not yet a full declaration of independence, but it’s close. And as Buthelezi is one of the best-known Black leaders and activists in all of South Africa, his action produces repercussions all over the country. Everywhere, it begins to dawn on people that the government is losing control.

At this point, Botha again declares martial law, first in Natal province and the Black townships, but within days covering the entire country. Civil liberties and the normal functioning of civil society are suspended. This serves to radicalize the various opposition movements, starting with the huge populations of hungry migrants who have come to the cities from the bantustans. Following the lead of kwaZulu, many of these groups begin to organize and declare liberated zones outside the cities. Established militant groups, such as the Azanian People's Liberation Army, step in to try and guide and ride this rising wave. Throughout Transvaal province, these armed groups face off against the military. There are no large-scale battles yet, but the unrest becomes tinged with violence.

To deal with these cascading challenges, the government has no choice but to call in its troops from the periphery to the center. The South Africans in Angola have already been brought home. Now, Botha abandons the northern part of South West Africa so that more soldiers can come to Pretoria and Johannesburg. SWAPO gains ground, and its president Sam Nujoma crosses over from Angola and begins to establish the nation of Namibia. Nujoma is effectively governing the northern part of the territory before year's end. Windhoek and Walvis Bay remain under South African control for now, but its grip is slipping.

The situation in the capital is also deteriorating rapidly. Andrew and the aides and soldiers around him do not wish to wait inside the embassy while the city descends into chaos all around them. After two years in Pretoria, the household-in-exile has formed relationships with a number of Anglo-African communities around the country; and among the possible destinations, they decide that Port Elizabeth offers more hope as a safe refuge than Cape Town or Durban. As the English community there prepares to welcome the King, almost all of the personnel in the embassy cram into military vehicles, tear out of the gate, and leave the city, driving hard for the border with Lesotho - per an earlier agreement made with the Lesothan government. They do not ask permission to relocate, but the South African military has more urgent things to do than try to stop them. Stopping briefly to acquire fuel outside Maseru, the convoy then makes its way to East London and finally to Port Elizabeth, the king’s new and, it will turn out, permanent residence.

On 17 August, the situation starts to boil over. The ANC breaks Nelson Mandela out of Pollsmoor Prison in Cape Town. He travels to Pretoria where he is promptly killed in a military bombardment. All-out fighting explodes in several places, above all in Transvaal and along the borders of kwaZulu. At this time, Buthelezi finally declares independence outright, asking King Goodwill Zulu to step into the role of head of state. Transkei closes its borders not long after and cuts off all communication with Pretoria.

In Durban, a liberal coalition gathers, drawing many Opposition leaders and some of the activists who organized the general strike last January. The country is collapsing, they decide, and the time has come for a new direction that can reunite it. The group represents all of South Africa’s races including some moderate members of the ANC, but it is led by a trio of White parliamentarians from the Progressive Federal Party: Frederik van Zyl Slabbert, the official Leader of the Opposition; Colin Eglin, the previous holder of that post; and Helen Suzman, Parliament’s most vocal opponent of apartheid for years.

The Durban group puts forward a plan to create a rival government that can take over the country following the evident failure of the National Party government. They declare the country to be the Union of South Africa - a reincarnation of the pre-apartheid regime that had existed from 1909 to the Second World War. It will be governed according to a new constitution based on the most liberal possible interpretation of the constitution of 1909. All forms of racial discrimination will be banned.

Van Zyl Slabbert and Buthelezi — Buthelezi with Frederik van Zyl Slabbert

The Union government, with Van Zyl Slabbert now the Prime Minister, is in trouble from the start. It has no military forces and can only try to slowly arm groups of its own supporters, while hoping that the growing Black armed movements might draw away most of the army’s wrath. The Union’s leaders hope to link up all major anti-government groups and thus hold the country together. But many of these groups are uninterested. KwaZulu would be most valuable as an ally and protector; but while Buthelezi expresses his support for the Union, he is fully committed to Zulu independence. The South African military comes to Durban to occupy it in an attempt to invade kwaZulu’s southern flank, forcing the Union government and many of its supporters to flee. Transkei shelters them briefly, but soon pushes them along to their final destination: Port Elizabeth.

It’s a happy coincidence for both Andrew Windsor and the Opposition leaders. The Union of South Africa was of course a British dominion that fought for Britain in the first two World Wars. The monarchy still had considerable support among South African Whites just 25 years ago when they voted to establish the Republic by a narrow 5% margin. Andrew’s presence in the same town as the government will allow the Opposition to bring back the pre-apartheid system in full, turning back the clock to 1945 and a happier time in the country’s history.

The Union government gains control of local law enforcement and manages to entice some defections from the military. It also attracts some migrants coming from increasingly war-torn parts of Transvaal and Natal. While it fails to gain the support of the whole country, a local resistance movement in the city of Pietermaritzburg, the capital of Natal, declares for the Union, and it manages to hold both Inkatha and the SADF at bay. By the end of the year Union loyalists have hacked out blocks of territory in eastern Cape Province and central Natal. There, the new government is recognized as the legitimate authority, not the National Party government fighting for its life in Pretoria.

Restoring the monarchy also gives the Union of South Africa an opening to get support from Britain. The government there has certainly been floundering, its contact with many inland parts of the United Kingdom nearly cut off, possessing some military hardware but not the resources to maintain it. Led by Foreign Secretary Geoffrey Howe, some War Cabinet members and surviving MPs are talking more seriously about going into exile, at least temporarily. Canada is still reeling from its own nuclear attacks and can offer no help. New Zealand is now ruled out because it’s too distant: any direct communication with the homeland would be impossible for an extended period of time. Howe has been communicating with Jamaica, but the country’s response is ambivalent. Without directly telling the British no, the Jamaicans have stressed the immense strain on their resources caused by refugees from Cuba and the United States.

But now, Van Zyl Slabbert extends an invitation to the British: come join your king. Bring evacuees with you - and military personnel and equipment, of course. In his messages Van Zyl Slabbert exaggerates his government’s stability, the extent of its support, and the size of its territory.

The offer creates a rift in the War Cabinet. Prime Minister William Whitelaw is dead-set against the idea, and thinking over the logistics of an evacuation to South Africa hardens his stance against any form of government-in-exile. But several of his ministers are open to it.

1985 ends with South Africa in a precarious position. The stresses on the country for the last two years finally seem to be tearing it apart. The National government’s rule is uncontested only in the Orange Free State and the western and northern parts of Cape Province, and even here the rural areas are starting to drift toward lawlessness. A rival government in Port Elizabeth seeks to replace it. KwaZulu has declared independence, while Transkei’s de facto independence is all but accomplished. In Transvaal, various armed groups are spread out in the townships and countryside, neither trusting each other nor certain whether their final goal is independence or reunification.

1986[]

The War Cabinet will not yet agree to leave England, but it does consent to allow refugees to go to South Africa with a naval escort, together with an additional military detachment to protect the sovereign. This is the famous First Convoy, the largest of several waves of refugees to depart Great Britain for Port Elizabeth. Coming by way of friendly ports in Madeira and Cape Verde, the convoy reaches its destination safely. Many of the passengers are from a rather elite set: several members of Parliament, including a handful of Peers, who are hoping to somehow organize a state in exile for their home country; with them are a number of academics and a range of other professionals.

The British are not pleased with the precarious situation in which they find Port Elizabeth. Clearly, Van Zyl Slabbert has misled them. But they have unloaded boatloads of civilians and are committed to the place, like it or not. Before returning, they leave behind some smaller craft to help defend the coast, as well as rather a few more military personnel than they had planned.

Up in Transvaal, the center finally caves in as rebels seize control of both Pretoria and Johannesburg. Most of the White population of the region flees. This loss shatters most of the remaining confidence that the government could command. The government relocates to Cape Town, the legislative capital that so far has mostly escaped the violence of the preceding year. But danger lurks here as well. A large portion of the army fled Transvaal in disarray and is scattered among displaced White civilians across the Orange Free State and the northern end of Cape Province. These and other losses mean that Botha is unable to simply impose his will in Cape Town. He will need the support of the westerm Cape's Coloured majority if he wants to avoid losing this final redoubt.

In order to accomplish this, Botha announces that the government will finally implement the long-awaited constitution ratified shortly after the nuclear war. Whites, Indians, and Coloureds will each elect a separate house of Parliament. As it happens, the parts of the country where these three racial groups predominate are precisely the ones still under government control. It seems like the perfect opportunity for a new start for the Republic, and the perfect foundation from which it can start retaking the country.

But the Republic is too far gone. The most prominent Coloured leader in the Cape by now is Peter Marais, who has organized a new political party called the People's Congress (Volkskongres Party). Upon the announcement of the planned tricameral parliament, Volkskongres begins a campaign against it and promises to boycott any election to it. Out in the rural parts of Cape Province, some Coloured leaders take this a step further and launch a full-blown insurgency. Desertions and defections have already taken their toll on the army, and the remaining troops are unable to suppress it.

The last pocket of government control outside the western Cape is Durban, which has been occupied like an enemy city for the last year and is suffering badly. Zulu forces draw closer to the city at a snail's pace, but the fighting has very nearly reached a stalemate. Many of Durban’s English and Indian population are fleeing in the direction of the eastern Cape and Port Elizabeth. Pro-Union forces in Pietermaritzburg fight alongside the Zulus and continue to beg Port Elizabeth for support. But Slabbert has no troops to spare; and even if he did, the British categorically oppose the idea. The British military brass refuse to get involved in a direct military confrontation with the SADF, weakened though it is. The only choice for Maritzburg is military dependence on KwaZulu.

1987[]

In England, the question of exile finally causes the collapse of the War Cabinet as several members decide to try their luck in Africa. The Second Convoy spells the end of any institution that could claim direct continuity with the pre-war British government. Future attempts to reunite the UK will have to be built from the ground up. Alongside this handful of Ministers, prominent passengers in the Second Convoy include the exiled prime minister of India, Indira Gandhi, and Charles Gordon-Lennox, the Duke of Richmond, who arrives with his family, including his daughter Louisa - the future Queen.

HMS Invincible does not initially plan to join the convoy, but Captain Hill-Norton finally makes the decision to leave when it becomes clear that there is no place in Britain capable of maintaining an aircraft carrier. Invincible arrives in South Africa with the convoy. The Union of South Africa also lacks the capacity to maintain the ship in active service, but Royal Navy crews are able to mothball it for future use. Its aircraft are removed to provide air support for ground troops.

Those staying in England by and large give up on the idea of Andrew Windsor as head of state. He’s gone; the monarchy is gone. Whitelaw and others will assist in the formation of the republic of Southern England. There will be other convoys, the last one as late as 1992; but they will happen without any coordination with the British government, because no such government will exist.

British naval units that have based themselves in Port Elizabeth take somewhat longer to give up on the idea of Britain. They continue to operate autonomously. Not long after the arrival of the Second Convoy, the navy organizes relief expeditions to visit the tiny British islands of the South Atlantic. The Falklands have long been gobbled up by Argentina, but the South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands have been left but lightly defended, and the navy manages to reoccupy it, to the delight of its population of Falklander exiles and the consternation of Argentina. The other islands, namely Saint Helena, Ascencion Island, and Tristan Da Cunha, are in desperate need of supplies and medical care. Future expeditions will bring some of the islanders to South Africa, and later still, some will elect to return. Thanks to these early expeditions, the islands will come to depend on aid from South Africa.

In Cape Town later that year, Botha gives in to the demands of Marais. The Coloured leader goes between the government and the insurgents to broker a compromise. Botha agrees to set aside the new constitution and instead hold elections for a single, desegregated chamber of Parliament, with both White and Coloured people able to vote. The vote in September easily brings Marais to power, in a coalition partnership with the Afrikaner nationalist Conservative Party. Botha retires to an outlying coastal village, where he will eventually be murdered; it is not known which of his many enemies arranges the killing. White rule in South Africa is over, but of course by now there is little South Africa to speak of. Marais makes this explicit when he renounces any ambition to reunite the country and orders any army troops left outside Cape Province to report to the new capital. This predictably causes the last White resistance in South West Africa to crumble. Windhoek falls before the end of the year, and the remaining loyalists of the apartheid regime dig in around Walvis Bay.

The leaders at Port Elizabeth at first were hoping that Botha's fall from power would leave the country’s government in the hands of themselves; they are sorely disappointed. Instead, the transfer of power sparks a new wave of separatism as one part of South Africa after another formally declares independence. Three major states emerge in the central Transvaal associated with the Pan-Africanist Congress of Azania (PACA), African National Congress (ANC), and Azanian People's Organization (APO). The Transkei, Ciskei, and QwaQwa bantustans have already joined the Zulu in asserting their full independence, as has the Bapedi half of Lebowa. The Afrikaner state of Heiligdom follows suit. The Orange Free State does not take the formal step of declaring independence, but it does not need to: its provincial government is now operating without regard for any other authority. It clashes with the emerging Griqua-dominated territory of Waterboersland to the northwest. None of these states have any interest in returning to the Union of South Africa. An ideology of moderation and racial harmony appears unsuited for the times.

Both the Union and the Republic also lose control of the pockets that they had in Natal province. In September, all sides agree to a cease-fire and the establishment of a multilateral interim council for Durban. But Marais has no interest in holding territory outside the Cape. He steadily draws down troop levels until, near the end of the year, the SADF withdraws from the province entirely. KwaZulu is now the only real power in Natal province; acknowledging this fact, the governments of Durban and Pietermaritzburg organize themselves into autonomous city-states under the Zulu kingdom. It is the end of any hope that the Union of South Africa might incorporate parts of Natal.

DD1983 Dominion Flag Civil — The new flag of the Dominion

It's now painfully evident that the state based at Port Elizabeth is not a "union" of anything: its territory is confined to one end of a single province. A new identity is called for, and anyway the founders recognize the need to craft a new constitution adapted to radically changed conditions. The state drops all pretensions to be an alternative government for the whole of South Africa. With some input from the British exiles, leaders produce a plan for a new country: the Dominion of South Africa, commonly known as the Dominion or the DSA. Its basis is still the liberalized version of the 1909 constitution, adapted to account for the country's reduced territory. Andrew is the king, and Helen Suzman steps into the role of Prime Minister, one in which she will be confirmed after elections in the near future. The flag of the Union of South Africa is finally brought down, replaced with a new banner representing the pluralistic ideals of the new nation.

All things considered, the Dominion is doing well for itself. Alongside Lesotho, it is one of the most stable states in the region. Fighting continues to rage in other areas, gutting what was left of pre-war South Africa. The Azanian Republic (ruled by the APO) is in an all-out war against the South African Republic (the ANC) in central Transvaal. Fighting between different racially-constituted militias continues in the sparsely-populated areas of the Orange Free State and Cape Province; in places, this degenerates into simple banditry.

1988[]

During 1988, many of these wars finally die down as South Africa settles into its new reality. The Transvaal republics lay down their arms and begin to seriously cooperate to answer the question of what the region will look like under Black rule. Martial law ends in Lesotho after a popular uprising, inaugurating a new era of democratic government. Before long it will peacefully annex QwaQwa following a petition by the bantustan's government.

However, the Dominion will involve itself in a new armed conflict. The former bantustans of Transkei and Ciskei also unite to form a new republic, called KwaXhosa. This causes immediate difficulty with the Dominion, because the city of East London lies in between the two Xhosa areas. PM Suzman does all she can to resolve the dispute peacefully, but she also insists that her country have free and open access by road to East London, and this road passes through the coastal area of Ciskei. The First Dominion-Xhosa War is brief, but it brings violence to the country, and the capital itself suffers some bombardment. The geographic position of East London will be an underlying cause of many more conflicts, political and military, between the two countries.

In the Cape, the Republic of South Africa finally ends with a whimper. Using the Afrikaans language as a unifying symbol, Marais maintains his shaky coalition of Cape Coloureds and Afrikaner nationalists and pushes through a bill dissolving the Republic of South Africa, replacing it with the Republic of the Cape. The Oranje, Blanje, Blou is lowered for the last time. As Marais's rule in the Cape skews more toward the authoritarian, some begin to leave. Afrikaners drift north into the region around Springbok, where a growing community of displaced Whites is more or less ignoring Cape Town: within a few years, they will organize a new national government, the Volkstaat. Black and Anglo people instead largely move east into the Dominion.

1989[]

Five events in 1989 help to give a sense of permanence and security to the new Dominion.

First, in January, all four Black states of Transvaal - the three revolutionary republics plus the Kingdom of Bopedi - join to form the Azanian League, primarily motivated by the need to defend themselves against the Orange Free State and other apartheid holdouts. Though distant from Port Elizabeth, this development does much for the stability of the whole region and allows the Dominion to seek normal relations with the Black-ruled states to the east.

Next, the Dominion Army launches an operation in some of the unstable parts of central Cape Province that had lain outside the Cape Republic's reach. This brings a good deal of sparsely-peopled land into the country, giving it a stable block of territory. In the coming years, the state will organize much of this new territory as collective farms and use it to settle many of the people who came from Natal and England.

Third, a Third Convoy, small and ragged, arrives from Britain. It confirms what had already been suspected: that no institution exists there that can be identified with the government of the United Kingdom, and local authorities are not acting in the name of King Andrew. This reorients the perspective that many of the Dominion’s citizens have toward their monarch: he is no longer the sojourning King of England. He is the King of South Africa. This also gives the Dominion reason to begin the process of incorporating other British assets that have come under its purview, especially the naval units and the British island territories in the South Atlantic. This incorporation process will be completed in 1990.

Fourth, the Dominion holds its first elections and seats its first Parliament. The PFP wins easily, and Helen Suzman keeps her office of Prime Minister.

Finally, the king himself gets married late in the year, prompting a genuine national celebration perhaps for the first time since the great nuclear war. His bride Louisa, the daughter of an English duke, came over on the Second Convoy. Some criticise the king for not marrying someone from South Africa; but Louisa’s shared background and her knowledge of royal culture make her a good match. The marriage will never be happy, but Louisa is able to play the role of a dutiful Queen who represents the endurance and continuity of the nation.

So by the end of the Eighties, the Dominion of South Africa is firmly established in the central part of the Republic's former territory. Its government is still White-dominated but it lacks an explicit racial identity, unlike most of the other states in the region. Bolstered by a modest but significant donation of British military hardware, enriched by arrivals from many parts of South Africa and abroad, and governed under a constitution that is unique but solidly rooted in South Africa’s liberal tradition, it is poised to play an influential role in the region in the coming years.