The Federal Republic of South Africa (FRSA), more commonly referred to as simply South Africa, is a country located in southern Africa.
It was established in 1994, after a civil war erupted in South Africa over apartheid in 1993. After the apartheid regime was deposed by U.S. and British forces, the Republic of South Africa was disestablished and succeeded by the new Federal Republic of South Africa in 1994, which had a new democratic constitution adopted by a diverse, representative convention. The new South African federal republic has a constitution that respects the civil rights of all the country's people. The last State President of the former RSA was put on trial by the new South African supreme court and was found guilty for war crimes and sentenced to life in prison in 1994.
History[]
During bilateral negotiations to end Apartheid in South Africa in early 1993, the ruling National Party and newly elected State President Frederick Haymans secretly discussed options for reform with the African National Congress (ANC) despite conservative opposition. However, beneath the surface tensions remained high, with both parties facing immense pressure from their radical wings and internal resistance to Apartheid escalating. The National Party is unwilling to consider a universal franchise, which forms the crux of the ANC's demands, while for its part the ANC refuses to cease planning guerrilla operations.
Despite strict instructions to avoid provoking unnecessary confrontations with the ANC's armed wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), Karl Vorster, the South African Minister of Law and Order, authorized a raid by the 44th Parachute Brigade on suspected MK bases in Zimbabwe. Vorster — a hardline conservative and secret Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging sympathiser — is roundly criticized by President Haymans and his reformist Cabinet for his actions. However, the paratroopers succeed in recovering valuable intelligence on "Broken Covenant", a proposed MK operation to assassinate Haymans as he travels to Pretoria from Cape Town aboard the Blue Train for the parliament's summer recess. This incident comes at a time when negotiations between Haymans and the ANC are approaching a major breakthrough, so MK decides to abort the attack.
Sensing an opportunity to seize power himself with the current leadership eliminated, Vorster excuses himself from the Blue Train and eliminates the ANC courier assigned to transmit the abort signal to MK forces. The oblivious guerrillas carried out the attack as planned, killing Haymans and his entire Cabinet. A triumphant Vorster then assumed the presidency and declared a state of emergency, giving the security forces free rein to crack down on anti-apartheid movements. Diplomatic relations with the rest of the world quickly sour, and thousands of those suspected of being affiliated with the ANC are executed or moved to remote internment facilities. Vorster also orders the South African Defence Force (SADF) to invade newly independent Namibia under the pretext of targeting MK training camps. At the behest of the Namibian government, thousands of Cuban troops redeployed from their bases in Angola to halt the SADF's offensive south of Windhoek. This leads to a prolonged war of attrition, with neither side being able to gain the upper hand.
Meanwhile, conditions in South Africa began to worsen due to Vorster's heavy-handed attempts at silencing domestic opposition. His use of lethal force against white dissenters and other Afrikaners in particular leads to militant secessionist movements in the Transvaal and Orange Free State. The fledgling regime also alienated the Inkatha Freedom Party and nominally independent KwaZulu, which resulted in a violent insurgency waged by Zulu radicals across Natal and an urban insurrection in Durban. SADF units in Cape Town also mutinied and intervened to protect civilians after several mass killings.
Taking note of these internal crises, General Antonio Vega, commander of the Cuban military mission in Namibia, proposed an invasion of South Africa itself. Bolstered by new shipments of Soviet arms, and troops from several other socialist African countries, Vega duly sends three tactical battle groups into the Transvaal. Having concentrated on the potential of a future Cuban attack on the Namibian front, South African intelligence agencies are taken by surprise. The SADF is also slow to mount an effective resistance due to its preoccupation with various revolts and the fact that a disproportionate amount of manpower and supplies are already committed to a major operation in Namibia.
As General Vega's forces advanced eastwards towards Johannesburg, Vorster ordered the deployment of South Africa's nuclear arsenal to save the city. A South African Mirage F1CZ dropped a nuclear weapon on Vega's third tactical group, killing about 3000 Cuban and Libyan soldiers. The invasion force retaliated by bombarding SADF defenders with Sarin gas at Potgietersrus; appalled by the carnage affecting innocent civilians, the ANC — which had previously embraced the Cubans as liberators — broke off its alliance with Vega. Havana then authorized the use of human shields to discourage further South African nuclear strikes.
The civil war in South Africa triggered a global market crisis as it caused the prices of precious metals to spiral upward. Remaining western support for Vorster's regime evaporated shortly after a U.S. journalist, Ian Sherfield, leaked the truth about Broken Covenant to the international press. The United States and United Kingdom subsequently invaded South Africa to depose Vorster and prevent Cuba or the Soviet Union from gaining control over the country's valuable mineral resources. United States Army Rangers launched an airborne assault on the Pelindaba with the intention of capturing all remaining South African nuclear weapons, while other allied forces made amphibious landings in Cape Town and Durban. When Vorster threatened to irradiate the mines on the Witwatersrand with nuclear waste material, U.S., British, and mutinous South African forces attacked the Union Buildings and arrested him before the order could have been given.
The remaining Cuban tactical groups were halted by U.S. air strikes just short of Pretoria; conceding defeat, Vega began withdrawing his troops from the country. During the retreat, he and most of his general staff were killed by a disgruntled MK cadre. Because Vega sold them on an ultimate communist victory in South Africa, a humiliated Soviet Union vowed never to be involved in the continent again. Apartheid was formally abolished in the months after the fall of Vorster's government and a conglomerate of various political parties are brought to the table for establishing a multiracial country, the Federal Republic of South Africa, with Johannesburg as its new capital. Vorster himself was meted life imprisonment for his crimes by the new South African Supreme Court. Johannesburg was chosen as the capital for the new South African democracy as Pretoria had too many negative connections with the Apartheid regime and the civil war.