South African Wars (1983: Doomsday)

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South African War South African Defence Force soldiers remaining loyal to the Apartheid government fighting on the border between the Orange Free State and the Azanian League (c. 1988). Date c. 1985 – c. January 1991 Location Former South Africa Result Stalemate: Dissolution of the Republic of South Africa Establishment of the Azanian League Independence of the Orange Free State Belligerents Until 1985: Republic of South Africa SADF Orange Free State Until 1985: Umkhonto we Sizwe ANC SACP APLA Until 1985: AWB 1985-1989: Orange Free State Boerekant SADF Swaziland 1985-1989: South African Republic SACP Azanian Republic 1985-1989: Azanian People's Republic After 1989: Orange Free State Anglo-Afrikaaner People's Front After 1989: Azanian League Commanders and leaders P.W. Botha Georg Meiring Eugène Terre'Blanche Steyn von Ronge Robert van Tonder Dirk Coetzee Steve Hofmeyr Oliver Tambo Joe Slovo Joe Modise  † Winnie Mandela  † Moses Mabhida Potlako Leballo Strength Estimated between 600,000 and 1,600,000 troops Estimated 2,000,000 men and women Casualties and losses Estimated between 1,000,000 and 3,000,000 dead or wounded on both sides

The South African War, also known as the Great South African War or the Third Boer War, was a military and ethnic conflict fought in what was once the Republic of South Africa in the aftermath of Doomsday. It was the deadliest conflict fought in the region since the Second Boer War, with an estimated 1,400,000 dead or wounded by 1989. It was also one of the many military confrontations that originated as a result of Doomsday.

Although the conflict began in the immediate aftermath of Doomsday, it's root causes date back to the premiership of Hendrik Verwoerd. During his political career, Verwoerd was responsible for legislation that would lead up to Apartheid, the brutal system of segregation that existed within the Republic of South Africa. Once he became Prime Minister, Verwoerd's policies would be applied in full, with an intricate system of laws that would separate the races of South Africa.

Mass strikes and student demonstrations continued into the 1970s, charged by growing black unemployment, the unpopularity of the South African Border War, and a newly assertive Black Consciousness Movement. The brutal suppression of the 1976 Soweto uprising radicalised a generation of black activists and greatly bolstered the strength of the ANC's guerrilla force, Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK). From 1976 to 1987 MK carried out a series of successful bomb attacks targeting government facilities, transportation lines, power stations, and other civil infrastructure. South Africa's military often retaliated by raiding ANC safe houses in neighbouring states.

Immediately following Doomsday, the loss of foreign trade caused the economy to crash. Refugees from Great Britain began to take control of the area surrounding Port Elizabeth. By 1985, several cities fell to anarchy, in spite of martial law being declared. The government focused primarily on providing rations to the White minority, which forced the Black majority into full rebellion.

While South Africa was not affected by Doomsday, the effects of the nuclear war and the resentment towards Apartheid brought the government to its knees and shattered the nation into an ethnic conflict. Remanents of the Apartheid government retained control of the Orange Free State while the African National Congress gained control of the former Transvaal province. Both sides initiated ethnic cleansing, with the Afrikaners in the Azanian League once again confined to concentration camps, while Blacks living in the Orange Free State were confined to brutal labor camps.

By 1987, the Anti-Apartheid factions had no way to communicate with each other and soon began to fight amongst themselves in a semi-civil war. During this time, the army of the Orange Free State lead a military expedition to liberate concentration camps within the Azanian People's Republic and to increase manpower. Eventually they made their way to Piet Reteif where they established a more permanent base of operations. By late 1988, with most of the APRs forces fighting in the north, the Anglo-Afrikaaner People's Front, as they called themselves, had destroyed all the known camps and began securing territory, establishing what they called a Sanctuary for the oppressed whites, named Heiligdom.

By 1989, the war came to a standstill with neither side making any significant gains. Representatives met in Johannesburg to end hostilities, but resentment between the people of former South Africa remained, and many new nations were formed in the ruins. More than a million were killed or wounded during the four years of fighting, and millions more were displaced. Many white refugees, lead by General Constand Viljoen, settled in around the town of Douglas in the Cape province. Meanwhile, the Zulu kingdom was reborn.

Most political scholars agree that it now remains unlikely that South Africa could ever reunite. The closest the nations of former South Africa came to reuniting was the New Union of South Africa and the African Economic Community. Relations between the Orange Free State and the Azanian League, in particular, are non-existent.

Name

The South African War is known by many names within the former South Africa. In New Britain and the Volkstaat, the conflict is known by its generally accepted name, the South African War, but it is sometimes known as the Third Boer War.

In both the Orange Free State and the Azanian League, the conflict has gone down in nationalistic lore. To the Orange Free State, it has been named the Third Freedom War, in reference to the Boer Wars of the Victorian era, which are known by Afrikaners as the Freedom Wars. Similarly, in the Azanian League, the conflict is known as the War of Liberation or the Great Liberation War.

An anti-war group in the Cape nicknamed the war, "the endless struggle". It is a reference to the fact that the war ended in a stalemate, and in the following three decades relations between the Orange Free State and the Azanian League remain cold.

Background

Pre-Doomsday

The rise of the National Party is often considered within former South Africa to be a root cause of the South African War.

South Africa emerged from the Allied victory in the Second World War with its prestige and national honour enhanced as it had fought tirelessly for the Western Allies. South Africa's standing in the international community was rising, at a time when the Third World's struggle against colonialism had still not taken centre stage. In May 1945, Prime Minister Jan Christian Smuts represented South Africa in San Francisco at the drafting of the United Nations Charter. Just as he did in 1919, Smuts urged the delegates to create a powerful international body to preserve peace; he was determined that, unlike the League of Nations, the United Nations would have teeth. Smuts signed the Paris Peace Treaty, resolving the peace in Europe, thus becoming the only signatory of both the treaty ending the First World War, and that ending the Second.

However, internal political struggles in the disgruntled and essentially impoverished Afrikaner community would soon come to the fore leading to Field Marshal Smuts' defeat at the polls in the 1948 elections (in which only whites and coloureds could vote) at the hands of a resurgent National Party after the war. This began the road to South Africa's eventual isolation from a world that would no longer tolerate political race-based discrimination.

Bantustans of South Africa (excluding South-West Africa)

From 1948, successive National Party administrations formalised and extended the existing system of racial discrimination and denial of human rights into the legal system of apartheid. A key act of legislation during this time was the Homeland Citizens Act of 1970. This act augmented the Native Land Act of 1913 through the establishment of so-called "homelands" or "reserves". It authorised the forced evictions of thousands of African people from urban centres in South Africa and South West Africa to what became described colloquially as "Bantustans" or the "original homes", as they were officially referred to, of the black tribes of South Africa. The same legislation applied also to South West Africa over which South Africa had continued after World War I to exercise a disputed League of Nations mandate.

Post-Doomsday

Following Doomsday, the government of South Africa began introducing more laws to keep the population in check, as it anticipated times ahead would be hard. In anticipation of a loss of international trade, more laws were introduced to protect white-owned businesses at the expense of black-owned businesses. After several months demonstrations by Black Nationalist and Anti-Apartheid groups such as the Pan-Africanist Congress of Azania (PACA), the African National Congress (ANC), and the Azanian People's Organization (APO) began to increase, some turning violent. When an armed standoff between government forces and the Azanian People's Liberation Army (APLA), the militant arm of the PACA, resulted in the deaths of 32 people, the governing National Party stepped up efforts to keep the groups down, holding suspected members without trial.

Nelson Mandela before his imprisonment

In early 1985 it was clear that efforts to protect economic interests had failed. The stock market crashed and millions lost their jobs. Food and fuel prices, which had already skyrocketed post-Doomsday now reached levels that were unaffordable to most lower-class people. The Botha regime allocated these resources to only the white minority, leading to increased unrest and minor riots across the country. Recruitment of the poor blacks into the militant wings of the various groups increased. On 17 August 1985, forces of the Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), the militant wing of the ANC raided Pollsmoor Prison in Cape Town, rescuing MK leader Nelson Mandela. He traveled to Pretoria where he was then killed during a bombing raid on a poor neighborhood that was suspected of being an MK safehouse.

Phase One: Fall of the Republic

Fall of Pretoria

News of Mandela's death spread quickly throughout the country. As General Constand Viljoen stated in an interview following his retirement, the death of Mandela was the "straw that broke the camel's back, Blacks saw him as the man who could deliver them out of the oppressive Apartheid system. With Mandela gone, they lost their last hope."

Intense Riots broke out throughout Pretoria and Johannesburg, as well as smaller riots across the country. Government forces cracked down on rioters but were soon overwhelmed in parts of both cities. With most of the Black populace in an uproar and government officials being protected by soldiers of the South African Defense Force, many of the rioters took to attacking white civilians. Families were kidnapped from their homes and murdered on the streets.

A South African police officer in Pretoria.

With defense force troops being pushed harder and harder and losing ground to the sheer numbers, Constand Viljoen, commander of the Defence Force ordered his troops to protect white civilians and get them to safety. Three Days after the riots began nearly two/thirds of the white population of Pretoria and Johannesburg had been evacuated, but the situation had degenerated, with the various militant organizations recruiting from the rioters and being armed with stolen weapons so the troops had to pull out of the city, leaving the remaining white population to the mercy of the rioters.

Members of the MK, along with members of the Azanian National Liberation Army (AZANLA), the militant arm of the APO swarmed the Union Buildings killing whatever leadership hadn't been evacuated. Shortly after, fighting broke out again amongst the militant groups, with the MK forcing the AZANLA forces from the Union Buildings and establishing a headquarters there.

At that point, General Viljoen believed that it was impossible to retake the cities. At a safe and secret location in a rural region of the Transvaal province, the General met with State President Pieter Willem Botha. Botha insisted that the South African military destroy the cities with the country's nuclear arsenal, a decision that Viljoen found to be mad and disgusting.

Viljoen resisted that idea of sending his men into further slaughter, and unbeknownst to Botha, the General ordered his men to withdraw. Since the death of Nelson Mandela, Viljoen became disillusioned with both the Republic and the system of Apartheid. Viljoen reasoned that the oppressive system caused the bloody rebellion, and by maintaining it, it lead to the destruction of the country.

Enraged, Botha threatened to remove Viljoen from his post and replace him with a more loyal commander. Viljoen then spat that Botha and his cabinet were the true traitors. Considering himself to be the highest-ranking official in what remained of the South African government, General Viljoen ordered the arrest and execution of President Botha and his cabinet.

A few days later, General Viljoen met with General Johannes Geldenhuys to discuss preparations for evacuating the immediate area surrounding Pretoria and Johannesburg. Viljoen officially declared the cities to be lost, and gather the white refugees from both cities together into one group. It was estimated to be around one million. In a short but passionate speech, Viljoen expressed his desire to see the Afrikaner people survive, but like their ancestors, they must partake in a Great Trek.

Rise of the AWB

AWB leader Eugene Terre'Blanche at a rally in Bloemfontein.

Botha and his men were arrested upon General Viljoen's orders. They were sent to a farm commandeered by the Defence Force. Before his scheduled execution, members of the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging, a Neo-Nazi Afrikaner nationalist organisation, raided the farm and rescued the former State President.