South Africa

Republic of, a country in S Africa; member of the Commonwealth of Nations until 1961. 42,327,458; 472,000 sq. mi. (1,222,480 sq. km). Capitals: Pretoria and Cape Town. Formerly, Union of South Africa.

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South Africa

Introduction South Africa -
Background: After the British seized the Cape of Good Hope area in 1806, many of the Dutch settlers (the Boers) trekked north to found their own republics. The discovery of diamonds (1867) and gold (1886) spurred wealth and immigration and intensified the subjugation of the native inhabitants. The Boers resisted British encroachments, but were defeated in the Boer War (1899- 1902). The resulting Union of South Africa operated under a policy of apartheid - the separate development of the races. The 1990s brought an end to apartheid politically and ushered in black majority rule. Geography South Africa
Location: Southern Africa, at the southern tip of the continent of Africa
Geographic coordinates: 29 00 S, 24 00 E
Map references: Africa
Area: total: 1,219,912 sq km land: 1,219,912 sq km note: includes Prince Edward Islands (Marion Island and Prince Edward Island) water: 0 sq km
Area - comparative: slightly less than twice the size of Texas
Land boundaries: total: 4,862 km border countries: Botswana 1,840 km, Lesotho 909 km, Mozambique 491 km, Namibia 967 km, Swaziland 430 km, Zimbabwe 225 km
Coastline: 2,798 km
Maritime claims: contiguous zone: 24 NM territorial sea: 12 NM continental shelf: 200 NM or to edge of the continental margin exclusive economic zone: 200 NM
Climate: mostly semiarid; subtropical along east coast; sunny days, cool nights
Terrain: vast interior plateau rimmed by rugged hills and narrow coastal plain
Elevation extremes: lowest point: Atlantic Ocean 0 m highest point: Njesuthi 3,408 m
Natural resources: gold, chromium, antimony, coal, iron ore, manganese, nickel, phosphates, tin, uranium, gem diamonds, platinum, copper, vanadium, salt, natural gas
Land use: arable land: 12.13% permanent crops: 0.77% other: 87.1% (1998 est.)
Irrigated land: 13,500 sq km (1998 est.)
Natural hazards: prolonged droughts Environment - current issues: lack of important arterial rivers or lakes requires extensive water conservation and control measures; growth in water usage outpacing supply; pollution of rivers from agricultural runoff and urban discharge; air pollution resulting in acid rain; soil erosion; desertification Environment - international party to: Antarctic-Environmental
agreements: Protocol, Antarctic-Marine Living Resources, Antarctic Seals, Antarctic Treaty, Biodiversity, Climate Change, Desertification, Endangered Species, Hazardous Wastes, Law of the Sea, Marine Dumping, Marine Life Conservation, Nuclear Test Ban, Ozone Layer Protection, Ship Pollution, Wetlands, Whaling signed, but not ratified: none of the selected agreements
Geography - note: South Africa completely surrounds Lesotho and almost completely surrounds Swaziland People South Africa -
Population: 43,647,658 note: South Africa took a census October 1996 that showed a population of 40,583,611 (after an official adjustment for a 6.8% underenumeration based on a postenumeration survey); estimates for this country explicitly take into account the effects of excess mortality due to AIDS; this can result in lower life expectancy, higher infant mortality and death rates, lower population and growth rates, and changes in the distribution of population by age and sex than would otherwise be expected (July 2002 est.)
Age structure: 0-14 years: 31.6% (male 6,943,761; female 6,849,745) 15-64 years: 63.4% (male 13,377,011; female 14,300,850) 65 years and over: 5% (male 816,222; female 1,360,069) (2002 est.)
Population growth rate: 0.02% (2002 est.)
Birth rate: 20.63 births/1,000 population (2002 est.)
Death rate: 18.86 deaths/1,000 population (2002 est.)
Net migration rate: -1.56 migrant(s)/1,000 population (2002 est.)
Sex ratio: at birth: 1.02 male(s)/female under 15 years: 1.01 male(s)/female 15-64 years: 0.94 male(s)/female 65 years and over: 0.6 male(s)/ female total population: 0.94 male(s)/ female (2002 est.)
Infant mortality rate: 61.78 deaths/1,000 live births (2002 est.) Life expectancy at birth: total population: 45.43 years female: 45.68 years (2002 est.) male: 45.19 years
Total fertility rate: 2.38 children born/woman (2002 est.) HIV/AIDS - adult prevalence rate: 19.94% (2000 est.) HIV/AIDS - people living with HIV/ 5.2 million (2000 est.)
AIDS:
HIV/AIDS - deaths: 300,000 (2000 est.)
Nationality: noun: South African(s) adjective: South African
Ethnic groups: black 75.2%, white 13.6%, Colored 8.6%, Indian 2.6%
Religions: Christian 68% (includes most whites and Coloreds, about 60% of blacks and about 40% of Indians), Muslim 2%, Hindu 1.5% (60% of Indians), indigenous beliefs and animist 28.5%
Languages: 11 official languages, including Afrikaans, English, Ndebele, Pedi, Sotho, Swazi, Tsonga, Tswana, Venda, Xhosa, Zulu
Literacy: definition: age 15 and over can read and write total population: 85% male: 86% female: 85% (2000 est.) Government South Africa -
Country name: conventional long form: Republic of South Africa conventional short form: South Africa former: Union of South Africa abbreviation: RSA
Government type: republic
Capital: Pretoria; note - Cape Town is the legislative center and Bloemfontein the judicial center Administrative divisions: 9 provinces; Eastern Cape, Free State, Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal, Mpumalanga, North-West, Northern Cape, Northern Province (may have become Limpopo), Western Cape
Independence: 31 May 1910 (from UK)
National holiday: Freedom Day, 27 April (1994)
Constitution: 10 December 1996; this new constitution was certified by the Constitutional Court on 4 December 1996, was signed by then President MANDELA on 10 December 1996, and entered into effect on 3 February 1997; it is being implemented in phases
Legal system: based on Roman-Dutch law and English common law; accepts compulsory ICJ jurisdiction, with reservations
Suffrage: 18 years of age; universal
Executive branch: chief of state: President Thabo MBEKI (since 16 June 1999); Executive Deputy President Jacob ZUMA (since 17 June 1999); note - the president is both the chief of state and head of government elections: president elected by the National Assembly for a five-year term; election last held 2 June 1999 (next scheduled for sometime between May and July 2004) head of government: President Thabo MBEKI (since 16 June 1999); Executive Deputy President Jacob ZUMA (since 17 June 1999); note - the president is both the chief of state and head of government cabinet: Cabinet appointed by the president election results: Thabo MBEKI elected president; percent of National Assembly vote - 100% (by acclamation) note: ANC-IFP is the governing coalition
Legislative branch: bicameral Parliament consisting of the National Assembly (400 seats; members are elected by popular vote under a system of proportional representation to serve five-year terms) and the National Council of Provinces (90 seats, 10 members elected by each of the nine provincial legislatures for five- year terms; has special powers to protect regional interests, including the safeguarding of cultural and linguistic traditions among ethnic minorities); note - following the implementation of the new constitution on 3 February 1997 the former Senate was disbanded and replaced by the National Council of Provinces with essentially no change in membership and party affiliations, although the new institution's responsibilities have been changed somewhat by the new constitution elections: National Assembly and National Council of Provinces - last held 2 June 1999 (next to be held by 2 August 2004) election results: National Assembly - percent of vote by party - ANC 66.4%, DP 9.6%, IFP 8.6%, NP 6.9%, UDM 3.4%, ACDP 1.4%, FF 0.8%, other 2.9%; seats by party - ANC 266, DP 38, IFP 34, NP 28, UDM 14, ACDP 6, FF 3, other 11; National Council of Provinces - percent of vote by party - NA%; seats by party - ANC 61, NP 17, FF 4, IFP 5, DP 3
Judicial branch: Constitutional Court; Supreme Court of Appeals; High Courts; Magistrate Courts Political parties and leaders: African Christian Democratic Party or ACDP [Kenneth MESHOE, president]; African National Congress or ANC [Thabo MBEKI, president]; Democratic Alliance (formed from the merger of the Democratic Party or DP and the New National Party or NP; note - NP split from DP in 2001) [Anthony LEON]; Freedom Front or FF [Dr. Pieter MULDER, president]; Inkatha Freedom Party or IFP [Mangosuthu BUTHELEZI, president]; New National Party or NP [Marthinus VAN SCHALKWYK]; Pan-Africanist Congress or PAC [Stanley MOGOBA, president]; United Democratic Movement or UDM [Bantu HOLOMISA] Political pressure groups and Congress of South African Trade
leaders: Unions or COSATU [Zwelinzima VAVI, general secretary]; South African Communist Party or SACP [Blade NZIMANDE, general secretary]; South African National Civics Organization or SANCO [Mlungisi HLONGWANE, national president]; note - COSATU and SACP are in a formal alliance with the ANC International organization ACP, AfDB, BIS, C, CCC, ECA, FAO, G-
participation: 24, G-77, IAEA, IBRD, ICAO, ICC, ICFTU, ICRM, IDA, IFAD, IFC, IFRCS, IHO, ILO, IMF, IMO, Interpol, IOC, IOM, ISO, ITU, MONUC, NAM, NSG, OAU, OPCW, PCA, SACU, SADC, UN, UNCTAD, UNESCO, UNHCR, UNIDO, UNITAR, UNMEE, UPU, WCL, WFTU, WHO, WIPO, WMO, WToO, WTrO, ZC Diplomatic representation in the US: chief of mission: Ambassador Makate Sheila SISULU consulate(s) general: Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York FAX: [1] [phone] telephone: [1] [phone] chancery: 3051 Massachusetts Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20008 Diplomatic representation from the chief of mission: Ambassador Cameron
US: H. HUME embassy: 877 Pretorius Street, Pretoria mailing address: P. O. Box 9536, Pretoria 0001 telephone: [27] (12) 342-1048 FAX: [27] (12) 342-2244 consulate(s) general: Cape Town, Durban, Johannesburg
Flag description: two equal width horizontal bands of red (top) and blue separated by a central green band which splits into a horizontal Y, the arms of which end at the corners of the hoist side; the Y embraces a black isosceles triangle from which the arms are separated by narrow yellow bands; the red and blue bands are separated from the green band and its arms by narrow white stripes note: prior to 26 April 1994, the flag was actually four flags in one - three miniature flags reproduced in the center of the white band of the former flag of the Netherlands, which had three equal horizontal bands of orange (top), white, and blue; the miniature flags were a vertically hanging flag of the old Orange Free State with a horizontal flag of the UK adjoining on the hoist side and a horizontal flag of the old Transvaal Republic adjoining on the other side Economy South Africa
Economy - overview: South Africa is a middle-income, developing country with an abundant supply of resources, well-developed financial, legal, communications, energy, and transport sectors, a stock exchange that ranks among the 10 largest in the world, and a modern infrastructure supporting an efficient distribution of goods to major urban centers throughout the region. However, growth has not been strong enough to cut into high unemployment, and daunting economic problems remain from the apartheid era, especially the problems of poverty and lack of economic empowerment among the disadvantaged groups. Other problems are crime, corruption, and HIV/AIDS. At the start of 2000, President MBEKI vowed to promote economic growth and foreign investment, and to reduce poverty by relaxing restrictive labor laws, stepping up the pace of privatization, and cutting unneeded governmental spending. The economy slowed in 2001, largely the result of the slowing of the international economy.
GDP: purchasing power parity - $412 billion (2001 est.)
GDP - real growth rate: 2.6% (2001 est.)
GDP - per capita: purchasing power parity - $9,400 (2001 est.) GDP - composition by sector: agriculture: 3% industry: 31% services: 66% (2000 est.) Population below poverty line: 50% (2000 est.) Household income or consumption by lowest 10%: 1.1%
percentage share: highest 10%: 45.9% (1994) Distribution of family income - Gini 59.3 (1993-94)
index: Inflation rate (consumer prices): 5.8% (2001 est.)
Labor force: 17 million economically active (2000) Labor force - by occupation: agriculture 30%, industry 25%, services 45% (1999 est.)
Unemployment rate: 37% (2001 est.)
Budget: revenues: $22.6 billion expenditures: $24.7 billion, including capital expenditures of $NA billion (FY02/03)
Industries: mining (world's largest producer of platinum, gold, chromium), automobile assembly, metalworking, machinery, textile, iron and steel, chemicals, fertilizer, foodstuffs Industrial production growth rate: 7% (2001 est.) Electricity - production: 194.383 billion kWh (2000) Electricity - production by source: fossil fuel: 92.62% hydro: 0.69% other: 0% (2000) nuclear: 6.69% Electricity - consumption: 181.521 billion kWh (2000)
Electricity - exports: 4.549 billion kWh (2000)
Electricity - imports: 5.294 billion kWh (2000)
Agriculture - products: corn, wheat, sugarcane, fruits, vegetables; beef, poultry, mutton, wool, dairy products
Exports: $32.3 billion (f.o.b., 2001 est.)
Exports - commodities: gold, diamonds, platinum, other metals and minerals, machinery and equipment
Exports - partners: EU 33%, US 20%, Japan 6%, Mozambique 2.5% (2001 est.)
Imports: $28.1 billion (f.o.b., 2001 est.)
Imports - commodities: machinery, foodstuffs and equipment, chemicals, petroleum products, scientific instruments
Imports - partners: EU 41%, US 11.4%, Saudi Arabia 7.3%, Japan 7% (2001 est.)
Debt - external: $25.5 billion (2001 est.) Economic aid - recipient: $539 million (1999)
Currency: rand (ZAR)
Currency code: ZAR
Exchange rates: rand per US dollar - 11.58786 (January 2002), 8.60918 (2001), 6.93983 (2000), 6.10948 (1999), 5.52828 (1998), 4.60796 (1997)
Fiscal year: 1 April - 31 March Communications South Africa - Telephones - main lines in use: more than 5 million (2001) Telephones - mobile cellular: 7.06 million (2001)
Telephone system: general assessment: the system is the best developed and most modern in Africa domestic: consists of carrier- equipped open-wire lines, coaxial cables, microwave radio relay links, fiber-optic cable, radiotelephone communication stations, and wireless local loops; key centers are Bloemfontein, Cape Town, Durban, Johannesburg, Port Elizabeth, and Pretoria international: 2 submarine cables; satellite earth stations - 3 Intelsat (1 Indian Ocean and 2 Atlantic Ocean) Radio broadcast stations: AM 14, FM 347 (plus 243 repeaters), shortwave 1 (1998)
Radios: 17 million (2001) Television broadcast stations: 556 (plus 144 network repeaters) (1997)
Televisions: 6 million (2000)
Internet country code: .za Internet Service Providers (ISPs): 150 (2001)
Internet users: 2.4 million (2001) Transportation South Africa -
Railways: total: 20,384 km narrow gauge: 20,070 km 1.067- m gauge (9,090 km electrified); 314 km 0.610-m gauge note: in addition, South Africa has an electrified 1.065-m gauge commuter rail system, with a total length of 1,254 km, which serves Johannesburg-Pretoria, Cape Town, Durban, East London, and Port Elizabeth (2001)
Highways: total: 358,596 km paved: 59,753 km (including 1,927 km of expressways) unpaved: 298,843 km (1996)
Waterways: NA
Pipelines: crude oil 931 km; petroleum products 1,748 km; natural gas 322 km
Ports and harbors: Cape Town, Durban, East London, Mossel Bay, Port Elizabeth, Richards Bay, Saldanha
Merchant marine: total: 8 ships (1,000 GRT or over) totaling 271,650 GRT/268,604 DWT note: includes some foreign-owned ships registered here as a flag of convenience: Denmark 3, Netherlands 1 (2002 est.) ships by type: container 6, petroleum tanker 2
Airports: 740 (2001) Airports - with paved runways: total: 144 over 3,047 m: 9 2,438 to 3,047 m: 5 1,524 to 2,437 m: 47 914 to 1,523 m: 72 under 914 m: 11 (2001) Airports - with unpaved runways: total: 596 1,524 to 2,437 m: 34 914 to 1,523 m: 304 under 914 m: 258 (2001) Military South Africa -
Military branches: South African National Defense Force (including Army, Navy, Air Force, and Medical Services), South African Police Service Military manpower - military age: 18 years of age (2002 est.) Military manpower - availability: males age 15-49: 11,557,242 (2002 est.) Military manpower - fit for military males age 15-49: 7,031,337 (2002
service: est.) Military manpower - reaching males: 466,399 (2002 est.)
military age annually: Military expenditures - dollar $1.79 billion (FY01)
figure: Military expenditures - percent of 1.6% (FY01)
GDP:
Military - note: the National Defense Force continues to integrate former military, black homelands forces, and ex-opposition forces Transnational Issues South Africa - Disputes - international: Swaziland continues to press South Africa into ceding ethnic Swazi lands in Kangwane region of KwaZulu- Natal province, that were long ago part of the Swazi Kingdom
Illicit drugs: transshipment center for heroin, hashish, marijuana, and possibly cocaine; cocaine consumption on the rise; world's largest market for illicit methaqualone, usually imported illegally from India through various east African countries; illicit cultivation of marijuana

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▪ 2009

Introduction

Area:

1,220,813 sq km (471,359 sq mi)

Population

(2008 est.): 48,783,000

Capitals (de facto):

Pretoria (executive); Bloemfontein (judicial); Cape Town (legislative)

Head of state and government:

Presidents Thabo Mbeki, Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri (acting) on September 25, and, from September 25, Kgalema Motlanthe

Domestic Affairs.

      South Africa struggled with “two centres of power” in the country in 2008, following the election of Jacob Zuma (Zuma, Jacob ) as president of the African National Congress (ANC) to replace South African Pres. Thabo Mbeki at the ANC's Polokwane conference in 2007. The situation was brought to a dramatic end in September 2008, however, when President Mbeki was forced by a decision of the ANC national executive committee (NEC) to resign.

      In July Kgalema Motlanthe, the deputy president of the ANC, was appointed to the cabinet. The move was widely seen as preparing for the transition in 2009 from an Mbeki to a Zuma presidency and establishing a new candidate for president should Zuma be unable to assume the position because of his legal difficulties.

      In September the Natal High Court, while not pronouncing on the merits of the case against Zuma on charges of corruption and fraud, decided that the prosecution had acted unconstitutionally in not consulting Zuma before recharging him and also significantly upheld Zuma's claims that there had been political interference from the presidency in the prosecuting process. Zuma supporters took this as a mandate for the closure of the corruption case against Zuma and were incensed when the national prosecuting authority declared its intention to appeal. Hence the NEC decision. Mbeki stepped down from the presidency, and on September 25, Motlanthe was elected by Parliament to act as head of a caretaker government until the elections, scheduled for 2009.

      A majority of Zuma supporters had been elected in January to the 28-member national working committee of the ANC. In July the premiers of the Western and Eastern Cape, Mbeki supporters, were replaced by Zuma supporters. Several members of Mbeki's cabinet resigned with him in September and were not reappointed by Motlanthe. Mbeki also appealed the decision of the Natal High Court, on the grounds that it had been made without giving him an opportunity to state his case. Former defense minister Mosiuoa (“Terror”) Lekota and former Gauteng province premier Mbhazima Shilowa formed a breakaway party from the ANC, the Congress of the People, in November. Lekota was elected party leader in December.

      Prior to consideration of Zuma's case by the Natal court, the atmosphere around it had become highly charged, with attacks by Zuma supporters on the judiciary and the ANC Youth League president declaring that “we are prepared to kill for Zuma.” Post-Polokwane ANC policy decisions generally reflected the views of the Zuma camp, including that the Tripartite alliance (which included the Congress of South African Trade Unions [COSATU]) and the South African Communist Party (SACP) rather than the ANC should be the “strategic centre” of decision making and emphasizing a more interventionist state. It remained unclear, however, whether SACP-COSATU economic policies—such as abandoning inflation targeting, allowing Parliament to amend money bills, abandoning budget surpluses, removing the value-added tax (VAT) on basic foods, limiting the role of the treasury to financial management rather than broader planning, and imposing a moratorium on privatization and outsourcing—would prevail.

      In January the country was afflicted with severe power outages, which forced the cessation of underground work at all mines for five days. The country's main power supplier, Eskom, which had run out of reserve capacity because government policies in the 1990s had prevented construction of new power stations, continued its planned “load shedding” (cutting demand by shutting off power). The government called for a 10% national cutback in the use of electricity, and there was talk of rationing its use, but in early May Eskom suddenly abandoned load shedding. In March Eskom demanded an increase of 53% in tariffs, but in June the regulating authority granted it only 13.3%.

      In his state of the nation speech in February, Mbeki apologized for the power outages and promised to focus on building the country's infrastructure. He also set a target of providing digital broadcasting for half the population by the end of the year and pledged to make improvements in poverty eradication. Though Mbeki used the phrase “business unusual,” opposition parties said that the thrust of the speech was business as usual.

      Disputes between supporters of Zuma and those of Mbeki affected the key institutions of the new South African democracy: the police force, the National Prosecuting Authority, the South African Broadcasting Corp., and the judiciary. Early in January the commissioner of police, Jackie Selebi, was arrested on corruption charges. He unsuccessfully attempted to preempt this by asking the court to set aside the warrant. Selebi, who was granted an extended leave of absence, also resigned as head of Interpol. This action produced renewed questioning of the removal by Mbeki in 2007 of National Prosecuting Authority head Vusi Pikoli, who claimed that he was dismissed to prevent the arrest of Selebi. During the year Frene Ginwala, former speaker of the House, conducted an investigation into whether Pikoli was fit to hold office. The state accused him of having obtained plea bargains from criminals, which constituted a threat to national security, and of having suffered a breakdown of relations with the justice minister.

      In October the Scorpions, a specialized crime-busting unit attached to the National Prosecuting Authority, was dissolved. The ANC claimed that the unit was largely staffed by former apartheid security police. The Scorpions, which were merged into the police force, had come under criticism for the handling of corruption investigations of Zuma and Selebi.

      In May a spree of violence broke out in Johannesburg and other South African cities, where immigrants (mainly from Zimbabwe) were beaten, stabbed, shot, or burned alive by mobs. The ANC was deeply embarrassed by the outbreak, especially since many apartheid victims had sought shelter in neighbouring countries during that period of South Africa's history.

      Meanwhile, Nelson Mandela, who ushered in democracy in South Africa, celebrated his 90th birthday on July 18. A rock concert in celebration was held in London on June 27, together with numerous other events.

Economy.

      South Africa's GDP growth in the second quarter of 2008 was 4.9%. This was a huge improvement over the first quarter's 2.1%, which resulted from Eskom's load shedding, but it represented a decline from 2007 (5.1%). In the third quarter growth fell to 0.2%. Manufacturing fell by 0.1%, while the unemployment rate remained steady at about 23% through September. In October Finance Minister Trevor Manuel predicted that South Africa's GDP growth, which had averaged 5% annually since 2003, would drop to only 3.7% in 2008 and closer to 3% in 2009.

      The midyear spike in world oil prices drove up the price of gasoline by 42.7% in the 12 months to July. This—combined with the hike in food prices (17% in the 12 months to May) and electricity (27.5% January to July)—pushed inflation to 10.1% in March, 11.6% in June, and 13.6% in August. The national current account deficit surged to 8.9% in the first quarter before retreating to 7.3% in the second. In November Motlanthe headed the South African delegation that attended the emergency Group of 20 summit in Washington, D.C., to discuss the global financial crisis that began in September.

Foreign Relations.

      President Mbeki attempted to mediate between Zimbabwean Pres. Robert Mugabe and the opposition in the establishment of a national government. Mbeki came under attack at home and abroad, however, for his apparent bias toward Mugabe. In April South African dockworkers refused to unload arms bound for Zimbabwe from a Chinese ship.

Martin Legassick

▪ 2008

Introduction

Area:

1,219,912 sq km (471,011 sq mi)

Population

(2007 est.): 47,851,000

Capitals (de facto):

Pretoria (executive); Bloemfontein (judicial); Cape Town (legislative)

Head of state and government:

President Thabo Mbeki

 The succession crisis in the African National Congress (ANC), which loomed large during 2007 in South Africa, was resolved in December when ANC Deputy Pres. Jacob Zuma was overwhelmingly elected ANC president; he won 2,329 votes, compared with 1,505 for outgoing president Thabo Mbeki. Zuma's slate for the next five senior positions in the ANC also triumphed over Mbeki's ticket. On December 28, however, Zuma was recharged with fraud and corruption, and new charges of money laundering, racketeering, and tax evasion were also added. These developments put into question his succession to the presidency of the country in the 2009 elections.

      The succession crisis sparked a number of related developments. The year was punctuated by a series of court skirmishes between the National Prosecuting Authority and Zuma's lawyers involving documents required for the successful refiling of charges against Zuma for fraud and corruption. Former National Intelligence Agency director general Billie Masetlha—fired by President Mbeki in 2006 for having allegedly masterminded a series of hoax e-mails implicating senior ANC politicians in a plot to undermine Zuma—lost an attempt in court to prove his dismissal was unlawful and unfair; he appealed the ruling. Masetlha was also on trial for having refused to answer questions put to him by the inspector general of intelligence.

      In September President Mbeki dismissed Vusi Pikoli, head of the National Prosecuting Authority, and set up a commission to determine his fitness for public office. There was widespread speculation that Pikoli had, without Mbeki's knowledge, secured a warrant for the arrest of Police Commissioner Jackie Selebi and that this was the motive behind Pikoli's firing, not the breakdown of Pikoli's working relationship with his superior, the minister of justice. Earlier in the year, the press had exposed links between Selebi and Glenn Agliotti, who was on trial for drug smuggling and had been charged with the 2005 murder of controversial financier Brett Kebble. Agliotti claimed that the death of Kebble was an “assisted suicide.”

      Tensions in the tripartite alliance of the ANC, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), and the South African Communist Party (SACP) intensified, with several heated exchanges between President Mbeki and Zwelinzima Vavi (general secretary of COSATU) and between Mbeki and the leadership of the SACP. COSATU issued an unprecedented endorsement of a slate of leaders for the ANC's December conference; the list included Zuma and excluded Mbeki. In another development, pro-Zuma SACP General Secretary Blade Nzimande was accused by the pro-Mbeki COSATU Pres. Willie Madisha of having received a donation (not properly accounted for) of 500,000 rand (about $70,000). Nzimande denied the charge.

      In President Mbeki's state of the nation address in February, he chronicled a string of his administration's successes, but he admitted that his government could do better in terms of job creation, crime fighting, black economic empowerment, and the provision of housing. Crimes against women and children, in particular, remained “at an unacceptable level.” Mbeki spoke of the need for a determined drive to increase the country's capacity to produce capital goods. An announcement was made that beginning in 2010 a new mandatory earnings-related national social security system would be instituted.

      Controversial Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang had a liver transplant early in the year, and soon after her return to the job, a furor erupted over Mbeki's dismissal in August of Deputy Health Minister Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge. Critics argued that her dismissal had more to do with her differences with Mbeki and Tshabalala-Msimang on AIDS policy than with her inability to work as a “team player.” That same month The Sunday Times (London) newspaper accused Tshabalala-Msimang of having been convicted of theft in Botswana in the 1970s and of having an addiction to alcohol. There were calls for her resignation, but she was defended by the president and the cabinet.

      In May, Cape Town Mayor Helen Zille replaced Tony Leon as leader of the main opposition party, the Democratic Alliance. In January Zille's coalition government in Cape Town had been in danger of collapsing when one of its members threatened to defect, but Patricia de Lille's Independent Democrats joined the coalition and stabilized it. In September Zille was arrested while leading an antidrug protest march in Cape Town.

      In August former apartheid law and order minister Adrian Vlok and former police chief Johann van der Merwe were sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment (the sentence was suspended for five years in a plea-bargain agreement) for the attempted murder in 1989 of then leading antiapartheid activist Frank Chikane, presently the director-general of the Presidency.

      A one-month public-service strike in June involving up to one million workers and 17 unions was settled with a 7.5% pay increase. That strike and numerous others by midyear had accounted for more than 11 million lost working days, the highest ever recorded.

Economy.

      Economic growth in 2006 was recorded at 5%, the fastest in more than 20 years. In the first quarter of 2007, growth was 4.7%, but it slowed to 4.5% in the second quarter. A series of interest-rate increases by the Reserve Bank (SARB) had raised rates by 4% since June 2006. Inflation remained below the 6% target set by the SARB until April 2007, but by September it had reached 6.7%. Growth boosted the current-account deficit in 2006 to 6.4% of GDP; the deficit for 2007 was estimated at 7.1%.

      In the 2006–07 financial year, there was an unprecedented budget surplus of 5 billion rand (about $700 million). Social services constituted 56% of spending for the 2007–08 budget, with the housing budget projected to increase from 4.6 billion rand (about $650 million) in 2003–04 to 12.5 billion rand (about $1.8 billion) by 2009–10. Funding was announced for crime prevention and for the provision of more educators and health workers. At the same time, tax cuts of 12.4 billion rand (about $1.8 billion) were announced. Total spending for the year was projected at 534 billion rand (about $77 billion), and a surplus of 0.6% of GDP was forecast for the 2007–08 financial year.

Foreign Affairs.

      South Africa gave assistance to flood victims in Mozambique in February. As chair of the UN Security Council during the year, the South African government was criticized for refusing to allow the council to debate issues pertaining to Zimbabwe and Myanmar (Burma). South Africa continued to assist in peace efforts in Côte d'Ivoire and The Sudan and to aide in the consolidation of democracy in the Comoros.

Martin Legassick

▪ 2007

Introduction

Area:

1,219,912 sq km (471,011 sq mi)

Population

(2006 est.): 47,391,000

Capitals (de facto):

Pretoria (executive); Bloemfontein (judicial); Cape Town (legislative)

Head of state and government:

President Thabo Mbeki

Domestic Affairs.

      Pres. Thabo Mbeki in his state of the nation address in February 2006 said that South Africa had entered its “age of hope” as a result of a long period of uninterrupted economic growth and despite the increase in unemployment. During the year, the government put some flesh on ASGI—the accelerated and shared growth initiative, a series of measures focused on improving the national skills base to tackle boosting public infrastructural investment and thereby accelerate economic growth and create jobs. Mbeki also announced the government's intention of revoking the existing willing-buyer willing-seller policy to speed land redistribution from whites to blacks.

 It was the succession crisis in the African National Congress (ANC) and for the presidency of the country precipitated by former deputy president Jacob Zuma that again dominated the headlines, however. In March Zuma faced trial on a rape charge. He was acquitted in May, having pleaded that he had had consensual sex with the woman. His admissions to the court that he had had sex with an HIV-positive woman without using a condom and that he had subsequently taken a shower as a preventive measure against HIV/AIDS were heavily criticized by opinion formers. This did not, however, deter his many vociferous supporters, who included leaders of the South African Communist Party (SACP), Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), and the ANC Youth League, who regarded the charges against him as politically motivated in a bid to deny his right to succeed President Mbeki. Zuma was reinstated as deputy president of the ANC, and he apologized for not acting with greater “caution and responsibility.”

      In September a Durban court struck from the roll the corruption case against Zuma, according to which he was alleged to have accepted a bribe from Thint, a French arms company, to protect it from an investigation into the government's arms deal with it. The court said that the case presented by the state was not adequate, but the prosecuting authority stated that Zuma would be charged again later. In the same month, addressing trade union conferences, Zuma criticized some spheres of government policy, including privatization and workforce “casualization” (the use of casual labour), and echoed criticisms of Mbeki by COSATU and the SACP as having overcentralized power and suppressed political debate.

      President Mbeki dismissed Billy Masetlha, director general of the National Intelligence Agency, in March because of an “irreparable breakdown of trust” between them. Masetlha was alleged to have been behind the manufacture in 2005 of hoax e-mails implicating senior ANC leaders in conspiring against Zuma as a part of a dirty-tricks campaign. Masetlha served court papers on Mbeki, challenging his dismissal.

      The government's AIDS policy was criticized at the World Aids Conference in Toronto, where Stephen Lewis, special UN envoy for AIDS in Africa, said that South Africa propounded “theories more worthy of a lunatic fringe than of a concerned and compassionate state.” Thereafter there were calls from medical circles and AIDS activists for the resignation of Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang.

      Both COSATU and the SACP issued discussion papers on future policy, which included the option of breaking their tripartite alliance with the ANC, with the SACP standing independently in elections. As a result, President Mbeki attacked the general secretary of the SACP for his “arrogance.” A one-day national general strike was called by COSATU on May 18 to protest job losses and poverty. Industrial strike days lost were the highest in 10 years.

      Local elections were held on March 1, and the ANC retained its control of most municipalities. After lengthy negotiations the Democratic Alliance won the mayorship of Cape Town away from the ANC, having won the most votes (41.85% to the ANC's 37.91%), and cobbled together a coalition with minor parties, much to the chagrin of the ANC and of Patricia de Lille's Independent Democrats, who believed that with 10.75% of the vote they held the balance of power.

The Economy.

      At 5.1%, growth in 2005 was the fastest in 21 years; in the first quarter of 2006 the rate was 5%, in the second quarter it was 5.5%, and in the third quarter it slowed to 4.7%. This was based on higher commodity prices and consumer spending encouraged by low interest rates. Manufacturing benefited from the weakening of the rand against the dollar. The rand, having risen by 94% over 2002 by the beginning of March 2006, fell by 33% between May and October though it rose again thereafter. The unemployment rate remained high, at 25.6% (or 39% including discouraged workers), but was down from 26.7% in September 2005 and at a six-year low. Some 544,000 jobs were created between September 2005 and March 2006.

      There was an alarming increase in the deficit on the current account of the balance of payments to 6.1% of GDP for the first half of 2006, the worst figure in 22 years. The statistic had already increased to 4.2% of GDP in 2005 from 3.4% in 2004; it resulted from a surge of imports due mainly to the rising oil price and the import-intensive spending habits of South African consumers.

       Inflation, which had averaged 4.1% between April 2005 and March 2006, had risen to 4.9% by July. The repo rate was increased by the reserve bank four times between June and December, reaching 9%. Growth was expected to slow as interest rates rose. The budget deficit for 2005–06 was a mere 0.5%, thanks to a 41 billion rand (about $5.5 billion) revenue overrun. The 2006–07 budget projected an increase in government capital spending, limited tax cuts mainly for the well-off, and an increase of 9% in social spending on the poor. The deficit was expected to be 1.5%.

Foreign Relations.

      South African troops remained on peacekeeping missions in Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the government continued to facilitate the peace process in Burundi, but Mbeki withdrew as a mediator in Côte d'Ivoire. In September, Russian Pres. Vladimir Putin made the first visit by a Russian (or Soviet) head of state to South Africa. The first India–Brazil–South Africa summit was held in Brazil in September. Controversy erupted over the deportation to Pakistan of Rashid Khalid, who, it was alleged, had been subjected to “rendition” and transferred illegally to U.S. or U.K. detention camps.

Martin Legassick

▪ 2006

Introduction

Area:

1,219,912 sq km (471,011 sq mi)

Population

(2005 est.): 46,888,000

Capitals (de facto):

Tshwane/ Pretoria (executive); Mangaung/ Bloemfontein (judicial); Cape Town (legislative)

Head of state and government:

President Thabo Mbeki

Domestic Affairs.

      The most important developments in South Africa in 2005 were the events surrounding the dismissal in June by Pres. Thabo Mbeki of Jacob Zuma, his deputy president; the action led to the most severe crisis for the African National Congress (ANC) since it came to power in 1994. In June, after an eight-month trial, Schabir Shaik, a businessman and close colleague of Zuma, was sentenced to 15 years in jail after being convicted of fraud and corruption. The judge found that there was a generally corrupt relationship between Shaik and Zuma, who was subsequently charged with two counts of corruption. Zuma also recused himself from all ANC activities at the request of the organization's national working committee. He was replaced as deputy president by the first woman to have the job, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka.

      Following pro-Zuma demonstrations at ANC events, however, the national general council of the ANC in June defied Mbeki by reinstating Zuma in ANC activities. In August the central committee of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), the ANC's ally along with the South African Communist Party (SACP) in the “Tripartite Alliance,” resolved that the charges against Zuma were politically motivated to prevent his succession as president.

      In response, Mbeki proposed an internal ANC commission to investigate the charges, but this was rejected by the SACP and COSATU. In the same month, the investigative arm of the National Prosecuting Authority (the “Scorpions”) conducted armed raids on Zuma's several homes and offices and those of his attorney; Zuma challenged the legality of the raids. Supported by thousands of demonstrators, Zuma appeared in court twice. Zuma was indicted on November 12. Following this, allegations of rape surfaced against him stemming from an incident that month, and he was indicted on charges of rape on December 6. Zuma again withdrew from ANC activities, and many of his supporters distanced themselves from him.

      In May former South African president Nelson Mandela took legal action against his former lawyer to stop what he claimed were unauthorized sales of artworks and other merchandise involving the use of his name. In June, 21 current and former MPs and six travel agencies appeared in court on charges of fraud for the misuse of parliamentary travel vouchers, and later in the month 5 of the ANC MPs resigned. In September there was a third “floor-crossing window,” in which parliamentarians were allowed to switch parties. In KwaZulu/Natal the Inkatha Freedom Party was struck by the resignation of its chairperson, Ziba Jiyane, who formed the National Democratic Convention, which picked up four seats. After 90 years the New National Party, which in April had voted to disband after the impending local elections, lost its last members in the national parliament. Since parliamentarians were elected on party lists and not as individuals, however, floor crossing was heavily controversial and was said to deprive voters of the ability to hold their representatives accountable.

      In defiance of the government, COSATU called two one-day general strikes, in June and August, to protest poverty and job losses, which COSATU blamed on trade liberalization and an incoherent government industrial strategy. The strikes were supported by more than one million workers, including an unprecedented number of white workers, and were followed by a series of one-day provincial general strikes. At an ANC national general council, COSATU secured the defeat of a two-tier labour-market proposal: a dual wage system in which young workers would earn less than what was stipulated in prevailing wage agreements.

      There was a substantial increase in strike activity over wages, which drew particular attention to lucrative increases for executives. For the first time ever, black and white workers united for a national mine strike, the first in 18 years. There was also a wave of demonstrations in small towns as well as big cities by people impatient with the lack of service delivery.

Economy.

      The GDP growth of 3.7% in 2004 was expected to increase to 4.3% in 2005. The rand's appreciation by 18% against the dollar in 2004 led to severe job losses in sectors such as mining, clothing, and textiles. Gold production sank to its lowest level since 1931. In the first quarter of 2005, 130,000 jobs were lost in the nonfarming formal economy. Though the official unemployment rate was put at 26.5% at the end of the first quarter of 2005, the unofficial estimate was more than 40%. In the year to late September, however, the rand fell by 11% against the dollar. As a result of the decline in inflation, the main interest rate was cut in April from 7.5% to 7%. Largely as a result of the increase in fuel prices, however, the inflation index CPIX, which had averaged 3.9% in the year from July 2004, increased to 4.8% in August 2005.

      The 2005 February budget promised 115 billion rand (1 rand  = about $0.16) in infrastructure spending over the next three years, tax cuts of 10.6 billion rand, and 23.3 billion rand for social grants. The budget deficit for 2004–05 was later revised downward to 1.5% of GDP and was estimated at 1% for 2005–06.

Foreign Relations.

      Despite objections by Zimbabwean opposition parties, the South African parliamentary observer mission declared in March that general elections held that month in Zimbabwe had been legitimate and fair. After a COSATU fact-finding mission to Zimbabwe was twice expelled, COSATU and the SACP marched to the Beit Bridge border crossing shortly before the elections to protest violations of democracy by the regime of Zimbabwean Pres. Robert Mugabe and implicitly to show displeasure against the ANC government's appeasement of Zimbabwe. The South African government continued to assist the peace process in Burundi and tried to play a role in securing peace in the renewed Côte d'Ivoire civil war. In September, when President Mbeki was in New York for the special UN summit on reform, he questioned whether Europe and the U.S. were really committed to ending world poverty and called on them to end farm subsidies within three years. He also criticized the UN for its failure to reform its structures.

Martin Legassick

▪ 2005

Introduction

Area:

1,219,090 sq km (470,693 sq mi)

Population

(2004 est.): 46,587,000

Capitals (de facto):

Pretoria/Tshwane (executive); Bloemfontein/Mangaung (judicial); Cape Town (legislative)

Head of state and government:

President Thabo Mbeki

Domestic Affairs.

      As South Africa celebrated 10 years of democracy, the African National Congress (ANC) was overwhelmingly returned to power in the national and provincial elections held on April 14, 2004, which led to the inauguration of Pres. Thabo Mbeki for a second term. The ANC received 69.8% of the vote, compared with 66.35% in 1999. The Democratic Alliance (DA), led by Tony Leon, continued as the official opposition, with 12.3% of the vote, up from 9.56% in 1999. Mangosutho Buthelezi's Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) obtained 6.97% of the vote, down from 8.58% in 1999. For the first time, the ANC took office on its own, or as senior partner, in all nine provinces. Members of the IFP, the New National Party (NNP), and the Azanian People's Organization were included in Mbeki's cabinet, which had 12 women.

      The old apartheid-era ruling party, Marthinus van Schalkwyk's NNP, had an election pact with the ANC but received a paltry 1.65% of the vote, down from 6.87% in 1999, and was beaten by Bantu Holomisa's United Democratic Movement, which garnered 2.2% of the vote (3.42% in 1999), and Patricia de Lille's newly formed Independent Democrats, which won 1.73%. In August the dissolution of the NNP was sealed when van Schalkwyk announced that he would be joining the ANC, and he invited other NNP members to do the same. Former president F.W. de Klerk refused. During the “floor-crossing window” in September, when elected officials at the local level were permitted to change parties, two-thirds of NNP councillors joined the ANC. After the election the coalition between the DA and the IFP appeared unlikely to continue.

      On February 6 President Mbeki delivered a state of the nation speech to Parliament in which he highlighted the accomplishments of his administration—the lowest rate of inflation (4%) in more than 30 years, sustained economic growth for 20 quarters, and political stability. Since 1994 the government had built 1.6 million homes and 56,000 new classrooms and had delivered potable water to 9 million people and sanitation to 6.4 million people. Leon claimed that Mbeki's speech had failed to include mention of the millions of unemployed in the country, the millions of victims of crime, and the hundreds of thousands of people with HIV/AIDS. Commentators noted that Mbeki had not addressed the problem of human rights abuses in Zimbabwe. In his inauguration speech Mbeki concentrated on the need for the eradication of poverty, and in his second state of the nation speech he gave concrete target dates to deliver on his promises.

      In these and other speeches made by Mbeki and his ministers during the year, there was a noticeable if subtle shift of emphasis from market-led to state-led policies for economic growth. An expanded public-works program was launched, which was to improve the transportation infrastructure. With regard to privatization, further sales of shares of big parastatals such as Eskom (electricity), Transnet (transport), and Denel (arms) were ruled out in favour of encouragement of parastatal investment with public-private partnerships. In addition, in pursuit of a long-term aim, the ANC government obliged all economic sectors to draw up “charters” committing themselves to policies of black economic empowerment (affirmative action). In June former president Nelson Mandela officially retired from public life.

      Following the fallout from the 1999 arms deal, in January the Hefer Commission reported to Mbeki that Bulelani Ngcuka, the national director of prosecutions, was “probably never” an apartheid-era spy, but no disciplinary action was taken by the ANC against Schabir Shaik, a financial adviser to Deputy Pres. Jacob Zuma, or former transport minister Mac Maharaj, who had initiated the allegations. At the end of January, however, Zuma complained to Public Protector Lawrence Mushwana that Ngcuka had abused his powers in 2003 by claiming that there was prima facie evidence of corruption against Zuma. In late May Mushwana reported that Ngcuka's claim was “unfair” and “improper” and that it violated Zuma's right to dignity. Ngcuka and Justice Minister Penuell Maduna declared that Mushwana's statement was “preposterous…thoroughly unconsidered, and without substance.” In July Ngcuka resigned his post. In February Shaik had been indicted on charges of bribery relating to the arms deal, and his trial commenced in October. For the remainder of the year, the defense mounted its case again Shaik, whose defense was expected to commence in 2005.

      In June public investigations were launched into what was described as a multimillion-rand scam, which involved MPs making fraudulent travel claims on free vouchers. On September 3, members of eight civil-service unions, including teachers, nurses, and police, marched on Parliament in a dispute with the government over wages, and on September 16 at least 800,000 civil servants of all colours walked off their jobs in the largest such strike in South African history. A settlement was reached over the following weekend, and further strike action was averted.

      In May countrywide celebrations greeted the announcement that the association football (soccer) World Cup would be held in South Africa in 2010. In June, however, a number of senior referees were arrested on charges of fixing football matches.

      Among the notable deaths during the year were those of Transport Minister Dullah Omar (see Obituaries (Omar, Dullah )), pop icon Brenda Fassie (see Obituaries (Fassie, Brenda )), and antiapartheid-struggle stalwarts Ray Alexander, Vella Pillay, Ethel de Keyser, and Beyers Naude.

Economy.

      By the first quarter of 2004, the economy had sped up to 3.6%, and it increased to 3.9% in the second quarter. Manufacturing production grew by 2.7%, having recovered in the first quarter from three successive quarters of decline. The growth was attributed to increased state spending on infrastructure, lowered interest rates, and increased consumer demand. Unemployment remained high, with the official rate at 27.8% in March 2004. Inflation slowed to its lowest recorded level (3.7%) in August.

      The budget increased the child-support grant to 170 rand (1 rand =  about $0.16) a month and provided modest tax relief and provided for 15 billion rand to be set aside over five years for the extended public-works program. The anticipated budget deficit for 2004–05 would increase to 3.1% of GDP, compared with some 2.6% for 2003–04. Total spending would be 370 billion rand, and revenue would amount to 327 billion rand.

      The current balance of payment account turned from a surplus in 2002 to record deficits—2.84% of GDP in the fourth quarter of 2003 and 3.7% of GDP in the second quarter of 2004. The real value of imports had risen sharply, while the volume of exports had declined, which reflected the continued strength of the rand. This deficit was neutralized by a large surplus on the financial account of the balance of payments, which caused foreign reserves to rise and reflected foreign bank loans and deposits, portfolio capital, and the takeover of some domestic companies.

Foreign Relations.

      In January President Mbeki attended the bicentennial of the independence of Haiti. Deposed Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide sought exile in South Africa and arrived at the end of May.

      Though South Africa continued to be involved in peace-brokering exercises in Burundi and in Zimbabwe, no significant negotiations took place between the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union–Patriotic Front and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change.

      In March 70 alleged South African mercenaries were arrested in Zimbabwe, along with 18 others in Equatorial Guinea, on charges related to involvement in a planned coup in the latter country. By September 65 of those in Zimbabwe had received 12-month prison sentences, 2 persons had been sentenced to 16 months, and the leader of the coup, Simon Mann, had been sentenced to 7 years. The plot had allegedly been partially financed by Sir Mark Thatcher, son of former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher. He was arrested in South Africa and released on bail of 2 million rand. In a November court appearance, he was not asked to plead, and the trial was postponed until 2005.

Martin Legassick

▪ 2004

Introduction

Area:

1,219,090 sq km (470,693 sq mi)

Population

(2003 est.): 45,349,000

Capitals (de facto):

Pretoria/Tshwane (executive); Bloemfontein/Mangaung (judicial); Cape Town (legislative)

Head of state and government:

President Thabo Mbeki

Domestic Affairs.

      In January 2003 South African Pres. Thabo Mbeki praised his African National Congress (ANC) government's ensuring of fiscal discipline and macroeconomic stability. Speaking at the opening of Parliament in February, he identified unemployment as a major challenge and called for economic growth and job creation based on black empowerment. In June a growth and development summit attended by representatives of government, business, and labour agreed on public-works programs—particularly in the development of transport infrastructure—together with investment of 145 billion rands (1 rand = about $0.14) of private capital.

      At an international conference on AIDS in Paris in July, former president Nelson Mandela spoke of HIV/AIDS as “the greatest health crisis in human history.” At the same time, the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) leaked a government report that concluded that 733,000 deaths could be prevented by 2010 if only half the people needing antiretrovirals were given them. On the other hand, President Mbeki continued to be criticized for the government's lack of attention to HIV/AIDS. Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang was likewise criticized for her view that nutrition alone was the solution to AIDS. Thousands of AIDS activists organized by the TAC marched at the opening of Parliament to demand provision of antiretroviral drugs to HIV/AIDS victims, and in March the TAC launched a campaign of civil disobedience to the same end. After months of delay, the government late in the year announced a detailed operational plan for the provision of antiretrovirals.

      The Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) came to terms with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) at the end of January, clearing the way for publication of the final two volumes of the TRC's report. In this the TRC continued to accuse the IFP of human rights violations, but the IFP's defense against the charges was included. The report contained a recommendation that foreign and South African companies be taxed on a one-off basis for reparations. Victims of apartheid launched several lawsuits against foreign and South African firms in American courts during the year. President Mbeki opposed these suits and the idea of a wealth tax. At the same time, he stated that there would be no blanket amnesty for perpetrators of human rights violations and that victims would receive one-time payments of 30,000 rands.

      In KwaZulu-Natal sniping between the IFP and the ANC over the composition of the provincial government continued throughout the year. The IFP was particularly concerned about the forthcoming “window period,” when elected representatives would be allowed to defect to other parties, fearing this would lead to the loss of their majority in the provincial legislature, and welcomed the ANC's cancellation plans to make the legislation retroactive. When the two-week “window period” opened in March, considerable “floor crossing” took place. The effect was, first of all, to weaken the New National Party (NNP) considerably, with defections both to the Democratic Alliance (DA) and to the ANC. As a result of the floor crossing the ANC gained an absolute majority in the Western Cape legislature, and the balance in KwaZulu-Natal passed to minority parties. In the Cape, however, the ANC retained its coalition with the NNP and allowed an NNP premier to remain. Seven new parties were formed, including former Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) MP Patricia de Lille's Independent Democrats and Peter Marais's New Labour Party. In the latter part of the year IFP Pres. Mangosutho Buthelezi called for a coalition of opposition parties, notably the DA, to unseat the ANC in the 2004 elections.

      The congress of the PAC in December 2002 was aborted owing to alleged fraud in leadership elections. In June 2003 a resumed congress elected Motsoko Pheko president. The unsuccessful candidate, former secretary-general Thami Ka Plaatjie, was subsequently expelled, which foreshadowed a split in the organization. From May, with frequent delays, 22 members of the ultraright-wing white racist Boeremag were tried for treason, terrorism, and murder.

      The second part of the year became increasingly dominated by crisis in the upper echelons of the ANC that resulted from continual fallout from a controversial arms deal signed in 1999. The most significant of these developments were the allegations that Deputy Pres. Jacob Zuma had tried to solicit a 500,000-rand bribe from the former South African head of a French arms company through his financial adviser, Schabir Shaik, and had received money from Shaik. Shaik was also alleged to have provided irregular payments to former minister of transport Mac Maharaj. On August 23 Bulelani Ngcuka, national director of prosecutions, stated that Zuma would not be charged because, while there was a prima facie case of corruption, the prospects of successful prosecution were slim. The consequence was a newspaper's publication in September of allegations that Ngcuka had been an apartheid-era spy. The government established a commission under retired judge Joos Hefer to investigate these claims; it completed its investigation but had not reported by the end of the year.

      Also as a result of the arms deal, Tony Yengeni (former ANC chief whip), pleaded guilty to fraud in February, was sentenced to a four-year jail term, which he appealed, and resigned from Parliament. In April, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, former wife of Nelson Mandela, was convicted on fraud and theft charges (unrelated to the arms deal) and resigned from Parliament and as president of the ANC Women's League. Nelson Mandela's 85th birthday on July 18 was celebrated by a party of 1,600 international guests, including former U.S. president Bill Clinton and his wife, Hillary. Walter Sisulu, a close comrade of Nelson Mandela, died in May at the age of 90. (See Obituaries (Sisulu, Walter Max Ulyate ).)

Economy.

      The South African economy grew by 3% during 2002 but slowed down from the third quarter (2.9%). Growth in the fourth quarter of 2002 was 2.4%, but it fell to 0.9% in the first quarter of 2003 and to 0.5% in the second quarter before a slight pickup to 1.1% in the third quarter. The manufacturing sector contracted during the first half of 2003. The slowdown was attributed to sluggish global demand, increased interest rates, and the strengthening of the rand. Unemployment in the country remained high, with the official rate 30.5% in September 2002.

      The budget boosted social services and grants to the poor and relaxed foreign-exchange controls. A cut of 13.3 billion rands was made from personal income tax, while real spending increased by 6.8%. The deficit was thus expected to be 2.4% of GDP (1.4% in 2002–03). The child-support grant increased to 160 rands, and an additional 3.3-billion-rand allocation would go to fight AIDS; 10 billion rands were provided over five years to assist black-empowerment ventures. In the only major privatization of the year, 25% of the shares of the telephone company Telkom were sold off, in addition to the 30% stake privatized in 1997.

Foreign Relations.

      President Mbeki traveled frequently during the year in his capacity as chairman of the African Union, as a guider of the New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD), and as a mediator of conflicts in Africa in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Burundi, and Liberia. Mandela criticized U.S. Pres. George W. Bush harshly for going to war in Iraq, saying that Bush could not “think properly” and wanted “to plunge the world into a holocaust.” South Africa led a last-minute unavailing attempt to prevent the war. Bush, however, visited South Africa in July in the course of a trip to several African countries. He said he saw Mbeki as the “point man” on troubles in Zimbabwe and added that “we share the same objective.”

Martin Legassick

▪ 2003

Introduction

Area:

1,219,090 sq km (470,693 sq mi)

Population

(2002 est.): 45,172,000

Capitals (de facto):

Pretoria/Tshwane (executive); Bloemfontein/Mangaung (judicial); Cape Town (legislative)

Head of state and government:

President Thabo Mbeki

      In his 2002 annual address to Parliament, South African Pres. Thabo Mbeki of the African National Congress (ANC) detailed the progress made in land reform and in the provision of water, electricity, and housing; he defined as national goals black economic empowerment, poverty eradication, and nation building driven by volunteerism. During the year a mining charter was enacted, requiring that 15% of the industry be black owned within 5 years and 26% within 10 years; similar goals were set for the oil industry. The black presence on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange was estimated at a mere 2.2% in February 2002.

      The 34% collapse of the rand against the dollar in the second half of 2001 shook the country. Following allegations by the CEO of the South African Chamber of Business that the fall had been caused by speculative collusion between foreign banks and local corporations, Mbeki established a commission of inquiry. A majority report of this commission gave a variety of reasons for the fall, including weak export performance and the outflow of portfolio capital, but conceded that the spirit of foreign-exchange control had been broken. The minority report, however, maintained that the inquiry had been superficial and that at least one foreign bank should be investigated further.

      The government's policy on HIV/AIDS continued to be controversial. In March an ANC document portrayed AIDS as a conspiracy theory with the aim of dehumanizing Africans. In the same month, the AIDS-activist organization the Treatment Action Campaign won a court action that declared that the government had to supply nevirapine (an antiretroviral drug) to HIV-positive pregnant women in public hospitals. The government appealed the ruling, which was upheld by the constitutional court in early July. By October the government was promising to widen access to antiretrovirals.

      As a result of the breakup of the Democratic Alliance (DA) and the subsequent alliance between the New National Party (NNP) and the ANC in late 2001, Western Cape DA premier Gerald Morkel was replaced by former NNP Cape Town mayor Peter Marais. Morkel then became mayor of Cape Town. In 2002, however, both Marais and Morkel came under criticism. In April Jurgen Harksen, a German businessman and fugitive from justice claimed that he had donated money to Morkel, personally and for the DA. Morkel admitted to the Desai Commission, which was set up to investigate possible internal political spying in the Cape, that he had a close relationship with Harksen but denied having received money from him. The DA declared that the commission was a “kangaroo court.” Harksen, citing threats against his life, withdrew his evidence in October. These events harmed the “clean” image previously presented by the DA. At the end of May, Marais resigned after he was accused of sexual harassment, but the state declined to prosecute him; he was replaced by Marthinus van Schalkwyk, leader of the NNP.

      Legislation was passed by Parliament allowing elected representatives a short “window period” in which they could defect to other political parties. The constitutional court subsequently approved this legislation for municipal councillors but rejected it on technical grounds for provincial and national representatives. Defections from the DA to the NNP meant that the ANC-NNP coalition took control of the city of Cape Town and other councils in the Western Cape.

      There was considerable controversy within the “Triple Alliance”—the ANC, the South African Communist Party (SACP), and the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU). At the SACP's conference in July, two ministers in Mbeki's government were voted off the central committee to protest the government's economic policy. The conference also criticized the emergence of a new black elite that sought to enrich itself. Shortly before a two-day general strike called by COSATU on October 1–2 to protest the government policy of privatization, unemployment, and increases in food prices and interest rates, President Mbeki accused the alliance of harbouring ultraleft elements. COSATU's general secretary cautioned that unemployment was a “ticking time bomb.”

      In April, at the end of a 300-day showcase trial for alleged apartheid offenses, Wouter Basson—a cardiologist accused of having masterminded Nazi-like atrocities—was acquitted of the remaining 46 charges against him, including murder, fraud, and theft. Desmond Tutu, former archbishop and head of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, criticized the verdict as “shocking.” State authorities launched an appeal.

      The Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) went to court to try to stop publication of the final report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission because it alleged that the IFP had committed gross violations of human rights. The Jali Commission's investigation of inhuman prison conditions revealed evidence of endemic corruption and maladministration. In September the 10 white right-wingers accused of plotting to overthrow the government were indicted for treason. At the end of October eight bombs were set off in Soweto, probably by members of the white ultra-right wing.

      The remains of Sarah Baartman, a Khoisan woman first taken abroad for exhibit as a sexual freak some 200 years ago, were returned to South Africa from France and reburied in August in the Eastern Cape. South African billionaire Mark Shuttleworth became the first African astronaut after he completed a 10-day trip in space.

Economy.

      The economy grew by 2.9% in the first quarter of 2002, by 3.9% in the second quarter, and 3% in the third quarter, rates that were considered good in view of the world slowdown. The unemployment rate continued to be troubling; it fell only slightly, from an estimated 29.5% in September 2001 to 26.4% in February 2002. Some encouragement could be drawn, however, from growth in the manufacturing sector, which rose from 3.1% in 2001 to 5.1% by the end of July 2002; in addition, by the end of July manufacturing exports had risen 21% year-on-year.

      By September, interest rates had been raised 4% in attempts to curb inflation. Consumer price inflation (excluding mortgages) rose from 5.8% in September 2001 to 12.5%% by October 2002, owing largely to the fall in the rand's value. The value of the rand to the U.S. dollar fell dramatically from January 2001 from about 7.5–1 to about 12–1 in January 2002 before recovering slightly in November to 9–1.

      The 2002–03 budget projected a 9.6% increase in spending and a 6.7% rise in revenue. The 2002–03 deficit was estimated at 2.1% of gross domestic product, up from 1.4% in 2001–02. Tax cuts amounting to R 15.2 billion (about $1.3 billion) were announced, and social grants for the elderly, the disabled, and veterans as well as child-support grants were increased above the level of inflation. Nevertheless, three million households continued to live below the poverty level.

Foreign Affairs.

      President Mbeki continued as a resolute advocate of the New Partnership for Africa's Development, a plan for the economic development of Africa that was adopted by the World Economic Forum held in Durban, S.Af., in June; by the African Union (AU), launched in Durban in July; and by the UN General Assembly in September. The UN World Summit on Sustainable Development was also held in South Africa—in Johannesburg—in August.

      The South African government brokered eight weeks of peace talks on the civil war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) in March and April and was involved in other efforts to secure peace in Central Africa. Rwanda and the DRC signed a peace agreement in Pretoria at the end of July.

      Following presidential elections in Zimbabwe, Mbeki failed in his efforts to help in the formation of a “national unity” government. He played a role, however, in softening the stance of the Commonwealth toward Zimbabwean Pres. Robert Mugabe.

Martin Legassick

▪ 2002

Introduction

Area:

1,219,090 sq km (470,693 sq mi)

Population

(2001 est.): 43,586,000

Capitals (de facto):

Pretoria/Tshwane (executive); Bloemfontein/Mangaung (judicial); Cape Town (legislative)

Head of state and government:

President Thabo Mbeki

Domestic Affairs.

      The key words in South Africa in 2001 were privatization and corruption. In his annual address to Parliament, Pres. Thabo Mbeki enumerated the improvements made in South Africa since the inception of democratic government in 1994: 1,129,612 houses had been or were being built, and nearly 7 million people had been furnished with clean water. During 2000 some 397,019 homes were connected to the electricity grid, 412,000 new telephones were installed, and 127 clinics were built. Mbeki planned to speed up delivery of services and accelerate economic growth by lowering costs through a continued policy of privatization. He also stressed that he would combat corruption in the ruling African National Congress (ANC) government. For most of the year the main opposition party, the Democratic Alliance (DA), was making strides in becoming an important alternative to the ANC and hoped to win 30% of the vote by 2004, particularly by gaining support from blacks. DA leader Tony Leon stressed the country's need for strong leadership in the fight against crime and poverty and in the creation of jobs, and he demanded faster privatization. In October, however, a split occurred between the two components that had formed the DA, the New National Party (NNP) and the Democratic Party (DP). The catalyst for this was the expulsion from the DA of Cape Town Mayor Peter Marais. In April Marais had proposed that two principal streets in the city be renamed after former president Nelson Mandela and former president F.W. de Klerk. The proposal proved controversial, and fraud was detected in the final vote. Following the expulsion of Marais, Marthinus van Schalkwyk led much of the NNP out of the DP and into an alliance with the ANC.

      Privatization threatened the alliance between the ANC, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), and the South African Communist Party (SACP). In August COSATU and other trade unions, supported by ANC-aligned civic and student organizations, launched a two-day general strike against privatization. Nonetheless, the government severely criticized the strike and vowed that it would not change its policy. The COSATU president, Willie Madisha, cited a class struggle inside the alliance. In October the government narrowly averted a strike by public-sector workers over wages and retrenchment procedures.

      The arms deal concluded in 1999, whose cost had escalated from R 30 billion (R 1  =  about $0.12) to more than R 60 billion owing to the decline in value of the rand, continued to provoke controversy. After allegations of corruption, the government set up a joint investigating team into the deal that cleared government ministers of any wrongdoing. Opposition parties, however, believed that the investigation was compromised and that its mode of establishment had undermined the independence of Parliament. Several people, including the ANC chief whip, Tony Yengeni, were charged with offenses related to the arms deal such as corruption or fraud, perjury, and forgery.

      In April the ANC minister of safety and security provoked considerable incredulity when he claimed that three businessmen, ANC supporters, were involved in a plot to oust President Mbeki and that they were being investigated by police and national intelligence. COSATU called the statement “highly irresponsible.” The government was accused of using state resources to thwart a possible political challenge to Mbeki. Though President Mbeki regretted that the businessmen had been named, he justified a police investigation on the grounds that there were also rumours circulating that he had been involved in the 1993 assassination of SACP leader Chris Hani. The allegations that senior ANC officials had conspired to undermine Mbeki were initially made by a former ANC Youth League leader who had outstanding charges of theft and fraud against him.

      In July thousands of people who had occupied land illegally in Gauteng—they had bought plots costing R 25 each from the Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC)—were forcibly evicted by the government. This led to tensions and disagreements within the PAC.

      Controversy over HIV/AIDS continued. In March the DA and COSATU wanted the government to declare the AIDS epidemic a state of emergency. Such an action would permit the acquisition of less-costly medicines, but the government refused. In April the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers' Association, representing 39 manufacturers, withdrew its 1998 court case against the government, which had empowered itself to import generic drugs, including less-expensive anti-AIDS drugs, without the permission of the patent holder. The dropping of the suit was regarded as a victory for the government and the AIDS-activist organization, the Treatment Action Campaign. The health minister, however, said that the decision did not mean that the government would purchase large quantities of the drugs. In October a Medical Research Council report—which was leaked to the Johannesburg Sunday Times after the government had suppressed its contents—concluded that AIDS was the chief cause of death in the country and that unless measures were taken to curb the disease, it would claim the lives of between five million and seven million South Africans by 2010.

      In a stampede for seats at a soccer match on April 11 at Ellis Park stadium in Johannesburg, 43 fans died and hundreds were injured. The stadium held 62,000 persons, but thousands more went to the contest. ANC stalwart and former Robben Island prisoner Govan Mbeki (Mbeki, Govan Archibald Mvuyelwa ), father of President Mbeki, died in early August at the age of 91. Christiaan Barnard (Barnard, Christiaan Neethling ), the first surgeon to perform a successful heart transplant, succumbed in September. (See Obituaries.) On December 4 Marike de Klerk, F.W. de Klerk's ex-wife, was found murdered in her home near Cape Town. A 21-year-old security guard in her housing complex was arrested days later, though the motive for the crime was unclear.

The Economy.

      From a 3.1% growth rate in 2000, the economy slowed to an increase of 1.5% in the first quarter, 1.8% in the second quarter, and 1.2% in the third quarter of 2001. The slowdown was attributed to a decline in the growth of export volume. Gross domestic fixed investment, which increased by 1.5% in 2000, grew by 5.5% in the first half of 2001. The job sector remained problematic, however. Though employment estimates rose from 9.2 million in 1996 to 10.4 million in 1999, mainly in the informal sector, unemployment as of February 2000 was 26.7% on a narrow definition, which excluded people who had not actively sought work in the previous week, and 37.3% on a broader definition.

      The budget for 2001–02 provided a tax-relief package of R 8.3 billion, and it also included an economic-stimulus package of R 7.8 billion, which would be spent on infrastructure; the R 600 million allocated as tax incentives for job creation was criticized as too little by COSATU. The increases in pensions and child-support grants were criticized as insufficient.

Foreign Affairs.

      President Mbeki's Millennium Africa Recovery Program, which aimed to combat poverty through investment and trade, received a warm response from developed countries during the year. Mbeki and other African leaders first presented the plan in January at the World Economic Forum summit in Davos, Switz. He then emerged from the Organization of African Unity conference in July with Senegal's proposals for a New African Initiative. Mbeki went on to present the proposal to the Group of Eight industrialized nations in July, and the measure was expected to be finalized for the group in 2002. In August–September, South Africa hosted the UN's World Conference Against Racism, which provoked controversy when the U.S. withdrew in protest against attempts to equate Zionism with racism and demands for reparations for slavery and colonialism.

      Mbeki's unilateral “quiet diplomacy” to deal with the land and law-and-order crisis in Zimbabwe was supplemented by multilateral pressure from the Commonwealth of Nations and the Southern African Development Community. In February Mbeki's international investment council expressed concern that the violence in the Zimbabwe land crisis would spill over into South Africa. South Africa's defense force assisted refugees from Mozambican floods in February, and a limited number of South African troops were deployed to the UN peacekeeping force in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In October South Africa and Burundi signed an agreement that would deploy as many as 700 South African peacekeeping troops to monitor the installation in November of Burundi's transitional government. The first visit by a sitting Japanese prime minister to South Africa took place in January. President Mbeki visited Cuba in March; the U.K., the U.S., and Germany in June; and Japan in October.

Martin Legassick

▪ 2001

Introduction

Area:

1,219,090 sq km (470,693 sq mi)

Population

(2000 est.): 43,421,000

Capitals (de facto):

Pretoria (executive); Bloemfontein (judicial); Cape Town (legislative)

Head of state and government:

President Thabo Mbeki

Domestic Affairs.

      During 2000 Thabo Mbeki's presidency came under criticism both abroad and at home. Opening Parliament on February 4, he announced moves to create a more investor-friendly environment, including continuation of the African National Congress (ANC) government's economic policy of privatization and deregulation, amendments to labour legislation, and the appointment of an investment council that included the chief executive officers of large international corporations. At the same time, Mbeki had harsh words for the “socially undisciplined,” which included illegal strikers and tax evaders. In July at the ANC's national general council, Mbeki attacked careerism and corruption among some council members.

      Mbeki identified racism as a major problem facing the country, and several conferences were held on the subject during the year. In March the South African Human Rights Commission held hearings into racism in the media. The official report on the shooting of several white soldiers by a black soldier at a military base in 1999 highlighted continued racism by whites in the armed forces.

      Mbeki aroused controversy both internationally and domestically by questioning the conventional wisdom on AIDS, declaring that HIV was not its only cause and highlighting poverty as a main factor. “You cannot attribute immune deficiency solely and exclusively to a virus,” he said in an interview with Time magazine in September. He appointed an advisory panel on AIDS that included so-called dissident scientists. The government was also criticized for its refusal to supply antiretroviral drugs to pregnant women and rape victims, though in September Mbeki made it clear that government policy was based on the thesis that HIV caused AIDS.

      Local elections took place on December 5, the date delayed by an impasse between the government and traditional leaders (chiefs), supported by Mangosuthu Gatsha Buthelezi, leader of the Inkatha Freedom Party and home affairs minister, over the powers of the latter. The ANC won an estimated 59% of the vote, including the mayorships of the cities of Johannesburg and Durban.

      The opposition Democratic Alliance (DA)—formed by a merger in June of the Democratic Party (DP), New National Party (NNP), and Freedom Alliance (FA)—won 22% of the vote in the local elections and the mayorship of Cape Town. It also held 68 seats in the lower house of Parliament. Joe Seremane, chairman of the DA, had become the first black chairperson of the DP in March. Tony Leon, former DP and DA leader, in March called the ANC “the last great nationalist dinosaur, its rhetoric replete with old slogans from the ideological junkyard of the 1960s,” and when the DA was formed he declared that “up until now the ANC has had a free ride.” The ANC described the DA as an “alliance of hate” engaged in a last-ditch effort to perpetuate white minority rule.

      Severe tensions persisted in the alliance between the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) and the ANC over economic policy. Between January and April COSATU organized demonstrations and regional one-day strikes protesting job losses, which culminated in a one-day national general strike on May 10 estimated by COSATU to involve four million workers. COSATU also claimed that the draft amendments to the labour laws (removing restrictions on working hours and the premium paid for Sunday work and making it easier to dismiss recently hired workers) were the worst attack on workers' rights since measures imposed by the apartheid regime in 1988. COSATU called on the government to abandon its economic policy and committed itself to “one general strike a quarter” from March 2001 until the labour law amendments were abandoned.

      The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) continued amnesty hearings, but the government did not implement the TRC's recommendations to grant financial reparations to victims of human rights violations. At the continuing trial of Wouter Basson, the apartheid regime's chemical warfare expert, witnesses gave evidence that at least 200 sedated prisoners, some still alive, had been dumped from aircraft into the sea from a height of some 3,700 m (13,000 ft) or higher. In May the Appeal Court upheld the conviction of Allan Boesak, antiapartheid leader in the 1980s, on charges of fraud and theft, and he began serving a three-year sentence. Abe Williams, former NNP cabinet minister in the post-1994 government, was found guilty of 40 charges of fraud and theft in June and sentenced to an effective three years in prison.

      Western Cape suffered during the year. The Cape peninsula was declared a disaster area in January because of widespread bush fires. There were 21 terrorist bombings in Cape Town between October 1998 and October 2000. In June the Panamanian-registered bulk carrier Treasure sank in Table Bay, releasing hundreds of tons of fuel oil that endangered nearby penguin colonies. Some 43,000 penguins were removed.

Foreign Affairs.

      The parliamentary opposition criticized President Mbeki's refusal to condemn Zimbabwe Pres. Robert Mugabe's support for the invasion of white-owned farms in his country, but the United States, the United Kingdom, and the South African Chamber of Business praised Mbeki's “quiet diplomacy.” Mbeki said that such invasions would not be tolerated in South Africa but also insisted that the main issue in Zimbabwe was land reform and not violations of human rights or assaults on democracy.

      The government continued to try to enforce the implementation of the 1999 Lusaka peace agreement in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Former president Nelson Mandela was involved in mediation in the civil war in Burundi and by August had persuaded most warring factions to sign a peace plan. Ground and air crews of the South Africa's air force rescued an estimated 15,000 people trapped by floods in Mozambique in March.

The Economy.

      South Africa's economy appeared to pick up in the second half of 1999, growing by 3.2% in the third quarter and 3.6% in the fourth (1.2% for 1999 as a whole). It slowed again in 2000, however, to 0.8% growth in the first quarter and 1.6% in the second quarter, which necessitated a downward revision of the government forecast of 3.6% growth for the year. Observers pointed to a lack of productive foreign investment.

      The budget provided R 9.9 billion (about $1.4 billion) worth of tax cuts and introduced a capital gains tax beginning in 2001. Education, health, welfare, and housing spending fell from 57% to 55.8% of noninterest spending, and military spending increased the most, by 28%. The 2000–01 budget deficit was projected at 2.6% of gross domestic product, compared with 2.4% in 1999–2000. The auditor general reported that the welfare department had spent less than 1% of the R 204 million (about $28 million) it had received for poverty-relief programs in 1998 and that other departments had also seriously underspent.

      In June 2000 foreign exchange reserves amounted to 15 weeks of imports. The government announced an intention to set annual inflation targets between 3% and 6%. The index used (called CPIX) was 6.5% in October 1999 but had risen to about 8% by July 2000. After eight interest-rate cuts in 1999, the bank rate remained steady at 14.5% for much of the year.

      The black share of income rose from 29.9% in 1991 to 35.7% in 1996. During the same years, the proportion of black households in the richest 10% of the population increased from 9% to 22%, while the income of the poorest 40% of black households fell by 20%.

Martin Legassick

▪ 2000

Introduction

Area:

1,219,090 sq km (470,693 sq mi)

Population

(1999 est.): 43,426,000

Capitals (de facto):

Pretoria (executive); Bloemfontein (judicial); Cape Town (legislative)

Head of state and government:

Presidents Nelson Mandela and, from June 16, Thabo Mbeki

Domestic Affairs.

      In 1999 Nelson Mandela retired as president of South Africa after having served a term of five years. In a farewell speech he remarked how in the country “things that were unimaginable a few years ago have become everyday reality.” Emphasizing that point, Marthinus van Schalkwyk, the leader of the New National Party (NNP)—successor of the governing party that had imprisoned Mandela for 27 years before 1990—said that Mandela was “living proof that no jail can ever keep an idea imprisoned.” Mandela was succeeded by Thabo Mbeki, installed two weeks after the election on June 2. In the election the African National Congress (ANC) won 66.4% of the 16 million votes and formed a government that included representatives of the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP). The Democratic Party (DP), with 9.55%, displaced the NNP (6.87%) as the official opposition. The IFP achieved 8.58% and established a coalition government with the ANC in KwaZulu/Natal. The new United Democratic Movement (UDM) won 3.42%, principally in the Eastern Cape. In the Western Cape, despite the ANC's having won the largest share of the vote (42%), the DP and the NNP formed a coalition government.

      While Mandela's catchword as president had been “reconciliation” of the races, that of Mbeki was “transformation.” In speeches around the time of his inauguration, he spoke of a “caring society”; identified crime, job creation, and AIDS as the major challenges facing the country; and promised speedier delivery of social services. While the economic ministries remained intact, there were substantial changes to other Cabinet positions. Five ministers retired, and another two were replaced. ANC deputy president Jacob Zuma became deputy president after a deal to offer IFP president Gatsha Buthelezi the job fell through because the IFP would not concede the KwaZulu/Natal premiership to the ANC. Nkosasana Dlamini-Zuma, the former health minister, became minister of foreign affairs. The defense, security, and justice ministers were new, and in June a new police unit, modeled on the FBI in the United States, was formed to fight major crimes.

      In the election campaign the ANC stood on its record of the previous five years, including the provision of tap water to more than 3,000,000 people, electricity to 2,000,000 homes, telephones to about 2,000,000 people, and the building of 700,000 houses. It called for a better-managed global economy. The DP proclaimed itself the party with the “guts to fight back,” and its leader, Tony Leon, cultivated a belligerent anti-ANC attitude, including opposition to affirmative action, which observers believed attracted the votes of racist whites. In January the UDM leader in KwaZulu/Natal, Sifiso Nkabinde, was assassinated. In May a huge cache of arms delivered by the government to the IFP shortly before the 1994 elections and hidden since then was revealed by an IFP MP in KwaZulu/Natal.

      The new government soon had to face a dispute with 12 unions representing more than one million government workers demanding wage increases. The government angered the unions by imposing a wage increase unilaterally. The biggest-ever strike by government workers took place on July 29 and 30, and more than 800,000 participated in a “day of action” on August 24.

      The Heath Commission investigating corruption claimed to have recovered R 891 million (R 1 = about $0.167) up to April. In March former antiapartheid leader Alan Boesak was sentenced to six years in prison for the theft of R 1.3 million and fraud involving R 259,000. Louis Luyt, who in 1998 had challenged in court Mandela's right to appoint a commission to investigate the South African Rugby Football Union, formed a political party, the Federal Alliance, which won two seats in the election. The Constitutional Court threw out the rejection of the commission by a lower court. Wouter Basson, former head of the apartheid regime's chemical and biological weapons program, was placed on trial on 61 charges, including murder, conspiracy to murder, fraud, and theft. Truth and Reconciliation Commission amnesty hearings continued. Clive Derby-Lewis and Janusz Walus were denied amnesty for the assassination of Communist Party leader Chris Hani in 1993.

Foreign Affairs.

      Before his retirement Mandela paid his first official visits to Russia and to China. He was also credited with resolving the standoff between Pres. Muammar al-Qaddafi of Libya and the international community over the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scot., in 1988 by securing an agreement that resulted in Libya's handing over of two suspects in the bombing to stand trial in The Netherlands under Scottish law.

      The government put considerable diplomatic effort into a search for peace in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and managed to secure a peace agreement signed by six African nations in July and by the rebel forces in August. Tensions developed, however, between South Africa and Angola over South Africa's lack of firmness toward the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola, the Angolan rebel movement. In March a Mozambique court dismissed charges of gunrunning and espionage made in 1998 against South African foreign affairs official Robert McBride. In September President Mbeki, as chairman of the group of nonaligned nations, addressed the UN General Assembly and called for the reform of UN structures. An important trade agreement was concluded between the European Union and South Africa.

The Economy.

      The economy continued on the downward cycle that began in late 1996, worsened by the Asian financial crisis in 1998. Gross domestic product grew by only 0.5% in 1998, by 0.6% in the first quarter of 1999, and by 1.7% in the second quarter. In July mining employers and employees marched in Pretoria to protest the sale of gold by central banks in Europe, which caused the gold price to fall dramatically. The price decline led to thousands of further layoffs in the industry, adding to the 300,000 jobs lost in the sector since 1987. The economy had lost more than half a million jobs since 1994—186,000 during 1998 alone—and unemployment stood at 23–38% of the economically active population, depending on whether those who had not looked or had given up looking for jobs were included.

      The budget in February cut the corporate tax from 35% to 30% and projected spending of R 216.8 billion (up 6%) and income of R 191.7 billion (up 6.5%) in 1999–2000. Approximately 22% of the budget was to be spent on servicing the national debt. During the last six months of 1998, there was a net outflow of foreign investment amounting to R 400 million, and in the first six months of 1999, there was a net inflow of R 7.4 billion. The foreign debt stood at $38.8 billion at the end of 1998.

      In August Tito Mboweni took over as the first black governor of the South African Reserve Bank and reiterated that its main task was to combat inflation. Inflation fell to 1.9% in September, the lowest figure in 31 years, though “core inflation” (excluding bond rates) remained at 7.9%.

Martin Legassick

▪ 1999

Introduction

      Area: 1,219,090 sq km (470,693 sq mi)

      Population (1998 est.): 42,835,000

      Capitals (de facto): Pretoria (executive); Bloemfontein (judicial); Cape Town (legislative)

      Head of state and government: President Nelson Mandela

      In 1998 South Africa experienced bizarre allegations of conspiracies and also a political crisis in the national sport of rugby. In midyear the value of the rand plunged amid bitter controversy between the African National Congress (ANC) and its allies over economic policy. On his 80th birthday in July, Pres. Nelson Mandela married Graça Machel, widow of Samora Machel, former president of Mozambique.

Domestic Affairs.

      Opening Parliament on February 6, President Mandela highlighted the achievements of the ANC-led government while admitting that not all promises had been met. In particular, the target of one million new houses by 1999 would not be achieved. Moreover, he stated, the economy continued to shed too many jobs. On the positive side he pointed to 1.3 million people who had obtained water supplies, 421,000 who now had telephones, and 400,000 whose homes were wired for electricity; in addition, more than 500 health clinics were opened. Most serious crimes, he claimed, had decreased. Exports had increased, and incentives had attracted foreign investment, particularly to initiatives such as the Maputo corridor (linking South Africa and Mozambique). Leaders of opposition parties claimed that the ANC had the right ideas but was not implementing them properly.

      In March Mandela appointed a judicial inquiry into an intelligence report alleging a conspiracy to overthrow the government, involving army generals, the ANC, and other politicians. The inquiry found the allegations in the report to be "fraudulent and of no substance." It was widely believed that the report had been drawn up by white right-wing elements seeking to destabilize the government.

      During the midyear economic crisis, with the rand plunging in value, both Mandela and Deputy Pres. Thabo Mbeki delivered unprecedentedly harsh rebukes to the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) and the South African Communist Party (SACP), partners with the ANC in the Triple Alliance, for their opposition to the government's Growth, Employment, and Redistribution (GEAR) macroeconomic policy. COSATU and the SACP regarded GEAR as pro-business and antilabour and opposed its goals of reduced budget deficits, privatization, and more flexible labour markets. They argued for more government spending, including large-scale public works programs to create jobs and provide housing. Also, during the crisis the government announced that the governor of the Reserve Bank, Chris Stals, would be replaced at the end of his term in August 1999 by Minister of Labour Tito Mboweni, who would become the first black South African to hold the position.

      South African rugby experienced serious difficulties. Mandela appointed a commission of inquiry into allegations of racism and corruption in the South African Rugby Football Union (SARFU), which challenged in court his right to appoint such a commission. Unprecedentedly, the president was ordered by the court to appear as a witness. In the course of his testimony, Mandela called the SARFU president, Louis Luyt, "a pitiless dictator." In April the court overruled the appointment of the commission. Following this decision, the National Sports Council, claiming that Mandela's court appearance had humiliated him and the office of the presidency, called for the SARFU executive to resign or face an international rugby boycott. Luyt was eventually compelled to resign in May, and the new executive apologized to Mandela. In August the judge of the case caused an outcry when he presented reasons for his judgment, including that Mandela was a "less than satisfactory" witness who used the court as a "podium for political rhetoric."

      The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), concerned with human rights violations under apartheid, completed its main work at the end of July and submitted a five-volume report to President Mandela in late October. Since the TRC's inception in 1995, some 20,000 people had been involved in hearings, as victims or perpetrators. The hearings in 1998 included revelations on the chemical and biological weapons program of the apartheid regime. Former president P.W. Botha was convicted and fined R 10,000 (R 1 = about U.S. $0.18), with a one-year prison sentence suspended, for refusing to give evidence to the TRC about his government's policy toward human rights violations. Ferdi Barnard, a former agent of the apartheid regime's Civil Cooperation Bureau, was found guilty in June of the murder of antiapartheid activist David Webster in 1989 and 24 other crimes and received two life sentences.

      The Heath Commission, investigating apartheid-era corruption to the amount of at least R 16 billion, reported that it had "taken root through the entire administration." Former Bophuthatswana president Lucas Mangope was convicted on 105 counts of theft totaling R 4,840,000. Several provincial ANC parliamentary officials were found guilty of corruption and mismanagement and were forced to resign their positions.

      The National Party (NP) continued its decline. The Democratic Party (DP) won a number of former NP strongholds in municipal by-elections. Former and present NP leaders defected to the DP and the United Democratic Movement (UDM), formed by Roelf Meyer and Bantu Holomisa in 1997. Hernus Kriel was replaced as premier and NP provincial leader in the Western Cape by Gerald Morkel, the first Coloured person in the NP's history to hold such offices. Though rapprochement between Gatsha Buthelezi's Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) and the ANC continued, Cabinet Minister Sipo Mzimela, who aired the idea of an IFP-ANC merger, was forced by the IFP to recant and subsequently was replaced as IFP deputy chairman and removed from his position in the Cabinet.

The Economy.

      Affected by the ripples flowing from the economic crisis in Asia, the rand (which had remained stable since 1996) plunged 30% against the dollar, mainly from late May to mid-July, which caused the prime lending rate to soar to 24% and seriously affected the country's economic growth prospects. Gross domestic product grew by 1.7% in 1997, and its growth in 1998 was estimated after the rand's crisis at 0.5%. The government's revised figure for unemployment (bringing it into line with international definitions) was an estimated 22.9% (37.6% according to old estimates).

      Inflation, which averaged 8.6% in 1997, declined to 5% in April 1998 but had risen to 9.1% by September. The Reserve Bank replaced the bank rate with a more flexible "repo rate" system of monetary management in March. This was initially set at 15% (equivalent to a 1% cut in the bank rate) but was raised sharply during the rand crisis, which caused a general increase in interest rates.

      The budget in March projected 1998-99 spending at R 201.2 billion (a rise of 6.4%) and revenue at R 176.6 billion (up 9.3%). At 21% of the budget, interest payments continued to be the largest item, with education constituting 26% and health 14% of noninterest spending. The budget deficit was targeted at 3.5% (actual 1997-98 deficit was 4.3% against a targeted 4%).

      Workdays lost to strikes in 1998 reached the highest figure since 1994. A conference on job creation involving government, labour, and business was held in late October. Mzi Khumalo resigned in January as chairman and from the board of Johannesburg Consolidated Investments in what was seen as a setback for black empowerment, though other advances were made by black business during the year.

Foreign Affairs.

      In September the ANC-led government undertook its first military foray, controversially sending troops into Lesotho at the request of its government to prevent a coup. In August there was schism in the South African Development Community (SADC) when Zimbabwe and Angola sent troops to support the government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and South Africa did not.

      South Africa took the chair of the 113-member Non-Aligned Movement, which met in Durban in September, and stressed the necessity for reform of the international economic order. In late Marc, U.S. Pres. Bill Clinton visited South Africa for three days as part of an 11-day, 6-nation tour of Africa. He praised the ANC government and expressed wishes for a strong South Africa and a continued partnership between the two countries. President Mandela reaffirmed the government's intention of continuing relations with "pariah" states such as Cuba and Libya and expressed reservations concerning the Africa trade bill under discussion in the U.S. Congress. (See Spotlight: President Clinton's Africa Trip (President Clinton's Africa Trip: Seeing Things as They are ).)

      In a bizarre episode Foreign Affairs Ministry official Robert McBride spent six months in detention in Mozambique after his arrest in March on charges of arms smuggling and spying. McBride, imprisoned during the apartheid regime for the bombing of a beachfront bar in Durban, said his intention was to trap a Mozambican arms dealer. It was widely believed that he had been framed by apartheid-era agents still serving in South African government intelligence.

MARTIN LEGASSICK

▪ 1998

      Area: 1,219,090 sq km (470,693 sq mi)

      Population (1997 est.): 42,446,000

      Capitals (de facto): Pretoria (executive); Bloemfontein (judicial); Cape Town (legislative)

      Head of state and government: President Nelson Mandela

      South Africa in 1997 experienced shuffling and upheavals in its political parties, a sign of the approach of parliamentary elections in 1999. Crime continued as a major concern throughout the year. Police figures indicated an average of 52 murders each day, a rape every 30 minutes, a car stolen every 9 minutes, and an armed robbery every 11 minutes.

      Domestic Affairs. Opening Parliament on February 7, Pres. Nelson Mandela spoke of the fostering of a "new patriotism" and emphasized the government's commitment to its economic strategy, which involved cutting the budget deficit, restructuring state assets, and increasing exports. He pointed to the achievements of the African National Congress (ANC) government in the fields of nutrition, health care, education, housing, and provision of water and electricity. By November 1996 nearly two million hectares (five million acres) of land had been redistributed under the government's reform program. By mid-1997 more than one million households had been given access to clean piped water since 1994, and 900,000 electricity connections had been made in the preceding two years; by September 322,000 houses had been built since 1994 or were under construction. The minister of health generated controversy by introducing bills aimed at reducing the price of medicines and improving access to health care.

      In March Lieut. Gen. Siphiwe Nyanda, former leader of Umkhonto we Sizwe, the armed wing of the ANC, was appointed deputy chief of the National Defence Force and was slated to succeed Gen. George Meiring as chief when the latter's contract expired at the end of 1998. A national Council of Traditional Leaders, with limited powers, was inaugurated.

      The Truth and Reconciliation Commission, chaired by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, continued its hearings into gross violations of human rights between 1960 and 1993. Testimony from victims continued to be heard. In addition, a committee considered applications for amnesty from perpetrators. There were also a number of special hearings. F.W. de Klerk, testifying for the National Party (NP), denied that the party had presided over systematic criminal activity or that assassination had formed a part of its policy in the 1980s. This prompted Tutu to state at a press conference that he found this hard to understand, which, in turn, caused the NP to suspend participation in the commission and take it to court, demanding an apology from Tutu and the resignation of the commission's vice-chairman. By late in the year, police had admitted to the use of torture and hired killers during the NP regime in the 1980s, and it was also confirmed that newspapers had been infiltrated by security police spies during that time. As the hearings continued, a conflict developed between police personnel, who asserted they had been ordered to "eliminate," i.e., kill, black political opponents of the government, and politicians and senior police and military officials, who insisted that the police had misunderstood them and that words such as eliminate meant merely to "politically neutralize." Former president P.W. Botha had been subpoenaed to appear before the commission, but this was postponed for health reasons. The ANC admitted to a number of human rights violations, including a plan to assassinate Chief Mangosuthu Gatsha Buthelezi, leader of the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP), which was countermanded by ANC headquarters.

      Former president F.W. de Klerk resigned as leader of the NP at the end of August on the grounds that he was a burden to the party because his opponents viewed him as a "symbol of the past." He was succeeded by Marthinus van Schalkwyk, who took over a party that, apart from its base in the Western Cape, was described as "in tatters" by commentators.

      In February Roelf Meyer stepped down as secretary-general of the NP to head a task force that was to examine ways of reforming the party, including dissolving it to form a new political movement. In May he was relieved of this job, and shortly afterward he resigned from the NP. He formed the New Movement Process to canvass for a new party, which attracted numbers of local leaders of the NP. Soon he linked up with Bantu Holomisa, who had been expelled from the ANC in 1996 and had then formed the National Consultative Forum. Holomisa obtained support from Lucas Mangope, former president of Bophuthatswana, and from Sifiso Nkabinde, ANC leader from Richmond in Natal, who had been expelled from the ANC in April as a police spy. Mangope was indicted on 208 charges of fraud, theft, and attempted theft during the year, involving more than R 16 million. Nkabinde, with 17 others, was arrested in September on 18 charges of murder dating back to 1993, including the killing of five men—two ANC councillors among them—in July. Holomisa and Meyer launched the United Democratic Movement in September, excluding Mangope and Nkabinde on the grounds that both were subject to criminal charges.

      In December the ANC held a conference at which Nelson Mandela was replaced as president by Thabo Mbeki, establishing the latter as the presumptive successor to Mandela as president of the country.

      Buthelezi, president of the IFP and minister of home affairs, was appointed acting president several times during the year during the absences abroad of President Mandela and Deputy President Mbeki. This symbolized a growing rapprochement between the ANC and the IFP and a substantial diminution of violence between them. Walter Felgate, an IFP stalwart and leading adviser to Buthelezi for 20 years, surprised observers by resigning from the IFP to join the ANC.

      The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), with a membership of approximately 1.8 million (up from 1.3 million in 1994), on June 2 called a 24-hour general strike against the Basic Conditions of Employment Bill; it claimed a participation of more than two million. It held a one-hour stoppage on August 4 with a similar turnout, successful regional general strikes during August 19-23, and a two-day general strike on October 27-28. The employment bill reduced the workweek from 46 hours to 45 and granted four months of unpaid maternity leave, but COSATU wanted a 40-hour workweek and six months of maternity leave, of which four were to be paid. COSATU also opposed the government's economic strategy, arguing that its focus on reduction of the budget deficit would not promote job creation.

      In April Eugene Terreblanche, leader of the extreme-right-wing Afrikaanse Weerstandsbeweging, was convicted of the attempted murder of a black worker and serious assault on another. Clarence Makwetu was replaced as leader of the Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC) in December 1996 by Stanley Mogoba. His supporters refused to accept the change, and eventually Makwetu was expelled from the PAC for three years. In one of a series of advances for black business, Mzi Khumalo's Capital Alliance-led African Mining Group took over the mining house JCI.

      The Economy. Economic growth slowed during the year. In 1996 gross domestic product had grown by 3.1%, boosted by agriculture in the first part of the year. In the first quarter of 1997, GDP fell by 1%, but in the second quarter it grew by 2.1%, and growth of 2-2.5% was estimated for the year.

      As in the past, economic growth was not matched by growth in employment. Registered unemployment in December 1996 was 4.2 million (29.3% of the economically active population). The government estimated that 71,000 jobs were lost in the nonagricultural sector in 1996 and 42,000 in the first quarter of 1997, against the government's target of creating 126,000 jobs in 1996. Since 1990, 422,000 workers, 7% of the workforce, had lost their jobs.

      The rate of inflation in 1996 was 7.4%, the lowest since 1972, but it was projected to increase to 9% in 1997. The bank rate, which had been raised from 16% to 17% in November 1996, was cut to 16% in October 1997. The budget in March estimated 1997-98 spending at R 186,747,000,000 (an increase of 6.1% over the previous year). Education and interest payments on the national debt were the largest items, consuming 21% each. The budget deficit was projected to be 4% of GDP. As of July 1, some exchange controls were relaxed, with residents allowed to invest R 200,000 abroad.

      Foreign Affairs. Beginning in February, as Laurent Kabila's (seeBIOGRAPHIES (Kabila, Laurent Desire )) Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo started the military capture of cities in Zaire, President Mandela and Deputy President Mbeki moved to the centre of the African diplomatic stage. They took the lead in mediating between Kabila and Pres. Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire for a peaceful and democratic transition of power; this included the first face-to-face meeting between Mobutu and Kabila.

      Binational commissions similar to that established with the United States were established with Germany and Great Britain. Arms sales continued to provoke controversy. In January the U.S. criticized the government for proposing to sell arms to Syria. A South African newspaper was almost taken to court for having revealed a proposed arms deal with Saudi Arabia. The National Conventional Arms Control Committee, established to oversee arms sales, blocked sales to Turkey. President Mandela made two official state visits to Asian countries, which signifed a "south to south" emphasis in foreign policy.

MARTIN LEGASSICK

      This article updates South Africa, history of (South Africa).

▪ 1997

Introduction

      South Africa, a member of the Commonwealth, occupies the southern tip of Africa, with the Atlantic Ocean to the west and the Indian Ocean to the east. Area: 1,219,090 sq km (470,693 sq mi). Pop. (1996 est.): 41,743,000. Executive cap., Pretoria; judicial cap., Bloemfontein; legislative cap., Cape Town. Monetary unit: South African rand, with (Oct. 11, 1996) a free rate of R 4.54 to U.S. $1 (R 7.16 = £1 sterling). President in 1996, Nelson Mandela.

Affairs.

      During 1996 the Constitutional Assembly drew up a new constitution for South Africa, replacing the interim constitution under which the country was functioning and consolidating the transition to democracy that took place in 1994. At the same time, the political honeymoon that the government of national unity (GNU), dominated by the African National Congress (ANC), had enjoyed since it was elected in 1994 came to a decisive end. The National Party (NP) left the GNU at the end of June—its first time out of government since 1948—and the regime came under criticism from a number of quarters. The rand began to fall in value in February and by the end of June had lost 20% of its value. An increase in crime, particularly violent crime, attracted attention throughout the year.

      In January Pres. Nelson Mandela spelled out goals for the year, including the continuation of reconciliation, based on the ending of racial discrimination. He called for a "new patriotism" and a united crusade against crime and the "culture of rapacity." Criticizing a search for "short-lived quick solutions" and warning people not to expect entitlements from the state, he said that the government would have to improve on its delivery of services to the people. The Masekhane campaign, which aimed to end the widespread boycotting of rent and service payments, continued with varying success through the year; in April 77% of the people in Soweto were reported as not paying for municipal services.

      Among the accomplishments of the government was the enactment of a law permitting abortion on demand up to the 12th week of pregnancy; this was fiercely opposed by antiabortion groups and was due to be challenged in the Constitutional Court. Disadvantaged rural groups such as labour tenants had their legal right to own land acknowledged and promoted. A new health and safety act based on international standards and legislation promised to improve conditions in the mining industry. A national youth commission was established. With only approximately 4,000 houses a month under construction, there was a renewed emphasis on a state-private partnership in building rental housing stock for the poor. A new chief justice, Ismail Mahomed, the first black to occupy the post, was appointed.

      Mandela said that the enactment of the new constitution "cleansed" the country "of a horrible past." The first draft of the constitution was passed in May. The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) called a general strike on April 30 to oppose the introduction in the constitution of a clause guaranteeing employers the right to lock out workers. The strike was supported by many workers in industrial areas and was accompanied by demonstrations of 300,000 people, and it succeeded in eliminating the clause. Among other changes from the interim constitution were a protection of property clause, which empowered the state to engage in land redistribution, and the replacement of the Senate by a National Council of Provinces. Compulsory power sharing among parties was abolished. Chief Mangosuthu Gatsha Buthelezi, home affairs minister and leader of the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP), which had boycotted the Constitutional Assembly, labeled the draft constitution as that of a "totalitarian autocracy." KwaZulu/Natal enacted its own provincial constitution in March, with 9 of its 14 chapters frozen as "unresolved matters" in disputes between the IFP and the ANC.

      The Constitutional Court considered the national and KwaZulu/Natal constitutions. It rejected the latter, regarding it as containing many provisions intended to usurp national power. It considered the former a "monumental achievement," taking issue with only nine of its provisions, including the fact that provincial powers were substantially less than those in the interim constitution. The Constitutional Assembly, again boycotted by the IFP, resubmitted a revised constitution to the court, which approved it in December. The IFP argued that the local government powers accorded to chiefs were insufficient.

      While the levels of violence in Natal diminished in comparison with previous years, the situation there remained tense. Though booed by them, Mandela at a top-level meeting attended by King Goodwill Zwelithini and Buthelezi on March 15 chided chiefs in Natal for their support of violence. In April several of King Zwelithini's wives were assaulted and a relative was murdered, allegedly by supporters of the IFP, during an attack on one of the king's palaces. On May 4 police fought running gun battles in Durban with marchers of the pro-IFP National Hostels Residents Association.

      Local elections were held in the Western Cape on May 29. The NP won 48.2% of the vote and thus consolidated at the local level the provincial victory it had won with 53.2% of the vote in the 1994 general election. Local elections took place in KwaZulu/Natal on June 26. The ANC won in Durban, Pietermaritzburg, and most other towns. The IFP, losing 6% support since the general election, still obtained a majority of votes in the province because of its strength in the rural areas.

      In early February NP leader F.W. de Klerk complained of a breakdown of standards and of family life, of poor delivery of services, and of nonpayment of rent in the townships. He condemned the influence of radical trade unions and called for a new opposition alliance based on "Christian principles." When the NP departed from the government, it criticized the "pro-worker" labour relations clauses, the exclusion of the death penalty, and the abandonment of power sharing in the final constitution. The NP declared it would form a "dynamic but responsible" opposition.

      Concern about crime was demonstrated by People Against Gangsterism and Drugs (Pagad), which burst onto the scene in the Western Cape in August when a mass demonstration that it organized resulted in the shooting and burning alive of a gangster leader outside his house. Pagad, which split into two factions, continued demonstrations at the houses of alleged gangsters. Gang leaders in the Western Cape claimed they were dissolving their gangs and working for peace.

      A number of Cabinet changes took place during the year. In February the NP minister of welfare and population development, Abe Williams, resigned after allegations of corruption in his department. During the same month, the NP minister of constitutional development, Roelf Meyer, left the Cabinet to become secretary-general of the NP. Soon after presenting the budget in March, the nonparty finance minister, Chris Liebenberg, resigned and was replaced by the ANC's Trevor Manuel. At the same time, the responsibility for overseeing the Reconstruction and Development Program was transferred from a minister without portfolio to the deputy president, Thabo Mbeki. Cyril Ramaphosa, the chairperson of the Constitutional Assembly and secretary-general of the ANC, resigned from both positions to become executive chairperson of the black-owned New Africa Investments. This company subsequently was involved in a takeover of the Anglo-American-owned Johnnic, which was seen as a step toward black economic empowerment. ANC legislators filled the Cabinet posts vacated by NP members in June, and Ben Magubane of the IFP left the Cabinet to enter the KwaZulu/Natal government.

      After a 19-month trial, Col. Eugene de Kock, a former policeman in charge of "hit squads," was found guilty in August of 89 of the 121 charges against him, including 6 of murder and 2 of conspiracy to murder. In an effort to mitigate his sentence, he implicated many former senior officials of the regime in such "dirty tricks" as the planting of weapons caches, which was blamed on the ANC, and in hit squad activity, including operations previously alleged to have been committed by the liberation movements.

      To the surprise of many, former defense minister Magnus Malan, Zakhele Khumalo, the deputy general secretary of the IFP, and 19 others were acquitted on charges stemming from the massacre of 13 United Democratic Front supporters at KwaMakhutha, Natal, in January 1987. The judge stated that the killings had been committed by (unknown) Inkatha members given military training by the former South African Defense Force.

      During the year the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) began hearing evidence on human rights violations between 1960 and 1993; the TRC was chaired by Nobel Peace Prize winner Desmond Tutu, who retired as archbishop of Cape Town in June. Most of the testimony to the TRC was presented by victims of such violations, mainly at the hands of the state and its agents but also by liberation forces. Perpetrators of violations could apply for amnesty to the TRC provided they fully disclosed their responsibility for and role in such violations. By the year's end few perpetrators had testified. A former chief of police alleged that P.W. Botha while president of the country had in 1988 authorized the bombing by police of Khotso House, headquarters of the South African Council of Churches. Senior police officers also admitted their responsibility for the blowing up of the headquarters of COSATU as well as for the murders of activists in the 1980s. The TRC commissioners charged the police with having destroyed past files that provided evidence of violations. The TRC was scheduled to submit its final report by March 1998.

      In May the former ruler of the Transkei, Gen. Bantu Holomisa, testified to the TRC and claimed that ANC Cabinet minister Stella Sigcau had received a R 50,000 bribe from millionaire hotel owner Sol Kerzner under the Transkei government of George Matanzima. Subsequently, Holomisa alleged that other ANC leaders had received favours from Kerzner and that the ANC had secretly received R 2 million for its 1994 election campaign from Kerzner (which was subsequently admitted by Nelson Mandela). This led to Holomisa's dismissal as deputy minister of environmental affairs and tourism in July and to his subsequent expulsion from the ANC. Many rank-and-file members of the ANC opposed these actions, and Holomisa announced that he would form a new political party.

      There was conflict over economic policy between the ANC and its partners in the "triple alliance," COSATU and the South African Communist Party. In June the government announced a "macroeconomic strategy," targeting 6% growth and the creation of as many as 800,000 jobs by the year 2000 on the basis of attracting foreign investment. It aimed at budget deficit reduction, exchange control relaxation, wage and price "moderation," and labour market "flexibility." COSATU and the Communist Party described the strategy as "neoliberal" and opposed its calls for wage and fiscal restraint. Responding to the opposition of the unions in COSATU, Mandela declared in Germany in May that privatization was "the fundamental policy of the ANC." Several unions supported a one-day strike against privatization on July 2.

The Economy.

      The economic upswing that began in May 1993 continued into 1996, though there were signs of a slowdown. Gross domestic product (GDP) grew by 3.3% in 1995, the largest gain since 1988. Manufacturing grew by 7.6%, while agriculture and mining declined. Anticipated GDP growth in 1996 was 3%. Gross domestic fixed investment rose 10.4% in 1995 and 6% in the first half of 1996. It was expected to increase by 4-7% in 1996 overall.

      The economic upturn was, however, described as "jobless growth." Only 12,000 jobs had been created since May 1993, and since that time manufacturing, mining, and construction had lost 126,052 jobs. Employment in manufacturing had been stagnant since the mid-1980s. Unemployment in 1996 was estimated by the Central Statistical Services at 32.6%, and it was estimated that 280,000 were added to the unemployed in 1995-96.

      In 1995 the rand depreciated only 2.66%, but during 1996 it lost some 20% of its value. Inflation reached a 24-year low of 5.5% in April, then rose to 7.5% by August, and was anticipated to be less than 8% for the year, compared with 8.7% in 1995.

      The budget contained some tax relief for individuals and companies. There was a 10.4% increase in spending to R 173.7 billion, with interest repayments on debt accounting for 18.7%, education for 21.2%, health 9.9%, and welfare 9.6%.

Foreign Affairs.

      President Mandela was warmly greeted on his first official visit to the United Kingdom, and he shared a platform with French Pres. Jacques Chirac on Bastille Day (July 14) in Paris. Also, in July he met with Presidents Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, Sir Ketumile Masire of Botswana, and Joaquim Chissano of Mozambique to discuss the conflict over democratic reform in Swaziland. Mandela was elected chairperson of the Southern African Development Community in August. South Africa also became chair of the UN Conference on Trade and Development.

      The second report of the Cameron Commission, appointed to investigate arms sales, recommended the disbandment of the Armscor board of directors and that Armscor no longer have the power to determine to whom arms were sold. To protests from the arms industry, the commission recommended that all future arms deals be authorized by Parliament and made public. The government accepted the recommendations. Despite evidence of illegal exports of arms to Rwanda and Burundi, the government, against the opposition of human rights groups, approved the sale of arms to the Rwandan government in October.

      South Africa had been one of the few governments to maintain diplomatic relations with both Taiwan and China, but late in the year it severed ties with Taiwan. Its relations with the U.S. included a binational commission chaired by U.S. Vice Pres. Al Gore and Deputy President Mbeki. The South African government backed away from Mandela's call at the 1995 Commonwealth Conference for sanctions against Nigeria for human rights violations. Controversy arose over Mandela's meetings with Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan and with a representative of the Palestine organization Hamas and over relations with Libya, Cuba, and Iran.

      (MARTIN LEGASSICK)

      This article updates South Africa, history of (South Africa).

▪ 1996

Introduction

      South Africa, a member of the Commonwealth, occupies the southern tip of Africa, with the Atlantic Ocean to the west and the Indian Ocean to the east. Area: 1,219,080 sq km (470,689 sq mi). Pop. (1995 est.): 41,465,000. Executive cap., Pretoria; judicial cap., Bloemfontein; legislative cap., Cape Town. Monetary unit: South African rand, with (Oct. 6, 1995) a free rate of R 3.66 to U.S. $1 (R 5.79 = £1 sterling); the dual exchange rate system introduced in 1979 was abolished on March 13, 1995. State president in 1995, Nelson Mandela.

Affairs.

      Opening Parliament in February 1995, Pres. Nelson Mandela threatened battle against the "forces of anarchy and chaos." He called for the country to become "investor-friendly," warning that freedom did not mean license and that the government did not have the means to meet the demands on it. People must rid themselves, he said, of the "culture of entitlement." A campaign was instituted to try to break the boycott of rent and service payments, estimated to involve 80% of black township residents. Mandela also continued his policy of racial reconciliation, holding a lunch for the wives of former presidents and prime ministers together with those of liberation movement leaders and taking tea with Betsie Verwoerd, widow of a leading architect of apartheid, Hendrik Verwoerd. Mandela expressed his sympathy for the Freedom Front's idea of an Afrikaner volkstaat because "compromise is something very important" in nation building.

      Implementation of the government's reconstruction and development program proceeded slowly, owing to limited financial resources, bureaucratic inertia, and delayed transference of powers to provincial and local governments. Plans were, however, proposed for a publicly funded and universally accessible primary health care system, and a program of state subsidies for housing for the poor was initiated. A new framework for national education was legislated. In October it was reported that more than 300 rural water projects, benefiting 3.5 million people, and improvements of more than 600 municipal services were completed or would be within the next 18 months.

      The year was punctuated by tensions between the parties constituting the government of national unity, particularly as local elections approached in November. The issues revolved particularly around the relative powers of central government and provinces. The National Party (NP) became torn by conflict over how to carve an independent profile as a party of opposition to the dominant African National Congress (ANC) while continuing to serve in the government, conflict that was resolved only by the authority of its leader, Deputy Pres. F.W. de Klerk.

      In January, to the anger of the NP, the ANC denied the validity of the indemnity granted just before the April 1994 election by the NP government in secret to 3,500 policemen and two former Cabinet ministers. It said that their cases had to be considered by the Truth and Conciliation Commission, which was established during the year. In the same month, in an atmosphere of wildcat strikes by black police and accusations of white racism in the police, police chief Johan van der Merwe resigned and was replaced by George Fivaz, who pledged himself to reform in the police force, including the demilitarization of ranks. Concern about the nation's rising crime rate mounted during the year, and the government imposed tougher bail conditions on criminals. The newly established Constitutional Court controversially abolished the death penalty on June 6.

      The trial of former security policeman Col. Eugene de Kock on 121 charges of murder, kidnapping, fraud, and theft produced further evidence of past police involvement in assassinations and the fomenting of political violence. Prominent Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) leaders were alleged to have been in the pay of the security police. A secret report of the Goldstone Commission to President de Klerk in 1994 was published that alleged the security police had been "involved for many years in the most serious criminal conduct including murder, fraud, blackmail, and a huge operation of dishonest political disinformation." Prominent former policemen criticized the report for a lack of facts.

      In pursuit of the goal of maximum autonomy for the KwaZulu/Natal province, Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi, IFP leader and home affairs minister, was elected chairman of the KwaZulu/Natal House of Traditional Leaders in January against the opposition of King Goodwill Zwelithini, who—to the consternation of other traditional leaders in KwaZulu/Natal—had distanced himself from the IFP. Both the ANC and King Goodwill declared this House unconstitutionally established. The IFP walked out of Parliament in February, alleging that the ANC had broken its 1994 pledge to international mediation regarding the form of the South African state and restoration of the Zulu kingdom. The ANC claimed that these were matters for decision by the Constitutional Assembly (both houses of Parliament meeting to draw up a final constitution). The IFP returned to Parliament but withdrew in April from participation in the Constitutional Assembly and later from an intergovernmental forum of regional premiers. Buthelezi accused the ANC of attempting to establish a "one-party hegemony" in the country; the ANC in response accused the IFP of advocating secession of KwaZulu/Natal.

      In response to calls by Buthelezi for the Zulu people to "rise and resist" central government, President Mandela in May threatened to cut government funds to KwaZulu/Natal and stepped up the army and police presence in the province. Mandela claimed Buthelezi was fomenting violence, while Buthelezi claimed he was calling for peaceful mass resistance. In June Mandela admitted that in March 1994 he had given guards at the ANC headquarters in Johannesburg "shoot to kill" orders in self-defense against an IFP demonstration, which had resulted in deaths. To the anger of the IFP, Parliament passed legislation authorizing payment of the salaries of traditional leaders by the central government rather than the provinces. In the KwaZulu/Natal legislature, the IFP tried to secure the passage of a provincial constitution described as "highly confederal," including provision for an army and sovereignty over territorial waters, but could not secure the necessary two-thirds majority for this. There was evidence of tension between hard-liners and moderates in the IFP, the latter favouring greater cooperation with the ANC in government.

      In the months prior to the April 1994 election, death tolls of 300 persons a month due to political violence were being recorded in Natal. They declined in the months following the election to a low of 57 in March 1995 but began to increase again thereafter, to about 70 a month. There were nearly 80 deaths in one week in July and 55 in one week in August. Accusations were made by the ANC of a "culture of immunity" in KwaZulu/Natal and of failure to prosecute perpetrators of violence. In June a special investigative unit secured the arrest of the IFP's deputy secretary-general, Zakhele Khumalo, and two police officers on 13 counts of murder committed in 1987.

      Local elections held on November 1, except in certain parts of the Western Cape and Natal, resulted in substantial gains for the ANC. In the NP-governed Western Cape, the elections were delayed because of a dispute with the government over whether the populous African township Khayelitsha should be included in the Tygerberg area or with central Cape Town. The controversy was taken to the Constitutional Court, where it escalated into a dispute over the relative powers of central and provincial governments. A draft constitution presented by Cyril Ramaphosa, the chairman of the Constitutional Assembly, on November 22 would give the regional governments more power in the South African federal structure through a new upper chamber of Parliament.

      A Labour Relations Act guaranteeing the right to strike was passed. It contained the innovative idea of workplace forums as arenas of management-worker cooperation. The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), the National Congress of Trade Unions, and the Federation of South African Labour Unions engaged in demonstrations and a half-day general strike in June to secure more favourable terms for workers in the act. The final version of the act was described by COSATU's general secretary, Sam Shilowa, as a "quantum leap for workers." Workdays lost in industrial strikes in 1995 were the lowest in many years. There were, however, wildcat strikes by nurses and a strike in four provinces by municipal workers demanding higher pay.

      Winnie Mandela, the estranged wife of President Mandela, criticized the ANC for overindulgence in racial reconciliation at the expense of the masses. In February, 11 leaders of the ANC Women's League resigned in protest against her conduct as president of the League. In March, while Mandela was absent in West Africa, her home was raided by police looking for evidence of financial misdealing. She was dismissed on March 27 as deputy minister of arts, culture, science, and technology. Though the dismissal was reversed in court on a technicality, she resigned on April 17. During the year President Mandela instituted divorce proceedings against her.

      The Rev. Allan Boesak, former leader of the Western Cape ANC and ambassador-designate to the United Nations in Geneva, was accused by donors to DanChurch Aid of unlawfully enriching himself at the expense of the Foundation for Peace and Justice, which he headed. He resigned his appointment as ambassador in February. Amid similar cases of alleged corruption, the ANC drew up a code of financial conduct for its parliamentarians, requiring them to reveal their own and their families' business interests.

      At a conference in April, the South African Communist Party (SACP) reported 50,000 members, 50 of them serving as ANC members of Parliament or government ministers and three as provincial premiers of the nine provinces. Two prominent SACP leaders, Joe Slovo (Slovo, Joe ) and Harry Gwala (Gwala, Harry ), died during the year. (See OBITUARIES.)

      In one of the country's worst-ever mining disasters, more than 100 miners died at Vaal Reefs gold mine in May when a runaway underground locomotive fell on top of an elevator carrying them down a shaft. The Rugby Union World Cup was staged in the country in May and June and was won by the South African team, the Springboks.

The Economy.

      The economic upswing that began in May 1993 continued, strongly in the second half of 1994 and more weakly in the first half of 1995. Gross domestic product (GDP) grew by 2.3% in 1994—the first year since 1988 that it had exceeded population growth—and by 1.5% in the first quarter of 1995 and 0.8% in the second, pulled down by poor performances in agriculture and mining. GDP growth for 1995 was predicted at 2.8-3%. The upswing was fueled by gross domestic fixed investment (GDFI), which grew by 7% in 1994 (the first year of growth since 1989) and by 5% in the first quarter and 8% in the second quarter of 1995. GDFI was expected to grow by more than 10% in 1995 overall. In 1994 this represented a few big investments by private companies, but in 1995 it was becoming more widely distributed.

      Official estimates put unemployment at about 4.7 million, one-third of the economically active population. Between 1990 and 1994 formal-sector employment shrank by 8%. Despite the upswing, it declined by 0.5% in 1994 to 7,410,000 jobs, but growth was anticipated in 1995.

      The upswing continued to stimulate imports of capital goods. A surplus on the current account of the balance of payments of R 500 million in the first half of 1994 was transformed into a deficit of R 2.1 billion for the year overall. During the first half of 1995, the deficit was R 5.6 billion, which led to estimates of an annualized deficit of R 8 billion-R 10 billion. Net capital inflows of R 8.8 billion in the second half of 1994 (compared with an outflow of R 3.8 billion in the first half) and of R 9.8 billion in the first half of 1995 allowed this deficit to be sustainable. At the end of June, gross foreign exchange reserves were R 15.2 billion, about six weeks of exports. The governor of the reserve bank expressed concern that much of the capital inflow was short-term and warned that the upswing was exposing the insufficiency of domestic savings and the nation's low labour productivity.

      The dual rand (financial and commercial), an exchange control measure, was abolished in March without substantially affecting the value of the currency. In June a series of measures liberalizing trade were introduced, with phased major reductions in tariff protection barriers and the scrapping of the local content requirements in the automobile industry.

      The first budget wholly drawn up by the government of national unity allocated 46.7% of spending to social services (compared with 44% in 1994-95). Education received 26%, the largest amount, and the allocation for housing and urban upgrading, at 2.7%, was more than doubled from 1994-95. Interest payments on debt accounted for 18.6% of spending, the second largest amount. Military spending was cut by 11.7% to R 9.8 billion, which represented a continuing decline since 1989. A decision on whether to purchase four new corvettes for the navy was postponed by the Cabinet. The budget's deficit before borrowing was projected at 5.8% of GDP, compared with 6.4% in 1994-95.

      Consumer price inflation reached a low of 7.1% in April 1994, averaged 9% for 1994 as a whole (the lowest since 1972), increased to 11% by June 1995, and fell to 6.4% in September, the lowest rate in 23 years. The money supply increased at rates deemed excessive by the reserve bank, which increased its interest charges to other banks from 13% in September 1994 to 15% at the end of June 1995.

Foreign Affairs.

      South Africa had planned during the year to place more emphasis on "south-south" relations: with countries in southern Africa and Asia. Criticism, however, emerged concerning the lacklustre qualities of Foreign Affairs Minister Alfred Nzo and the failure to provide the moral leadership expected of the Mandela presidency and to replace staff of the former government. This criticism focused particularly on the failure to criticize the human rights records of such governments as Indonesia, Nigeria, Kenya, and The Sudan and on the decision to store oil for the Iranian government.

      Despite urging by the Organization of African Unity to commit its army to peacekeeping forces in Africa, the new government insisted that its priorities were domestic. In Angola it offered to provide demolition specialists to detect mines laid in that nation's long civil war. South Africa was criticized for its support for the "Big Five" nuclear powers at the UN nuclear nonproliferation summit in April but responded that its package of proposals for strengthening the operation of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty had been accepted by the conference.

      The Cameron Commission investigated the clandestine sales of weapons to other nations by the government-owned Armscor, which had occurred under the former government. It recommended that arms sales be based on the country's "commitment to democracy, human rights, and international peace and security," and a list of countries to which arms sales were permissible was prepared. Control over such sales was transferred from Armscor to a Cabinet committee. Armscor obtained contracts to supply arms to UN forces in Rwanda and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

      The European Union on March 29 agreed to reduce trade tariffs on South African goods during the next 10 years. South Africa would also receive ECU 500 million in aid over the next four years. (MARTIN LEGASSICK)

      This updates the article South Africa, history of (South Africa).

▪ 1995

Introduction

      South Africa, a member of the Commonwealth, occupies the southern tip of Africa, with the Atlantic Ocean to the west and the Indian Ocean to the east. The territory of South Africa in late 1994 excluded Walvis Bay (an exclave of Cape Province after 1910), which was jointly administered with Namibia 1992-94; it became part of Namibia on Feb. 28, 1994. South Africa included the former nominally independent, but not internationally recognized, republics of Bophuthatswana, Ciskei, Transkei, and Venda, which were reincorporated in March and April 1994. Area: 1,223,201 sq km (472,281 sq mi). Pop. (1994 est.): 41,749,000. Executive cap., Pretoria; judicial cap., Bloemfontein; legislative cap., Cape Town. Monetary unit: South African rand, with (Oct. 7, 1994) a financial rate of R 4.17 to U.S. $1 (R 6.64 = £ 1 sterling) and a commercial rate of R 3.57 to U.S. $1 (R 5.68 = £1 sterling). State presidents in 1994, Frederik W. de Klerk and, from May 10, Nelson Mandela.

Affairs.

      South Africa's first one-person one-vote election took place April 26-29, 1994. It was characterized by millions of people waiting patiently for hours in kilometre-long lines to vote for the first time in their lives. Held under rules set by a negotiated interim constitution, the election was won by the African National Congress (ANC), which gained nearly two-thirds of the vote. In a colourful and celebratory ceremony on May 10 attended by hosts of foreign dignitaries, under a new South African flag, ANC president Nelson Mandela, a political prisoner in South Africa for 27 years, was inaugurated as president of the republic and head of a government of national unity. "We pledge ourselves to liberate all our people from the continuing bondage of poverty, deprivation, suffering, gender and other discrimination," he said in his address. ANC chairman Thabo Mbeki (see BIOGRAPHIES (Mbeki, Thabo )) and former president F.W. de Klerk of the National Party (NP) became deputy presidents. U.S. Vice Pres. Al Gore remarked that "the nation that once was a pariah will now become a beacon of hope."

      The election results were: ANC 62.7%; NP 20.4%; Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) 10.5%; Freedom Front 2.2%; Democratic Party 1.7%; Pan Africanist Congress 1.2%; African Christian Democratic Party 0.5%. The election installed a National Assembly of 400 members and a Senate of 90 members, which would also function jointly as the body for writing a final constitution for the country. It also installed parliaments in nine regions. The ANC took office in all regions except the Western Cape, won by the NP, and KwaZulu/Natal, won by the IFP.

      The postelection euphoria contrasted with the months leading up to the election. They were presided over by a Transitional Executive Council (TEC) in uneasy relationship with the NP government and were fraught with tension, ultraright sabotage, and threats of civil war and secession. A National Peacekeeping Force, which began training in January to police the election, failed dismally, being withdrawn within days of its first deployment in townships in April. It was subsequently dissolved.

      The parties of the Freedom Alliance—the Afrikaner Volksfront (AVF), Chief Mangosuthu Gatsha Buthelezi's KwaZulu/Natal-based IFP, Lucas Mangope of the nominally independent Bophuthatswana, and Brig. Joshua Oupa Gqozo of the nominally independent Ciskei—had withdrawn from constitutional negotiations and declared an election boycott because of dissatisfaction with the insufficiently federal nature of the interim constitution. They threatened a nationwide passive-resistance campaign. Initial concessions made to them by the multiparty negotiating council included a double ballot paper (allowing separate national and regional votes), constitutional establishment of a volkstaat (people's state) council to consider possible self-determination for Afrikaners, and constitutional recognition of the name KwaZulu/Natal. These, however, did not appease the Alliance.

      Events took a dramatic turn in mid-March when Mangope's government in Bophuthatswana was brought down as the result of strikes by public servants anxious about pension rights in a "new South Africa." The strikes precipitated a popular uprising joined by the Bophuthatswana police. An attempt by the white ultraright to deploy its forces in defense of the Mangope government failed, and the TEC appointed a temporary administration in the area. As many as 70 people were killed and 300 wounded in the course of these developments.

      Angered by the role of the paramilitary, ultraright Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (AWB) in these events, Gen. Constand Viljoen split the AVF by registering a party for the elections named the Freedom Front, and he later signed an agreement with the NP and ANC on conditions for recognition of a volkstaat. Later in March, Gqozo, head of state in Ciskei, surrendered office to a TEC-appointed administration in the face of a police mutiny.

      This left the IFP as the main party favouring a boycott (or postponement) of the election. Its opposition posed dangers of violence; during the preceding decade there had been 10,000-20,000 deaths from political violence in KwaZulu/Natal, with 2,145 deaths in 1993 alone (according to the Human Rights Commission). In speeches in January and March, Zulu King Goodwill Zwelithini openly supported the IFP, declaring that the interim constitution was "deeply offensive" to the Zulu people, who had "never once been conquered in war." By proclaiming KwaZulu/Natal as a "sovereign entity," he appeared to threaten secession. The IFP organized "self-protection units" and occupied stadia in which the ANC was intending to hold election rallies. In a climate of increasing violence (with 311 deaths from political violence in Natal in March and 338 in April) and of demonstrations and counterdemonstrations, the ANC urged the TEC to appoint a new administration in KwaZulu/Natal to ensure free and fair elections.

      On March 28 a large IFP demonstration in Johannesburg was fired on, resulting in 56 deaths and leaving some 400 people injured. A state of emergency was declared in 10 districts in the Transvaal and in KwaZulu/Natal. High-level talks in April between de Klerk, Mandela, Buthelezi, and King Zwelithini failed to resolve the matters in dispute, as did an attempt at mediation by Henry Kissinger of the U.S. and Lord Carrington of Britain. On April 19, however, a week before the election, an agreement was reached that achieved constitutional recognition of the Zulu monarchy and Zulu kingdom and promised further international mediation on any outstanding matters after the election. The IFP agreed to participate in the election, and arrangements were made for its name to be placed on stickers added to the ballots.

      News emerged shortly after the election that de Klerk had also signed an act passed by the KwaZulu/Natal legislature transferring 1.2 million ha (2.9 million ac) of state-owned land to the sole trusteeship of King Zwelithini. The TEC and ANC claimed no knowledge of this transaction.

      Despite a number of bombings in which 21 people were killed and 173 injured in the days leading up to it, the election, administered by the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC), took place under surprisingly peaceful conditions. On the second day of voting, police arrested 31 members of the ultra-right-wing AWB Ystergarde (Iron Guard) in connection with the bombings. There were numerous bungles, delays, and logistical failures by the IEC in the election process, and final results were not announced until a week after the final voting day. All political parties alleged widespread irregularities, particularly in KwaZulu/Natal. The result in that region, where the IFP received 50.3% and the ANC 32.2% of the vote, surprised many, as all opinion polls earlier in the year had placed the ANC ahead of the IFP. The elections were proclaimed free and fair by the IEC and the numerous international monitors, however.

      The new ANC-dominated government of national unity included six Cabinet ministers from the NP and three from the IFP. Derek Keys, finance minister in the NP government, was reappointed to that post but later resigned for personal reasons and was replaced by the nonpartisan Chris Liebenberg in September. Parliament took on a less formal and more public character than under the old regime.

      The ANC campaigned in the election on a Reconstruction and Development Program (RDP), pledging improved conditions for the majority—its election slogan was "a better life for all"—by providing jobs, housing, decent education, and health care. Jay Naidoo, former general secretary of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), was appointed as minister responsible for implementing the RDP.

      In his initial address to Parliament on May 24, Mandela pledged, as short-term measures, free medical care for children under six and pregnant mothers, a feeding program for primary-school children, electrification of 350,000 houses in the next year, and the release from prison of many juveniles. Complexities of the transition delayed plans in a number of departments, but a national public works program to create 2.5 million jobs over five years was set in motion. Vigorous despite illness, Joe Slovo, Communist Party (SACP) chairman and minister of housing, launched a program to build 80,000 homes in 1994-95 and increase gradually to 300,000 a year by the end of the century. Tito Mboweni, minister of labour, promised a reform of workplace relations, including the reduction of the workweek to 40 hours.

      The 1994-95 budget allocated R 2.5 billion to the RDP and added R 1.7 billion to it in September. A White Paper produced in September repudiated nationalization as an instrument for implementing the RDP, mentioned the possible sale of state assets, and called for monetary and fiscal discipline. Mandela expressed concerns about high tax levels, the huge government debt and high level of borrowing, and sluggish investment by private companies.

      In August, Archbishop Desmond Tutu of Cape Town criticized the high salaries awarded to legislators by the previous government's Melamet Commission. "They stopped the gravy train only long enough to get on. They have set a bad example," he said. Mandela called on legislators, as well as workers, to "tighten their belts."

      Evidence of past government involvement in "death squad" activity continued to mount. In March the Goldstone Commission, investigating the causes of violence, accused three police generals of having sold arms to IFP members and organized violence in the hostels and on trains in what it called "a horrible network of criminal activity." The three, against their protests, were placed on compulsory leave. In June the reopened inquest into the murder of Matthew Goniwe and three others in 1985 concluded that they had been killed by security forces, but it could not name any specific persons responsible. Also in June, 17 members of the IFP were sentenced to terms of 10-18 years in prison for participating in the Boipatong massacre in 1992.

      The government initiated a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to investigate political crimes by all parties between 1960 and December 1993. It would consider violations of human rights, amnesty, and reparations for and rehabilitation of victims. While the commission was widely supported, some people feared that it would reopen old wounds rather than foster reconciliation.

      A wave of industrial strikes begun in July aroused anxiety and sparked some criticism. Wage increases had been delayed by the election, and workers were agitated by the slow pace of change. On two occasions Mandela called on workers to remember the five million unemployed and not to frighten away investment by their wage demands.

      Integration of members of Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK; "Spear of the Nation"), the armed wing of the ANC, into the new South African National Defense Force proved difficult. In October at least 7,000 MK members went absent without leave from the defense force, complaining of racism, the slow pace of integration, and poor living conditions and demanding the presence of the president. Mandela responded by acknowledging their grievances but also calling for discipline.

Foreign Relations.

      Mandela's inauguration was attended by a large number of international leaders, including the Duke of Edinburgh from the U.K., Vice Pres. Gore and first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton from the U.S., PLO leader Yasir Arafat, and Cuban leader Fidel Castro. British Prime Minister John Major, French Pres. François Mitterrand, and Zimbabwean Pres. Robert Mugabe subsequently visited South Africa and addressed the National Assembly.

      In October Mandela made a triumphant visit to the U.S., where he was praised by Pres. Bill Clinton and addressed the UN General Assembly. A U.S.-South Africa commission was established to promote cooperation and trade; the only other such U.S. commission was with Russia. After the election the UN Security Council lifted all remaining sanctions on South Africa, and the country was readmitted to the General Assembly after a 20-year absence. It was also readmitted to the Commonwealth (which it had left in 1961) and admitted to the Organization of African Unity (OAU) and the South African Development Community, where it declared its intention of promoting regional cooperation. Foreign Minister Alfred Nzo told the OAU that it "was a wonderful feeling to know that we are at last part of Africa." Mandela attended the OAU summit in June and was appointed second vice-chairman.

      The new government resisted insistent demands to become involved in the resolution of foreign conflicts, arguing that this would detract from its priority of domestic reconstruction. It stated that its main aim was to capitalize on postelection goodwill, promote the RDP abroad, and gain foreign investment. It resisted pressure to send troops to Rwanda.

      Nonetheless, Mandela persuaded Pres. Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire to hold discussions with Pres. José Eduardo dos Santos of Angola regarding settlement of the Angolan civil war. Together with the presidents of Zimbabwe and Botswana, he was also instrumental in persuading the king of Lesotho to restore the government of Ntsu Mokhehle, which he had dismissed from office in August. Mandela visited Mozambique in July, and the two countries established a joint security commission to investigate illegal immigration and arms and drug smuggling.

The Economy.

      The recession that had begun in March 1989 leveled out in the first half of 1993, and recovery began in the third (8.6% growth in gross domestic product [GDP]) and fourth (6.4% growth) quarters. GDP growth in 1993 as a whole was 1.2%. (In 1992 it declined 2%.) During the first quarter of 1994, GDP fell 3.5%, but it recovered in the second quarter to grow by 1.9%, causing economists to lower their growth predictions for the year from 3% to 2-2.5%. The recovery was fueled by favourable weather and increased exports. Manufacturing and mining output, however, fell in the first two quarters of 1994.

      From 1989 to the end of 1993, formal employment fell by 364,000 to 7,720,000, less than half the economically active population. Fixed investment, which began to decline in mid-1988, fell by 4% in 1993 but began to recover in the third quarter of 1993. It rose by 5.5% in the first quarter of 1994, 7% in the second quarter, and 4.5% in the year to June 1994. The new government's budget, except for R 2.5 billion raised for the RDP by cuts in department budgets, was largely a holding operation. The deficit before borrowing in 1993-94 was 6.9% of GDP and was projected at 6.6% for 1994-95.

      The recovery led to a surge of capital-goods imports, leading to a deficit on the current account of the balance of payments by September of R 1 billion for the second month in a row. (In 1993 there was a surplus of R 5.9 billion on the current account.) For the first time in years, however, there was net capital inflow to compensate for the deficit (estimated at R 1 billion a month in August and September), and so foreign-exchange reserves rose. Cumulative net capital outflow since 1985 had amounted to R 58.5 billion to the end of 1993, with a net outflow of R 16.3 billion in 1993 and R 3.7 billion in the first six months of 1994.

      The bank rate was increased by 1% to 13% in September. To calls for the lifting of foreign-exchange controls, the reserve bank governor, Chris Stals, responded that R 30 billion would first be required in reserves. There could be a gradual phasing out of controls on the basis of a healthy balance of payments, foreign reserves of R 15 billion, and an expansion of foreign debt to 40% of GDP.

      (MARTIN LEGASSICK)

      This updates the article South Africa, history of (South Africa).

▪ 1994

Introduction

The Republic

      South Africa occupies the southern tip of Africa, with the Atlantic Ocean to the west and the Indian Ocean to the east. It includes the 1,124-sq km exclave of Walvis Bay surrounded by Namibia (temporarily jointly administered with Namibia from November 1992, Walvis Bay is to be administered by Namibia only from March 1994) and partially surrounds the four republics of Bophuthatswana, Ciskei, Transkei, and Venda (whose reincorporation into South Africa was pending in late 1993). Area: 1,123,226 sq km (433,680 sq mi). Pop. (1993 est.): 33,071,000. (Area and population figures exclude the four republics.) Executive cap., Pretoria; judicial cap., Bloemfontein; legislative cap., Cape Town. Monetary unit: South African rand, with (Oct. 4, 1993) a financial rate of R 4.17 to U.S. $1 (R 6.32 = £1 sterling) and a commercial rate of R 3.45 to U.S. $1 (R 5.23 = £1 sterling). State president in 1993, Frederik W. de Klerk.

The Republic.

      Domestic Affairs. The main event of 1993 in South Africa was the rapprochement between the governing National Party (NP) and the African National Congress (ANC). Agreement was reached at a multiparty negotiating forum on the holding of the first one-person one-vote national elections in South Africa's history, by proportional representation, on April 27, 1994. A Transitional Executive Council to supervise those elections was enacted by Parliament in November and convened on December 7.

      The elections, to be held under an interim constitution, were to establish a 400-member Parliament that would also serve as a body to draw up a final constitution for the country. The constitution-making body would be bound by constitutional principles already agreed upon, including a strong emphasis on federalism. The interim constitution, approved by the South African Parliament on December 22, provided that the new government would be composed of representatives of all parties securing more than 5% of the vote, referred to by the ANC as a "government of national unity." On the basis of agreements reached between the NP government and the ANC in February, this government would serve for up to five years.

      Huge anger was felt in African townships at the assassination of Chris Hani (see OBITUARIES (Hani, Martin Thembisile )), secretary-general of the South African Communist Party (SACP), on Easter Saturday, April 10. On April 14 one and a half million persons were estimated to have taken part in rallies, marches, and other forms of protest, some erupting into violence. Janusz Walus, a Polish immigrant, and Clive Derby-Lewis, leading member of the Conservative Party (CP), were found guilty of the assassination and sentenced to death in October. Township political violence continued, particularly in Natal and on the East Rand, and rose after the announcement of the election date.

      The role of state forces in past and present state violence continued to be controversial. The Goldstone Commission issued a series of reports on different aspects of the violence, and Justice Richard Goldstone said that there was strong circumstantial evidence of security force involvement in current political violence. Following revelations in 1992 that there had been a signal from military officials ordering the "permanent removal from society" of Matthew Goniwe, who with three others was killed on June 27, 1985, the inquest was reopened. The inquest was told that the words of the signal meant long-term detention and not death. Leading military officers testifying at the inquest refused to answer questions on the grounds of self-incrimination. The inquest adjourned in October until February 1994.

      The multiparty negotiating forum, comprising 26 groups and including for the first time the CP and Afrikaner Volksunie (AVU) and the Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC), reconvened in April. An innovation was the requirement that at least one woman be a part of each delegation. On June 25 the World Trade Center, where the negotiations were being held, was invaded by protesting members of the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (AWB) and other white right-wing elements. On July 2 the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP), the KwaZulu government, and the Conservative Party walked out of the negotiations upon the setting of an election date, claiming that their standpoint was not reflected in the agreements. In October the governments of Ciskei and Bophuthatswana also left the forum.

      Since late 1992 the IFP, the CP, and the governments of Ciskei and Bophuthatswana had been grouped in the Concerned South Africans Group (COSAG). In October COSAG was supplanted by the Freedom Alliance. Besides the CP, the IFP—which was joined by several prominent white politicians during the year—and the Bophuthatswana and Ciskei governments, the Freedom Alliance included the AVU and the Afrikaner Volksfront (AVF), launched in May, headed by former South African Defence Force (SADF) chief Gen. Constand Viljoen, and involving the Conservative Party and AWB. Andries Treurnicht, leader of the CP, died in April (see OBITUARIES (Treurnicht, Andries Petrus )) and was succeeded by Ferdi Hartzenberg.

      The Freedom Alliance argued that the agreements reached by the multiparty negotiating forum were insufficiently federalist and did not provide for the self-determination of the Afrikaner people in a "volkstaat" (people's state). They favoured a negotiated agreement among political leaders on a final constitution before an election. The IFP demanded a regional constitution agreed by Natal-KwaZulu. The Freedom Alliance sought separate negotiations with government as a bloc and threatened defiance of the agreements reached at the multiparty forum. The ANC argued that the Freedom Alliance represented discredited apartheid structures and minorities attempting to hold the country to ransom. Three-way talks in late December seemed to have found a compromise.

      Opening Parliament in January, Pres. F.W. de Klerk announced further measures dismantling apartheid, including the intention to establish a single nonracial education system in which, however, there would be "differentiated" education based on religious and cultural values and mother tongue. The end of compulsory military service for white males was announced in August. The National Party secured a majority in the (Indian) House of Delegates, appointed three nonwhites to its Cabinet in February, and relaunched itself as a multiracial political party. De Klerk stated that he "deeply regretted" apartheid and spoke in June at a rally in Pietersburg attended by a number of Northern Transvaal chiefs supporting the NP.

      In March the government for the first time admitted that South Africa had developed a nuclear capability but claimed that its six bombs had been dismantled in 1989. It also announced the renunciation of its missile-delivery capability. A new board, chaired for the first time by a black woman, was selected after public hearings to govern the South African Broadcasting Corporation. There were further official reports claiming mismanagement and corruption in government departments. In September the South African government took control of the finances of the self-governing territory of Lebowa, claiming that its 1992-93 budget of R 3.6 billion had been overspent by R 772 million.

      Oliver Tambo, chairman of the ANC, died in April (see OBITUARIES (Tambo, Oliver Reginald )) and was succeeded by Thabo Mbeki. In July a highway shoot-out between police and bodyguards of Walter Sisulu, deputy president of the ANC, resulted in the death of one of the bodyguards. A third investigation into abuses in ANC guerrilla camps in exile, chaired by Sam Motsuenyane, concluded that the security department had exercised uncontrolled power. The ANC called for establishment by government of a "commission of truth" to investigate abuses of power by state officials as well.

      The Appeal Court in June quashed the conviction of Winnie Mandela, former wife of Nelson Mandela, on four charges of being accessory to assault and confirmed her conviction on four counts of kidnapping but substituted a fine for a jail sentence for these offenses. She was elected chair of the Witwatersrand region of the South African National Civic Organization (SANCO) in June and president of the ANC Women's League in December.

      The PAC, in talks with the government, refused to suspend its armed struggle. Its military wing, the Azanian People's Liberation Army (APLA), had from November 1992 attacked a series of targets, including white farms and white-patronized restaurants. The government alleged that such incidents included the killing of 11 worshipers at St. James Church in Cape Town on July 25. In March the Goldstone Commission said there was "little doubt" that APLA was using the Transkei as a springboard for these attacks. On May 25, 75 leading PAC members were arrested in police raids, though few were charged. In October the SADF raided an alleged APLA base in the Transkei, killing five teenagers.

      Foreign Affairs. In an important speech at the United Nations in September, Nelson Mandela, president of the ANC, called for the lifting of remaining sanctions against South Africa in view of the negotiated agreements reached for transition to a democratic government and encouraged foreign investment to reconstruct the country. Mandela and President de Klerk, who each made a number of foreign visits during the year, were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize (see Nobel Prizes ), as well as a Liberty Medal by the U.S. government. Mangosuthu Gatsha Buthelezi, president of the IFP, also made foreign visits.

      Mandela's speech accelerated the lifting of economic sanctions by the UN General Assembly on October 8 and the normalization of South Africa's relations with the rest of the world. The country extended its missions abroad and was readmitted to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). China held a trade fair in South Africa, and a mission of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) was opened in South Africa for the first time. United Nations, Commonwealth, and European Community monitoring of peace agreements in South Africa continued.

      The South African government continued to be diplomatically involved in the civil wars in Angola and Mozambique, apparently assisting in attempts at peacemaking. Accusations of logistic assistance to the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) in the civil war in Angola from South African soil were made by the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) government, though it accepted that the South African government was not involved in this. There was evidence that former SADF personnel were serving as mercenaries in Angola on both sides in the civil war. South Africa did not follow the U.S. in recognizing the MPLA government. As regards Mozambique, Foreign Minister Pik Botha admitted that South Africa had supported the Mozambique National Resistance (Renamo) in the past, but Mozambican Pres. Joaquim Chissanó accepted that this was no longer the case.

      Economy. Recession continued into its fifth year, though there were signs of recovery. In 1992 gross domestic product (GDP) fell by 2.1%, a figure worsened by the drought, and gross domestic fixed investment by 12%. The central bank estimated that 288,000 jobs had been lost since the start of the recession and that 46% of the economically active population was unemployed in the formal sector.

      Despite the recession, tight monetary policies continued. Money supply was growing at 3.95% per annum in June (below the 6%-per-annum target.) The bank rate was cut from 14 to 13% in February and to 12% in late October. Further cuts were inhibited by capital outflows uncovered by the surpluses on the current account of the balance of payments. Foreign exchange reserves fell from R 11.2 billion, worth two months of imports, at the end of 1992 to R 7,030,000,000 in August 1993. An eight-year repayment schedule for settlement of the country's outstanding foreign debt was negotiated in September. An $850 million loan from the IMF for drought relief, the first for some time, was secured toward the end of the year.

      Annual inflation (which had averaged 14.6% per annum through the 1980s) fell to 9.6% in December 1992, rose to 11% per annum in April, and fell again to 10% in June. International uncertainties led to a temporary boom in the gold price, from a bottom of $326 on March 10 to over $400 in July.

      The government's 1992-93 budget deficit (projected at 4.1%) turned out to be 8.6% of GDP. The 1993-94 budget deficit was projected at 6.8%. The budget increased the value-added tax from 10% to 14%, with exemptions on basic foodstuffs. Social service spending made up 44% of the budget, but interest on state debt (17%) was the second largest single component. Racial parity in state pensions was to be applied from September 1. A National Economic Forum, with representation from government, business, and labour, held its first plenary session in June.

      To the end of September, strikes amounted to 2.4 million man-days, in comparison with 3.1 million for the comparable period in 1992 and 2 million in 1991. Some 70,000 teachers struck for better salary increases and against retrenchments, while a classroom revolt of school students secured the suspension of an increase in matriculation-examination fees. Members of the Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union marched in a protest demonstration in Johannesburg in August and struck in the Eastern Cape later in the year. Farm and domestic workers' rights were included in industrial legislation for the first time.

      An academic economist estimated that 88% of the country's wealth was in the hands of 5% of the population, and 10% of the population earned 45% of its income. Operation Hunger stated that nine million South Africans suffered from malnutrition.

Bophuthatswana

      The republic of Bophuthatswana consists of seven discontinuous, landlocked geographic units, entirely surrounded by South Africa except for one unit that borders Botswana on the northwest. Area: 44,000 sq km (16,988 sq mi). Pop. (1993 est.): 2,564,000. Cap.: Mmabatho. Monetary unit: South African rand. President in 1993, Kgosi (Chief) Lucas Mangope.

Ciskei

      Bordering the Indian Ocean in the south, Ciskei is surrounded on land by South Africa. Area: 7,760 sq km (2,996 sq mi). Pop. (1993 est.): 897,000. Cap.: Bisho. Monetary unit: South African rand. Chairman of the Military Committee and of the Council of State in 1993, Brig. Joshua Oupa Gqozo.

Transkei

      Bordering the Indian Ocean and surrounded on land by South Africa, Transkei comprises three discontinuous geographic units, two of which are landlocked and one of which borders Lesotho. Area: 43,653 sq km (16,855 sq mi). Pop. (1993 est.): 3,664,000. Cap.: Umtata. Monetary unit: South African rand. Head of the Military Council in 1993, Gen. Harrison Bantubonke Holomisa.

Venda

      The landlocked republic of Venda is located in extreme northeastern South Africa. Area: 7,176 sq km (2,771 sq mi). Pop. (1993 est.): 590,000. Cap.: Thohoyandou. Monetary unit: South African rand. Head of state in 1993, Brig. Gabriel Ramushwana.

The Homelands.

      The questions of financial support received by these areas from South Africa, and of their reincorporation into South Africa, remained controversial. The Ciskei and Bophuthatswana governments rejected reincorporation until a final constitution was agreed for South Africa. The Transkei and Venda governments declared their willingness to be reincorporated into a democratic South Africa.

      In February the auditor-general tabled a report criticizing government for failing to implement financial order in the Transkei, Bophuthatswana, Venda, and Ciskei states, which had failed to keep spending within guidelines. In the 1992-93 financial year these territories received South African government aid of R 6.2 billion. Outstanding loans to Transkei, Venda, and Ciskei amounted to R 3.3 billion at the end of the 1991-92 financial year.

      International bodies called on the Bophuthatswana government to repeal its Internal Security Act because of violations of human rights. Following police occupation of the University of Bophuthatswana on April 27, all university-level institutions were closed indefinitely. The government tried to sack the vice-chancellor when he attempted to reopen the campus in July and deployed troops.

      The Ciskei government indemnified 69 security force members implicated in the September 1992 Bisho massacre. In August Ciskei Pres. Joshua Oupa Gqozo appeared at an inquest in the Supreme Court and was found responsible for the deaths of political opponents Charles Sebe and Mangwana Guzana in 1991. His trial began in November. Relations between the South African government and Transkei were tense during the year, with blockades mounted by South African security forces. In March Pres. Harrison Bantubonke Holomisa rejected the Goldstone Commission's claim that the APLA used the Transkei as a springboard, arguing that this was based solely on evidence from the South African security forces. He also released documents claiming implication of the SADF in plans to murder former Ciskei ruler Lennox Sebe. In October, to widespread condemnation, the SADF raided a house in Umtata, killing five teenagers, claiming it was an attack on an APLA base. In June Transkei riot police stormed the Education Department to end an eight-day sit-in by teachers calling for the resignation of the minister of education; Holomisa said that he regretted the incident. (MARTIN LEGASSICK)

      This updates the article South Africa, history of (South Africa).

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Introduction

South Africa, flag of   the southernmost country on the African continent, renowned for its varied topography, great natural beauty, and cultural diversity, all of which have made the country a favoured destination for travellers since the legal ending of apartheid (Afrikaans: “apartness,” or racial separation) in 1994.

      South Africa's remoteness—it lies thousands of miles distant from major African cities such as Lagos and Cairo and more than 6,000 miles (10,000 km) away from most of Europe, North America, and eastern Asia, where its major trading partners are located—helped reinforce the official system of apartheid for a large part of the 20th century. With that system, the government, controlled by the minority white population, enforced segregation between government-defined races in housing, education, and virtually all spheres of life, creating in effect three nations: one of whites (consisting of peoples primarily of British and Dutch [ Boer] ancestry, who struggled for generations to gain political supremacy, a struggle that reached its violent apex with the South African War of 1899–1902); one of blacks (consisting of such peoples as the San hunter-gatherers of the northwestern desert, the Zulu herders of the eastern plateaus, and the Khoekhoe farmers of the southern Cape regions); and one of “ Coloureds” (mixed-race people) and ethnic Asians (Indians, Malays, Filipinos, and Chinese). The apartheid regime was disdained and even vehemently opposed by much of the world community, and by the mid-1980s South Africa found itself among the world's pariah states, the subject of economic and cultural boycotts that affected almost every aspect of life. During this era the South African poet Mongane Wally Serote remarked,

There is an intense need for self-expression among the oppressed in our country. When I say self-expression I don't mean people saying something about themselves. I mean people making history consciously….We neglect the creativity that has made the people able to survive extreme exploitation and oppression. People have survived extreme racism. It means our people have been creative about their lives.

      Eventually forced to confront the untenable nature of ethnic separatism in a multicultural land, the South African government of F.W. de Klerk (de Klerk, F.W.) (1989–94) began to repeal apartheid laws. That process in turn set in motion a transition toward universal suffrage and a true electoral democracy, which culminated in the 1994 election of a government led by the black majority under the leadership of the long-imprisoned dissident Nelson Mandela (Mandela, Nelson). As this transition attests, the country has made remarkable progress in establishing social equity in a short period of time.

 South Africa has three cities that serve as capitals: Pretoria (executive), Cape Town (legislative), and Bloemfontein (judicial). Johannesburg, the largest urban area in the country and a centre of commerce, lies at the heart of the populous Gauteng province. Durban, a port on the Indian Ocean, is a major industrial centre. East London and Port Elizabeth, both of which lie along the country's southern coast, are important commercial, industrial, and cultural centres.

      Today South Africa enjoys a relatively stable mixed economy that draws on its fertile agricultural lands, abundant mineral resources, tourist attractions, and highly evolved intellectual capital. Greater political equality and economic stability, however, do not necessarily mean social tranquility. South African society at the start of the 21st century continued to face steep challenges: rising crime rates, ethnic tensions, great disparities in housing and educational opportunities, and the AIDS pandemic.

Land

 South Africa is bordered by Namibia to the northwest, by Botswana and Zimbabwe to the north, and by Mozambique and Swaziland to the northeast and east. Lesotho, an independent country, is an enclave in the eastern part of the republic, entirely surrounded by South African territory. South Africa's coastlines border the Indian Ocean to the southeast and the Atlantic Ocean to the southwest. The country possesses two small subantarctic islands, Prince Edward (Prince Edward Island) and Marion (Marion Island), situated in the Indian Ocean about 1,200 miles (1,900 km) southeast of Cape Town. The former South African possession of Walvis Bay, on the Atlantic coast some 400 miles (600 km) north of the Orange River, became part of Namibia in 1994.

Relief (South Africa)

      A plateau covers the largest part of the country, dominating the topography; it is separated from surrounding areas of generally lower elevation by the Great Escarpment. The plateau consists almost entirely of very old rock of the Karoo (Karoo System) System, which formed from the Late Carboniferous Epoch (about 318 to 299 million years ago) to the Late Triassic Epoch (about 228 to 200 million years ago). The plateau, generally highest in the east, drops from elevations of more than 8,000 feet (2,400 metres) in the basaltic Lesotho region to about 2,000 feet (600 metres) in the sandy Kalahari in the west. The central part of the plateau comprises the Highveld, which reaches between 4,000 and 6,000 feet (1,200 and 1,800 metres) in elevation. South of the Orange River lies the Great Karoo region.

      The Great Escarpment (see Drakensberg), known by a variety of local names such as uKhahlamba (Zulu: “Barrier of Spears”) and the Natal Drakensberg, forms the longest continuous topographic feature in South Africa and provides scenery of great beauty. The escarpment is part of uKhahlamba/Drakensberg Park, which was designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2000. It runs southward from the far northeast, where it is generally known as the Transvaal Drakensberg (Afrikaans: “Dragon Mountains”). It is there, in KwaZulu-Natal province, that the country's highest point, Njesuthi (11,181 feet [3,408 metres]), is found. Farther south the escarpment forms the boundary first between KwaZulu-Natal and Free State provinces and then between KwaZulu-Natal and Lesotho. There it reaches elevations of nearly 11,000 feet (3,300 metres), including some of the country's highest peaks, such as Mont aux Sources (Mont-aux-Sources) (10,823 feet [3,299 metres]). The mountainous escarpment continues southwestward, dividing Lesotho from the Eastern Cape province, where it runs westward across Eastern Cape at lesser elevations of 5,000 to 8,000 feet (1,500 to 2,400 metres) and is known as the Stormberg. Farther to the west it becomes the Nuweveld Range and the Roggeveld Mountains and forms the approximate boundary between Northern Cape and Western Cape provinces. At its western extreme, in the vicinity of Mount Bokkeveld and Mount Kamies (5,600 feet [1,700 metres]), the escarpment is not well defined.

      An area of ancient folded mountains with elevations between 3,000 and 7,600 feet (900 and 2,300 metres) lies in the southwest of the country; it includes ranges such as the Tsitsikama, Outeniqua, Groot-Swart, Lange, Ceder, Drakenstein, and Hottentots Holland mountains, as well as Table Mountain (Mountain, Table) and its associated features at Cape Town.

      Both above and below the Great Escarpment, the topography tends to be broken. Open plains are rare, occurring mainly in northwestern Free State and farther to the west and in smaller areas such as the Springbok Flats north of Pretoria. Ridges, mountains, and deeply incised valleys are common, mainly left by the erosion of ancient landforms. There is little genuine coastal plain between the escarpment and the sea, except in northern KwaZulu-Natal, where it reaches a width of about 50 miles (80 km), and in parts of Western Cape. For most of its 1,836-mile (2,955-km) length, the coastline consists of fairly steep slopes rising rapidly inland and often includes long stretches of beach. Most of the coastline has been uplifted or created by falling sea levels in the recent geologic past, with the result that there are few flooded river valleys or natural harbours. Exceptions include the Knysna Lagoon in Western Cape and the Buffalo River at East London. In KwaZulu-Natal, longshore drift over many centuries has created spits and bluffs from beach sand; in a number of places these features have enclosed bays, which have provided both remarkable sanctuaries for wildlife (as at the St. Lucia estuary) and, when mouths are dredged, good harbours (as at Durban and Richards Bay).

Drainage

      Rising in the Lesotho Highlands, the Orange River and its tributaries—chiefly the Caledon (Caledon River) and the Vaal (Vaal River)—drain the greater part of the country (about 329,000 square miles [852,000 square km]) to the Atlantic Ocean. North of the Witwatersrand (Rand) ridge, the plateau is drained to the Indian Ocean by the Limpopo (Limpopo River) system, whose major tributaries include the Krokodil, Mogalakwena, Luvuvhu, and Olifants rivers. South of the Olifants River, in the area between the escarpment and the sea, a large number of other river systems, including the Komati, Pongolo, Mfolozi, Mgeni, and Tugela, drain much of KwaZulu-Natal; the Tugela (Tugela River) ranks as the largest river by volume in the country. The Mkomazi, Mzimvubu, Great Kei, Great Fish, Sundays, and Gourits rivers drain significant areas farther south, while the Breë, Berg, and Olifants rivers mainly drain the Western Cape fold mountain region. The flows of all South African rivers are highly seasonal, and few offer a level-enough gradient and sufficient volume to allow navigation by even small craft for more than a few miles from their mouths.

Soils

      South Africa contains three major soil regions. East of approximately longitude 25° E, soils have formed under wet summer and dry winter conditions; the more-important soil types there are laterite (red, leached, iron-bearing soil), unleached subtropical soils, and gleylike (i.e., bluish gray, sticky, and compact) podzolic soils (highly leached soils that are low in iron and lime). A second major region lies within an area receiving year-round precipitation in Western Cape and Eastern Cape and generally contains gray sandy and sandy loam soils. Over most of the rest of the country, which is generally dry, the characteristic soils comprise a sandy top layer, often a sandy loam, underlain by a layer of lime or an accretion of silica. With some exceptions, South Africa's soils are not characterized by high fertility, and those that are—for example, in coastal KwaZulu-Natal—tend to be easily degraded.

Climate

      Almost the entire country lies within the temperate zone, and extremes of heat and cold are rare. Its location next to a subtropical high-pressure (subtropical high) belt of descending air produces stable atmospheric conditions over most of its surface area, and the climate generally is dry.

      Because most of the country lies at fairly high elevation, which tempers the influence of latitude, even the tropical and near-tropical northern areas are much cooler than would otherwise be the case. High elevation and lack of the moderating influence of the sea produce large diurnal temperature variations in most inland areas.

      The climate is greatly influenced by the oceans that surround the country to the east, south, and west. The temperate cyclones of the southern ocean exercise considerable influence on weather patterns, especially in winter, when their circulation moves northward. The cold northward-flowing Benguela Current not only cools the west coast considerably but also contributes to the dryness and stability of the atmosphere over the western parts of the country, while the warm southward-flowing Mozambique (Mozambique Current) and Agulhas Currents keep temperatures higher on the east and southeast coasts. The resultant warmer and less-dense air rises more readily, facilitating the entry of moisture-bearing clouds from the east.

      South Africa and the adjoining ocean areas are influenced throughout the year by descending, divergent upper air masses that circulate primarily eastward, generally causing fine weather and low annual precipitation, especially to the west. During winter (June to August), cold polar air moves over the southwestern, southern, and southeastern coastal areas, sometimes reaching the southern interior of the country from the southwest. These polar masses are accompanied by cold fronts as well as by rain and snow. In summer (December to February), the Atlantic high-pressure system settles semipermanently over the southern and western parts of the country. Local heating of the landmass sometimes causes low-pressure conditions to develop, and rain-bearing tropical air masses are drawn in from the Indian Ocean over the northeastern region.

      South Africa is generally semiarid; its precipitation is highly variable, and farmers often face water shortages. More than one-fifth of the country is arid and receives less than 8 inches (200 mm) of precipitation annually, while almost half is semiarid and receives between 8 and 24 inches (200 and 600 mm) annually. Only about 6 percent of the country averages more than 40 inches (1,000 mm) per year. The amount of precipitation gradually declines from east to west. Whereas the KwaZulu-Natal coast receives more than 40 inches (1,000 mm) annually and Kimberley approximately 16 inches (400 mm), Alexander Bay on the west coast receives less than 2 inches (50 mm).

      Summers are warm to hot, with daytime temperatures generally from 70 to 90 °F (21 to 32 °C). Higher elevations have lower temperatures, while the far northern and northeastern regions and the western plateau and river valleys in the central and southern regions have higher temperatures. At night temperatures fall substantially in the interior—in some places by as much as 30 °F (17 °C)—while on the coast the daily range is much smaller. Winters are mostly cool to cold, with many higher areas often having temperatures below freezing at night but readings of 50 to 70 °F (10 to 21 °C) in the daytime; however, winters are warm on the eastern and southeastern coasts. Temperatures generally decline from east to west: Durban has an annual average temperature of 69 °F (21 °C), while Port Nolloth—at a similar latitude but on the west coast—registers 57 °F (14 °C).

Plant and animal life

Flora and fauna

 Natural vegetation varies from savanna (parklike grassland with trees) in the Bushveld and Lowveld of Mpumalanga and Limpopo provinces through grassland with fewer trees in the Highveld to scrub (fynbos) and scattered bush in the Karoo and drier western areas and even includes desert on the edge of the Kalahari in the north. Western Cape has a distinct vegetation of grasses, shrubs, and trees able to withstand the long, dry summers and is the home of many of South Africa's 20,000 species of flowering plants. The eastern coast has a more tropical plant life. Sections of Western Cape and Eastern Cape provinces collectively form the Cape Floral Region, known for its rich diversity of plant life and designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2004. Natural forest is limited to mountainous valleys along the Great Escarpment and a few other favoured localities, in particular the Knysna area of the southern coast. The desert region includes such vegetation as narras (Ancanthosicyos horridus), a shrub with an edible fruit, and mongongo nut (Ricinodendron rautennii), a tree with a hollow trunk. Human settlement, herding, and cultivation practices have significantly altered natural vegetation for at least two millennia. White (European) inhabitants have accelerated these processes by introducing exotic plant species; urban growth, rapid population expansion, and the spread of market agriculture, especially since the late 19th century, have also contributed to this change.

 South Africa has a rich and varied mammal life, with more than 200 species, including such large animals as lions, leopards, elephants, rhinoceroses, hippopotamuses, baboons, zebras, and many kinds of antelope. Smaller creatures include mongooses, jackals, and various cats such as the caracal. The numbers of animals declined greatly, however, during the expansion of white settlement in the 18th and 19th centuries, and today large mammals exist mainly in the country's wildlife reserves. South Africa contains more than 800 species of birds, such as the bearded vulture, the bald ibis, and the black eagle; many species of reptiles, including more than 100 varieties of snakes (of which one-fourth are poisonous); and an extraordinarily diverse population of insects.

Conservation

 The country contains more than a dozen national parks. The largest, Kruger National Park in Limpopo and Mpumalanga provinces, is noted for its populations of rhinoceroses, elephants, and buffalo, as well as a variety of other wildlife. Mountain Zebra National Park in Eastern Cape province shelters the endangered mountain zebra; Addo Elephant National Park, also in Eastern Cape, protects more of the elephant population; and Bontebok National Park in Western Cape contains the endangered bontebok (a type of antelope). Greater St. Lucia Wetland Park in KwaZulu-Natal, inscribed as a World Heritage site in 1999, provides a protected environment for the Nile crocodile, a large hippopotamus population, and many species of birds, in addition to other animals. Regulated big-game hunting of elephants, white rhinoceroses, lions, leopards, buffalo, and many types of antelope is allowed in the country during certain months of the year. Grysboks, klipspringers, and red hartebeests (all varieties of antelope), giraffes, black rhinoceroses, pangolins (anteaters), and antbears are specially protected animals that cannot be hunted.

 Conservation efforts in Southern Africa have been aided by the creation of transfrontier parks and conservation areas, which link nature reserves and parks in neighbouring countries to create large, international conservation areas that protect biodiversity and allow a wider range of movement for migratory animal populations. One such park is the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park, which links Kruger National Park with Mozambique's Limpopo National Park and Zimbabwe's Gonarezhou National Park. Another is Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park, which links South Africa's Kalahari Gemsbok National Park (Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park) with Botswana's Gemsbok National Park.

People (South Africa)

Ethnic (ethnic group) groups

 Government-determined “racial” and ethnic classification, embodied in the Population Registration Act in effect from 1950 to 1991, was crucial in determining the status of all South Africans under apartheid. The act divided South Africans at birth into four “racial” categories—black, white, Coloured (mixed race), and Asian—though these classifications were largely arbitrary, based on considerations such as family background and cultural acceptance as well as on appearance.

      The original Khoekhoe and San peoples of South Africa scarcely exist as distinct groups inside the country today. Many intermarried with other African peoples who arrived before European conquest, and others intermarried with Malagasy and Southeast Asian slaves under white rule to form the majority of the Coloured population. Bantu-speaking Africans entered the area from the north roughly 1,800 years ago; their descendants today constitute about three-fourths of South Africa's population.

      The population formerly classified as Coloured descended from Khoisan (Khoekhoe and San) peoples, slaves imported by the Dutch from Madagascar and what are now Malaysia and Indonesia, Europeans, and Bantu-speaking Africans. Several distinct subethnic groups can still be identified, such as the Malays (Malay), who largely originated from Indonesian Muslim slaves, and the Griquas (Griqua), who trace their origins to a specific historical Khoekhoe community. While some Malays and Griquas have continued to identify themselves as Coloured, others who were so classified by the apartheid government have rejected the label entirely. In many respects they cannot be distinguished culturally or physically from the white population. Those formerly classified as Coloured are concentrated in the western half of the country, particularly in Western and Northern Cape provinces and the westernmost parts of Eastern Cape province, where they form a majority in most districts.

 South Africans of Indian descent, who were classified under apartheid as Asian, form a large minority. They went to South Africa originally as indentured workers imported by the British to the former Natal colony beginning in the 1850s and were followed by a smaller group of immigrant traders later in the 19th century. Most of them now live in KwaZulu-Natal and to a lesser extent in Gauteng, Limpopo, and Mpumalanga provinces. Almost all Indian South Africans are urban dwellers. Small communities of other ethnic Asians, including Chinese, live in some of the cities.

      Most white South Africans are descendants of European settlers—primarily from Great Britain, Germany, and The Netherlands—who began to migrate to South Africa in the mid-17th century.

Languages

      The black African population is heterogeneous, falling mainly into four linguistic categories. The largest is the Nguni, including various peoples who speak Swati (primarily the Swazi peoples) as well as those who speak languages that take their names from the peoples by whom they are primarily spoken—the Ndebele, Xhosa, and Zulu (see also Xhosa language; Zulu language). They constitute more than half the black population of the country and form the majority in many eastern and coastal regions as well as in the industrial Gauteng province. The second largest is Sotho-Tswana, again including various peoples whose language names are derived from the names of peoples who primarily speak them—the Sotho, Pedi, and Tswana. Speakers of Sotho-Tswana languages constitute a majority in many Highveld areas. The other two primary linguistic groups are the Tsonga (or Shangaan) speakers (primarily the Tsonga peoples), concentrated in Limpopo and Mpumalanga provinces, and the Venda speakers (primarily the Venda peoples), located largely in Limpopo province.

      White South Africans form two main language groups. More than half of them are Afrikaans (Afrikaans language) speakers, the descendants of mostly Dutch, French, and German settlers. The remainder consists largely of English (English language) speakers who are descended mainly from British colonists, though there are a sizable minority of Portuguese and smaller groups of Italians and others. Most of the population formerly classified as Coloured speaks Afrikaans or, to a lesser extent, English.

      Eleven languages (Afrikaans, English, Ndebele, Pedi, Sotho, Swati, Tsonga, Tswana, Venda, Xhosa, and Zulu) hold official status under the 1996 constitution, and an additional 11 (Arabic, German, Greek, Gujarati, Hebrew, Hindi, Portuguese, Sanskrit, Tamil, Telegu, and Urdu) are to be promoted and developed; all languages are spoken to varying degrees in different regions. In some rural areas most residents speak neither Afrikaans nor English, but those two languages allow for communication in most parts of the country. English appears to predominate to an increasing extent in official, educational, and formal business spheres, which reflects a shift away from Afrikaans as the predominant language of government.

Religion

 The vast majority of South Africans are Christians (Christianity). The largest established Christian denominations directly rooted in European settlement but now drawing members from all ethnic groups are the Methodist, Roman Catholic, Anglican, and Dutch Reformed churches. A large number of people follow independent African Christian churches, which vary in size from a few to millions of members. These faiths differ widely in their degree of theological orthodoxy or heterodoxy from traditional Christian beliefs, but they tend to be more open to aspects of indigenous culture and religion and to emphasize physical and spiritual healing. The other major religions are Hinduism, among the majority of Indians; Islam (Islāmic world), among many Indians and Malays; and Judaism, among a significant minority of the white population.

Settlement patterns

      More than nine-tenths of the inhabitants live in the eastern half of the country and in the southern coastal regions. In contrast, the western region, except for the area around Cape Town in the extreme southwest, is sparsely populated. Urban areas contain more than half the population; many of these consist of huge informal or squatter settlements that lack the basic infrastructure for transportation, water, sanitation, or electricity. A large part of the black population is concentrated in the former “homeland” ( Bantustan) areas, scattered territories in the northern and eastern parts of the country that were left to blacks after the 19th-century wars of white conquest and dispossession. Under apartheid, millions of nonwhites were forcibly relocated from cities and white-owned farms into the Bantustans. Boundary changes also placed many large informal settlements under Bantustan jurisdiction, so that some of these areas came to exhibit urban, rather than rural, population densities.

Rural settlement

 Whites own the majority of rural land, although blacks originally settled most of it. Traditional black settlements consisted of farming homesteads or villages. The land belonged to the community, and the chief or headman granted each household the right to build a home and cultivate an area of land. Pastoral land around the area was used communally. Conquest and the establishment of white authority and private ownership of land made these settlement patterns subordinate to others. In places where blacks retained their access to land, however, elements of these patterns survived and may still be found in the more-remote parts of certain reserve areas. Where sharecropping and labour tenancy have provided blacks with access to farmland, a local architecture using industrial as well as more-traditional materials has developed. About one-sixth of the black population lives on farmland owned by whites.

      Rural patterns created by white settlement from the late 17th century onward were centred on privately owned farmsteads, usually considerable distances apart, each having its associated cluster of sharecropper, tenant (tenant farming), or employee housing. As the frontier of white settlement expanded in the 18th and 19th centuries, each farmer claimed land, often several thousand acres, and this gave rise to a settlement pattern of widely dispersed homesteads. Smaller farms and more-intensive cultivation, however, always existed in some areas, such as the grape-growing areas of the southwest. As the urban demand for food and other agricultural produce grew rapidly from the late 19th century, many farms closer to towns or in more-favourable ecological zones were subdivided, and a denser pattern emerged. More recently the general tendency has been for farm sizes to increase and the number of landowners to decline. The population of farmworker residents has also decreased as mechanized production methods and corporate farm ownership have become more widespread.

Urban settlement (urbanization)

      Urban settlement in South Africa originated both as concentrations of population around the political centres of African chiefdoms and kingdoms and as towns established by European colonizers (colonialism, Western). For reasons of water availability and land-use patterns, Sotho-Tswana peoples of the interior generally lived in large settlements, the largest having tens of thousands of inhabitants, while coastal Nguni peoples lived in a more dispersed manner. The defeat of black polities by whites and their allies, particularly during the 19th century, led to the abandonment or destruction of capitals such as Dithakong, a Tswana stronghold in what is now Northern Cape, and Ulundi, a major Zulu royal village in central Zululand (now northern KwaZulu-Natal). Those black-established settlements that survived tended to be subordinated politically and economically to the colonial centres established alongside them, as at Mafikeng.

 European colonization of South Africa began with towns, Cape Town being the first, in 1652. The Dutch established a few colonial towns in the south and southwest, including Stellenbosch, Tulbagh, Graaff-Reinet, and Swellendam. New towns such as Port Elizabeth, Grahamstown, Beaufort West, and Durban were created more rapidly with the advent of British rule at the start of the 19th century. The Great Trek of Dutch farmers and townspeople, which commenced during the 1830s, led to a range of new, mainly small urban centres in the interior focused on church and government: Winburg, Pietermaritzburg, Potchefstroom, Bloemfontein, Lydenburg (now Mashishing), and Pretoria. These towns were laid out with large lots and a grid pattern, features that generally survive today.

      Until the 1860s all South African towns were small; the largest, Cape Town, had a population of fewer than 40,000 in 1865. Urbanization accelerated rapidly from the 1870s as railway building, mining, and economic expansion proceeded. Although the population of the Cape Town metropolitan area reached 130,000 by the turn of the 20th century, Johannesburg, which was established in 1886, had already surpassed it in size. Continued rapid growth since the early 20th century has created four major urban concentrations. Of these, by far the largest is the Pretoria-Witwatersrand-Vereeniging complex; centred on Johannesburg, it radiates about 45 miles (70 km) in each direction and is now mostly in Gauteng province. Other urban concentrations are centred on Durban, Cape Town, and the Port Elizabeth– Uitenhage area. The main centres in these metropolitan areas offer the same full range of services found in cities of their size in other countries; but, despite the end of legal segregation, all show great disparities of income and access to urban services between the wealthiest, predominantly white areas and the poorest, exclusively black districts.

      Outside these major metropolitan areas, most South African towns are small and serve either mining communities or surrounding rural areas. Between these extremes are several cities with rapidly growing populations numbering in the hundreds of thousands: the port of East London, the Free State capital Bloemfontein, newer industrial centres such as Witbank in Mpumalanga, and a few rural service centres that have become regional administrative and educational centres, such as Mafikeng, Nelspruit, and Polokwane.

      South African cities have shown a measure of racial segregation (segregation, racial) in residence since their colonial foundation. Settler-founded towns contained a majority of white inhabitants until the discovery of diamonds and gold in the late 19th century initiated the industrial revolution. In the early years of the 20th century, segregated public-housing areas were created when urban populations became largely black. Various government measures beginning in the 1920s gave authorities the power to segregate blacks and others; during the 1930s and '40s such provisions were extended to Coloureds (persons of mixed race) and Indians (South Asians), culminating in the Group Areas Act of 1950. Under its provisions, South African cities acquired their characteristic form: white residential areas, generally situated in more-favourable localities (environmentally pleasing or close to the city centre), occupied most of the urban space, while other sectors and peripheral localities were set aside for nonwhites; many of these latter areas were initially devoted to segregated public-housing estates called “townships.” A degree of racial housing integration occurred in some cities in the 1980s, and such high-density residential areas as Hillbrow in Johannesburg became effectively integrated despite the Group Areas Act. The act was repealed in 1991, but the racially defined settlement patterns in the towns and townships persist.

Demographic trends

      The South African population rose steadily over the last quarter of the 20th century, increasing from some 27 million in 1985 to more than 41 million by 1996. By the late 1990s, however, the incidence of AIDS began to rise, limiting population growth. In the early 21st century, South Africa's birth rate was similar to the world average, but, largely because of AIDS, the country's death rate was about twice as high as the world average. Average life expectancy in South Africa was similar to or higher than that of most Southern African countries but much lower than the world average.

      Immigration from Europe exceeded 20,000 people per year during the late 1960s and early '70s, but in the late '70s and '80s the number of whites leaving South Africa tended to exceed the new arrivals. In the early 21st century, South Africa saw an increase in the number of immigrants and refugees from other African countries fleeing political persecution or seeking greater economic prospects, especially from neighbouring Zimbabwe.

Andries Nel Alan S. Mabin Christopher C. Lowe

Economy

      The economy of South Africa was revolutionized in the late 19th century when diamonds and gold were discovered there. Extensive investment from foreign capital followed. In the years since World War II, the country has established a well-developed manufacturing base, and it has experienced highly variable growth rates, including some years when its growth rate was among the highest in the world. Since the late 1970s, however, South Africa has had continuing economic problems, initially because its apartheid policies led many countries to withhold foreign investment and to impose increasingly severe trade sanctions against it.

      South Africa's economy did not immediately rebound in the early 1990s while apartheid was being dismantled, as investors waited to see what would happen. Only after democratic elections in 1994 did significant investment return. Postapartheid South Africa was then faced with the problem of integrating the previously disenfranchised and oppressed majority into the economy. In 1996 the government created a five-year plan—Growth, Employment, and Redistribution (GEAR)—that focused on privatization and the removal of exchange controls. GEAR was only moderately successful in achieving some of its goals but was hailed by some as laying an important foundation for future economic progress. The government also implemented new laws and programs designed to improve the economic situation of the marginalized majority. One such strategy, called Black Economic Empowerment (BEE), focused on increasing the number of employment opportunities for people formerly classified under apartheid as black, Coloured, or Indian, improving their work skills, and enhancing their income-earning potential. The concept of BEE was further defined and expanded by the Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (BBBEE) Act of 2003 (promulgated in 2004), which addressed gender and social inequality as well as racial inequality.

      The South African economy is essentially based on private enterprise, but the state participates in many ways. Through the Industrial Development Corporation, the apartheid-era government set up and controlled a wide array of public corporations, many relating to industrial infrastructure. Two such corporations—one, the country's primary producer of iron and steel; the other, an important producer of oil from coal—were privatized in the 1980s. The Electrical Supply Commission (ESKOM), the major electricity utility, remains government-controlled, but several entities that formerly were branches of government have been converted to public corporations, including Transnet, which runs the railways and harbours. In the 1990s the government partially privatized airlines and telecommunications, and, despite fierce opposition from trade unions, official economic policy has been to continue partially or completely privatizing many public enterprises.

      Economic policy has been aimed primarily at sustaining growth and achieving a measure of industrial self-sufficiency. High rates of inflation and declining investment, however, have complicated the economic situation. Trade sanctions exacerbated these problems, but they continued even after the end of apartheid and sanctions. Dependence on imports renewed inflationary pressure while limiting the government's ability to meet pressing social demands. Economic policy became the subject of ongoing debate between those favouring market forces and the advocates of substantial state intervention; still others favoured an export-led or inward-looking industrial policy.

      Historically, the stated policy of the African National Congress (ANC), which took power in 1994, was that it would seek a state-led mixed economy based on nationalized mining and financial enterprises; since taking leadership of the government, it has in fact pursued privatization of a substantial number of formerly state-owned enterprises. The government faces competing demands—to improve the living conditions of the impoverished black population while also addressing the demands for economic liberalization from business interests and Western governments. It has chosen to make maintaining business confidence and boosting investment the core element of its economic policy.

Agriculture, forestry, and fishing

      Agriculture is of major importance to South Africa. It produces a significant portion of exports and contributes greatly to the domestic economy, especially as an employer, though land and water resources are generally poor. Arable land constitutes only slightly more than one-tenth of the country's surface area, with well-watered, fertile soils existing primarily in the Western Cape river valleys and on the KwaZulu-Natal coast. The Highveld of Mpumalanga and Free State historically has offered adequate conditions for extensive cereal cultivation based on substantial government extension services and subsidies to white farm owners. Some dry areas, such as in the Fish River valley of Eastern Cape province, have become productive through the use of irrigation. Further irrigation has been provided by the ongoing Orange River Project, which upon completion should add about another three-tenths to the total amount of land in production.

      Among the major crops are corn (maize), wheat, sugarcane, sorghum, peanuts (groundnuts), citrus and other fruits, and tobacco. Sheep, goats, cattle, and pigs are raised for food and other products; wool and meat (beef, lamb and mutton, and goat) are important. Dairy (including butter and cheese) and egg production are also significant, particularly around the major urban centres.

      Timber resources are minimal, but the small amount of forested land has been supplemented by substantial areas under plantation in the wetter parts of the east and southeast. The forest industry supplies mining timber, pulpwood for paper and board mills, and building timbers mostly sufficient for a construction industry that primarily uses brick, concrete, and steel. Fishing areas lie mainly off the western and southern coasts. The principal shoal-fishing catches are pilchard and maasbanker, while offshore trawling brings in kingklip, Agulhas sole, Cape hake, and kabeljou, among others.

Resources and power

      South Africa is rich in a variety of minerals. In addition to diamonds and gold, the country also contains reserves of iron ore, platinum, manganese, chromium, copper, uranium, silver, beryllium, and titanium. No commercially exploitable deposits of petroleum have been found, but there are moderate quantities of natural gas located off the southern coast, and synthetic fuel is made from coal at two large plants in the provinces of Free State and Mpumalanga.

 Although for decades manufacturing has employed more people and produced a greater proportion of gross domestic product (GDP) than mining has, the mining sector continues to form the core of the South African economy as mining-centred holding companies invest in other economic activity. gold remains the most important mineral—South Africa is the world's largest producer—and reserves are large; however, production is slowly declining, and prices have never equaled their spectacular highs of the early 1970s. As a result, a number of older mines have been rendered marginal or unprofitable. Several gold mines closed in the 1990s, and thousands of mine workers lost their jobs. The main goldfields centred historically on Johannesburg; the major areas of production now lie some distance east, west (Far West Rand), and south (northern Free State) of Johannesburg, centred on the areas of Klerksdorp and Evander.

       coal is another of South Africa's valuable mineral products. Large known deposits lie, mostly at easily mined depths, beneath the Mpumalanga and northern Free State Highveld. Coal is produced primarily for export (to East Asia and Europe) and for the generation of electricity.

      South Africa is the world's largest producer of platinum and chromium, which are mined at centres such as Rustenburg and Steelpoort in the northeast and are becoming increasingly significant economically. Vast deposits of platinum-group and chromium minerals are located mainly to the north of Pretoria. Northern Cape province contains most of the major deposits of iron ore and manganese, and titanium-bearing sands are common on the eastern seaboard. In addition, the country produces uranium, palladium, nickel, copper, antimony, vanadium, fluorspar, and limestone. diamond mining, historically concentrated around Kimberley, now occurs in a variety of localities. The South African diamond industry, among the world's largest, is largely controlled by De Beers Consolidated Mines, Ltd. (De Beers S.A.)

      Nearly all of South Africa's electricity is produced thermally, almost entirely from coal. Most electric power is generated by ESKOM at huge stations in Mpumalanga. Synthetic fuel derived from coal supplies a small proportion of the country's energy needs, as does imported oil refined at the ports or piped to a major inland refinery at Sasolburg. A nuclear power plant at Duinefonte has operated since 1984. Hydroelectric potential is limited, though there are government-developed projects on a number of rivers; more significant are the projects to import electricity from stations on the Zambezi River at Cahora Bassa, Mozam., and on rivers in the Lesotho Highlands. South Africa exports electricity to various Southern African countries.

Manufacturing

      The major manufacturing sectors are food processing and the production of textiles, metals, and chemicals. Agriculture and fisheries provide the basis for substantial activity in meat, fish, and fruit canning, sugar refining, and other processing; more than half these products are exported. A large and complex chemical industry has developed from early beginnings in the manufacture of explosives for use in mining. A coal-based petrochemical industry produces a wide range of plastics, resins, and industrial chemicals. The metal industry, centred in Gauteng, draws much of its raw material from the iron and steel producing firms located in the area. Imported materials supply aluminum manufacturers located mainly in KwaZulu-Natal. Manufacturing encompasses automobiles, ships, building materials, electronics, and many other products, notably armaments. Though the weapons industry has begun to diversify into nonmilitary production, the postapartheid government has also promoted a controversial export trade in arms, after military sanctions were lifted.

      Manufacturing has depended heavily on foreign capital; it expanded rapidly in the 1960s and early '70s but grew relatively slowly or even contracted during the '80s. As mining gradually declines, manufacturing and its need for foreign capital take on even greater importance for national development. About one-fourth of manufacturing output is exported.

Finance

 South Africa has a well-developed financial system, centred on the South African Reserve Bank, which is the sole issuing authority for the rand, the national currency. It formulates and implements monetary policy and manages foreign-exchange transactions. There are many registered banking institutions, a number of which concentrate on commercial banking, as well as merchant, savings, investment, and discount banks. One such bank, the Development Bank of Southern Africa, is a quasi-governmental company created to promote development projects. Private pension and provident funds and more than two dozen insurance companies play significant roles in the financial sector. An active capital market exists, organized around the Johannesburg Stock Exchange.

Trade

      Because of its dependence on foreign trade, South Africa's economy is sensitive to global economic conditions. Precious metals and base metals have been leading exports; agricultural goods and military equipment also play an important role. The country's major imports are chemicals, chemical products, and motor vehicles. South Africa's main trading partners are the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Japan. Regional trade in Southern Africa is increasingly important, especially through the Southern African Development Community. Since the end of apartheid, South African companies have sought to expand investment in other African countries, particularly in mining and commercial activity.

Services

 Tourism is becoming increasingly important to South Africa's economy. While the majority of tourists come from African countries, an increasing number of arrivals are from Europe and the Americas. There are many tourist attractions, notably the national and transnational parks. Travel across South Africa's borders into other African countries is being eased. Among the most popular tourist attractions are the wine regions in Western Cape province, Table Mountain, Robben Island (designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1999; the location of an infamous prison), and historic sites such as the former diamond mine in Kimberley, the Vredefort Dome (designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2005; the world's oldest and largest meteorite impact site), and the Mapungubwe settlement area (designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2003; the ruins of an important kingdom of the Iron Age). Ecotourism is increasing in popularity, as is village tourism, in which visitors can learn about traditional rural culture.

Labour (organized labour) and taxation

      Until the early 1970s the labour movement in South Africa was dominated by white trade unions, which held that the highest-skilled jobs should be reserved for whites only. A militant black trade union movement emerged, beginning with a wave of strikes in 1973–74, and numerous strikes followed. The most important trade union federation is the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), which maintains a formal political alliance with the ANC and is a nonracial but mainly black body that includes the country's largest unions, among them the National Union of Mineworkers. Other federations include the black consciousness-rooted National Council of Trade Unions and the mainly white Federation of South African Labour.

      Central government taxation consists primarily of income taxes on individuals and businesses and a value-added tax on transactions. Provincial governments depend mainly on transfer payments from the central government, while property taxes and levies on businesses provide the main support for local governments.

Transportation and telecommunications

      South Africa contains no navigable rivers; coastal shipping provides the only water transport. The country's network of roads and railways (railroad)—the most extensive in Africa—handles most of the transportation demand, supplemented by air travel.

Railways and roads

      The railway system, which serves all the major cities, most smaller towns, and many rural areas, is almost entirely owned and operated through the Transnet public corporation, although parts of Transnet are gradually being privatized. A narrow gauge of 3 feet 6 inches (107 cm) was adopted in the 1870s to lower the cost of construction in mountainous terrain. More than four-fifths of the network of more than 19,000 miles (31,000 km) of track is electrified, and the system has been computerized since 1980. Coal and iron ore, among other products, are transported on these lines. Long-distance passenger services have declined, but many commuters use train services in all the major urban centres. The luxurious Blue Train—which primarily runs the 1,000 miles (1,600 km) between Pretoria, Johannesburg, and Cape Town—and the surviving steam-operated services are popular tourist attractions.

      The road network contains some 185,000 miles (300,000 km) of roads, ranging from rural unpaved stretches to multilane freeways; about two-fifths of the roads are paved. Most towns are connected by two-lane highways; multilane freeway systems extend around the four major urban areas, but, over long distances, only Johannesburg and Durban are connected by such a highway. Most of the responsibility for maintaining and regulating roads falls to the different levels of government, but some long-distance roads have been transferred to the private sector and transformed into toll roads. In the 1990s the government instigated significant public-private initiatives to develop a transport corridor from Gauteng across Mpumalanga to Maputo in Mozambique and other corridors in major urban areas.

Air transport and shipping

      Inland air services, both passenger and freight, are operated by the state-owned South African Airways and by an increasing number of private competitors. Air services connect all major cities. South African Airways and many foreign carriers fly between South Africa and all neighbouring countries; international service extends worldwide. The international airport near Johannesburg is the main hub of the country's air transport both domestically and internationally, while the airports at Cape Town and Durban play increasingly important roles as international destinations.

      All South African ports are owned and operated by South African Ports Operations and National Ports Authority, subsidiaries of Transnet. Durban, which serves most of KwaZulu-Natal, Mpumalanga, and northern Free State, is the major port. Port Elizabeth, Cape Town, and East London (the only river port in South Africa) handle mixed traffic for their immediate hinterlands and more-distant locations. All these ports handle goods traveling to and from other African countries, including Zimbabwe, Zambia, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Maputo, the port closest to Johannesburg, serves many areas of the northern provinces. Newer ports have also been developed at such places as Richards Bay, which handles exports of coal on the north coast of KwaZulu-Natal, and in the excellent natural harbour at Saldanha Bay north of Cape Town, from which iron ore is exported.

Telecommunications

      Telecommunications systems are rather well developed, but their distribution is highly uneven. Many areas in South Africa still do not have basic telephone service. A program has been under way since the mid-1990s to vastly increase the number of telephone lines. Several cell phone companies provide coverage to many parts of the country. Internet connections exist in the major cities, and South Africa has one of the highest degrees of Internet connectivity in Africa. Telkom, the state telecommunications company, was partially privatized at the beginning of the 21st century.

Government and society

Constitutional framework

      South Africa's original constitution, the British Parliament's South Africa Act of 1909, united two former British colonies, the Cape of Good Hope (Cape Province) and Natal, with two former Boer (Dutch) republics, the Transvaal and Orange Free State. The new Union of South Africa was based on a parliamentary system with the British monarch as head of state. The Republic of South Africa Constitution Act of 1961 transformed the country from a dominion within the British Commonwealth into an independent republic.

      South Africa's political development was shaped by its colonial past and the implementation of apartheid policies by the white minority. After widespread protest and social unrest, a new nonracial interim constitution was adopted in 1993 and took effect in 1994. A new, permanent constitution, mandated by the interim document and drafted by Parliament in 1996, took effect in 1997.

Constitutions through the 1980s

      The 1909 South Africa Act served as the country's constitution until 1961. When South Africa officially became a republic in 1961, a constitution was finally written. In addition to providing for the already established positions of president and prime minister, the constitution gave Coloureds (Coloured) and Asians some voting rights. A new constitution was promulgated in 1984. The bicameral parliament was replaced by a tricameral system that created a House of Assembly for whites, a House of Representatives for Coloureds, and a House of Delegates for Indians. The black majority was given few political rights in either constitution.

The 1996 constitution

      The 1996 constitution's preamble points to the injustices of South Africa's past and defines the republic as a sovereign democratic state founded on the principles of human dignity, nonracialism and nonsexism, and the achievement of equality and advancement of human rights and freedoms. Another of the guiding principles, that of “cooperative government,” emphasizes the distinctiveness, interdependence, and interrelationship of the national, provincial, and local spheres of government. The constitution established the bicameral national Parliament. The lower house, or National Assembly, comprises 350 to 400 members who are directly elected to a five-year term through proportional representation. The National Council of Provinces, which replaced the Senate as the upper house, is made up of 10-member delegations (each with six permanent and four special members, including the provincial premier) chosen by each of the provincial assemblies. For most votes each delegation casts a single vote. The president, elected from among the members of the National Assembly by that body, is the head of state; as the national executive, the president presides over a cabinet that includes a deputy president and a member whom the president designates as the “leader of government business” in the assembly.

Local government

Provincial government

 Local government was established in 1909 when the four former colonies became provinces. Each was governed by a white-elected provincial council with limited legislative powers. The administrator of each province was appointed by the central government and presided over an executive committee representing the majority party in the council. Provincial councils were abolished in 1986, and the executive committees, appointed by the president, became the administrative arms of the state in each province. By the late 1980s a small number of blacks, Coloureds, and Indians had been appointed to them.

      In 1994 the four original provinces of South Africa (Cape of Good Hope (Cape Province), Orange Free State, Transvaal, and Natal) and the four former independent homelands ( Transkei, Bophuthatswana, Venda, and Ciskei) were reorganized into nine provinces: Western Cape, Northern Cape, Eastern Cape, North-West, Free State, Pretoria-Witwatersrand-Vereeniging (now Gauteng), Eastern Transvaal (now Mpumalanga), Northern (now Limpopo), and KwaZulu-Natal. The constitution provides for the election of provincial legislatures comprising 30 to 80 members elected to five-year terms through proportional representation. Each legislature elects a premier, who then appoints a provincial executive council of up to 10 members. The provincial legislatures have the authority to legislate in a range of matters specified in the constitution, including education, environment, health, housing, police, and transport, although complex provisions give the central government a degree of concurrent power. South Africa thus has a weak federal system.

Municipal government

      Urban municipal government has developed unevenly in South Africa since the early 19th century. In the 20th century, intensified urban segregation was accompanied by the creation of councils that advised the administrators appointed by white governments to run black, Coloured, and Asian “locations” and “townships.” In most rural areas, white governments tried to incorporate indigenous hereditary leaders (“chiefs”) of local communities as the front line for governing blacks, although the Cape administration also set up a parallel system of appointed “headmen.”

      Under the 1996 constitution, local government is predicated on a division of the entire country into municipalities. Executive and legislative authority is vested in municipal councils, some of which share authority with other municipalities. Chiefs (chief) remain important in rural governance. They generally work with appointed councils regarded by their supporters as traditional. Efforts by other blacks to reform and democratize rural administration and reduce the power of chiefs have become some of the most violently contentious issues in postapartheid politics.

Justice

      The common law of the republic is based on Roman-Dutch law, the uncodified law of The Netherlands having been retained after the Cape's cession to the United Kingdom in 1815. The judiciary comprises the Constitutional Court (with powers to decide on the constitutionality of legislative and administrative actions, particularly with respect to the bill of rights), the Supreme Court of Appeal (the highest court of appeal except in constitutional matters), the High Courts, and Magistrate's Courts (magistrates' court). Parliament may create additional courts but only with status equal to that of the High and Magistrate's Courts. The Supreme Court is headed by a chief justice, who is appointed by the state president, as are the deputy chief justice and the chief justice and deputy chief justice of the Constitutional Court. Other judges are appointed by the president with the advice of the Judicial Service Commission.

      Traditional authorities exercise some powers in relation to customary law, which derives from indigenous African practice codified in some areas (such as KwaZulu-Natal) by colonial rulers. Customary law continues to be recognized in various ways. For example, marriage in South Africa takes place either under customary law or under statute law, with profound implications for the legal status of African women married under customary law. Most civil and criminal litigation is a matter for the Magistrate's Courts.

Political process

      All citizens 18 years of age and older have the right to vote. Prior to universal suffrage, introduced in 1994, blacks, Coloureds, and Asians (primarily Indians) were systematically deprived of political participation in the conduct of national and provincial affairs, with few exceptions. In the Cape Colony and, later, Cape of Good Hope province, a property-qualified franchise once allowed a minority of better-off Coloureds and blacks to vote (rights eventually abolished under apartheid). Black representation in Parliament—provided by a small number of elected white representatives—was abolished in 1959, on the theory that blacks would eventually find their political rights as citizens of the “homelands” that would eventually become independent. Coloureds, who had been on a common voting roll with whites, were forced into separate representation in Parliament in 1956, and that arrangement was abolished altogether in 1968.

      The 1984 constitution extended the franchise to Coloureds and Asians in segregated houses of Parliament, but the substance of power in most matters, particularly over the general policy of apartheid, remained with the house representing whites. Blacks continued to be excluded from the national government.

      White women gained the right to vote in 1930; other women did not gain that right until universal suffrage was introduced in 1994. Women have since made strides in attaining important government positions. At the beginning of the 21st century, they made up about one-third of the National Assembly. In 2005, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka was appointed deputy president—the first woman named to that position.

      The major political party is the African National Congress (ANC; founded 1912). Banned from 1960 until 1990, the ANC changed from a national liberation organization to a political party after it won a majority at national democratic elections held in 1994. Other parties with significant support are the Inkatha Freedom Party (a largely Zulu organization), the Freedom Front (a right-wing white party), the Democratic Party (the heir to a long liberal tradition in white politics), and the Pan-Africanist Congress (Pan-Africanist Congress of Azania) (PAC; a group that broke away from the ANC in 1959). The South African Communist Party, a longtime ally of the ANC in the fight against apartheid, entered candidates for the 1994 election on the ANC's lists, as did the South African National Civic Organization and the trade union federation COSATU.

      Another party that played a significant role in South Africa's history was the National Party (NP), which ruled the country from 1948 to 1994. Founded in 1914 and supported by both Afrikaners and English-speaking white South Africans, the NP was long dedicated to policies of white supremacy and developed the apartheid system. By the early 1990s the NP, bowing to international pressure, had moved toward sharing power with the country's black majority and was later defeated in 1994 in the country's first multiracial elections. The party sought to recast its image by changing its name to the New National Party in December 1998, and it allied itself with the Democratic Party and the Federal Alliance in 2000 in an attempt to gain more political power. After several years of declining popularity, the party's federal council voted to disband the party in 2005.

Security

      South Africa has a large, well-equipped army, by far the largest contingent of the country's armed forces. The navy has a small fleet consisting of frigates, submarines, minesweepers, small strike craft, and auxiliary vessels. The air force's craft include fighter-bombers, interceptor fighters, helicopters, and reconnaissance, transport, and training aircraft.

      The armed forces entered a period of transition in 1994. South Africa's military traditionally had been white, with a small standing force and a large reserve component. However, from the 1970s an increasing number of black troops were recruited. Compulsory military service, formerly for white males only, ended in 1994. Guerrillas of the ANC's military wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe (“Spear of the Nation”), and of the PAC's military have been incorporated into a renamed South African National Defence Force. This integration has not been entirely smooth: ex-guerrillas have been perceived by many military professionals as lacking training and discipline, while the old-line white noncommissioned and commissioned officer corps has been perceived by some black soldiers as riddled with racism. A number of top officers under the old government were forced out in the 1990s as various apartheid-era abuses came to light, although concerns prior to the 1994 elections of possible rebellion by conservative military and police leaders have diminished.

      During the apartheid period the South African government, through a network of private and government-controlled corporations led by the state-owned Armaments Corporation of South Africa (Armscor), developed a variety of new weapons systems, mostly in order to overcome the effects of the international arms embargo imposed by the United Nations Security Council in 1977. Nuclear weapons (nuclear weapon) were developed in great secrecy—six atomic bombs were built during the 1970s and '80s—but the nuclear weapons program was terminated in 1989, and the bombs were dismantled the following year by the NP government as the prospect of a black-led government became increasingly likely.

      The regular police are organized nationally and comprise regulars as well as reservists. There have been about equal numbers of whites and nonwhites, reflecting a disproportionately high number of whites. Police responsibility for maintaining internal security brought them into sharp conflict with antiapartheid demonstrators during the 1970s and '80s. The specialist security police gained power within the force during that time, while thousands of poorly trained and poorly disciplined auxiliary police were recruited. As political control increasingly took precedence over basic policing, black communities were often treated as enemies rather than as citizens to be protected. The police were granted immunity and extrajudicial powers under the states of emergency first declared in 1983, and their actions were widely seen as abusive, contributing to the growth of international pressure on South Africa's government. Once the police had been freed of the burden of enforcing apartheid, they faced the challenge of forging better relationships with communities in the fight against rising crime levels.

      In the late 1970s the daily average prison population was almost 100,000, one of the highest rates in the world. Of these, the majority were imprisoned for statutory offenses against the so-called pass laws, repealed in 1986, which restricted the right of blacks to live and work in white areas and which did not apply to other racial groups. Under the states of emergency declared at periods of peak conflict in the 1980s, as many as 50,000 persons were detained without charge or trial. The proportion of the population in prison then declined, many detainees being released in 1990 with the end of a state of emergency; negotiations for a new constitution also led to the release of many political prisoners. An amnesty policy was instituted, covering politically inspired offenses committed by both whites and nonwhites during the closing years of the struggle against apartheid, provided that offenders fully revealed their actions to a public commission. The prison population began to increase significantly in the mid-1990s, and in the early 21st century South Africa's prison population rate was the highest in Africa and among the highest in the world.

Health and welfare

      While racial bias was not explicitly written into health legislation during the apartheid period, medical care for South Africans invariably reflected the economic and political inequalities of the society, as well as the consequences of apartheid's residential and administrative segregation and of deliberately unequal government health funding. Hospital segregation has ended, but access to medical services remains greatly inferior in historically black areas. The health status of blacks is generally low; malnutrition is perhaps the most important long-standing example, especially among rural children. There is an enormous discrepancy in infant mortality rates, which are lowest for whites and highest among rural blacks. The number of South Africans infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, increased sharply during the 1990s, especially among blacks, and, at the beginning of the 21st century, South Africa ranked near the top of United Nations estimates of proportions of national populations infected with HIV. Since 1994 both the Department of National Health and the administrations of the new provinces have emphasized primary health care delivery, building in some instances on programs that farsighted medical workers instituted during the apartheid period.

      A highly sophisticated public health system exists in the cities and large towns. Some of the largest public hospitals are linked to the university medical schools, but those located in the formerly segregated black areas tend to be overcrowded. Many of the more-expensive private hospitals are accessible only to those with higher incomes, still predominantly whites. Most regularly employed persons enjoy a degree of private medical insurance, but, because a high proportion of black adults are not in formal-sector employment, reliance on insurance through employers produces a racially skewed pattern of access. By contrast, private general practitioners and specialists supply most needs for the most affluent.

      Government provides a number of welfare measures, among them small pensions for all citizens beyond retirement age whose incomes are below a minimal level. Large numbers of elderly blacks, and often their dependents, gain a minimal livelihood from this system. In the past, welfare systems were administered separately for the different racial groups; the value of pensions was greatest for whites, less for Indians and Coloureds (those of mixed ancestry), and lowest for blacks. During the late 1980s the differentials began to be reduced, and they were eliminated under the 1996 constitution.

      The two most important features affecting social conditions in South Africa are the high unemployment rate for blacks and the wide disparity between black and white income levels. In the early 21st century, estimates of black unemployment were higher than the unemployment rates of the groups formerly classified under apartheid as Indians and Coloureds and significantly higher than the unemployment rate for whites. Blacks who were employed were generally in the lowest-paying and least-prestigious positions. This pattern partially reflected the composition of South Africa's population, with its many migrants to industrial and urban areas, and also indicated how large the country's informal economy had become. Substantial wage advances for miners and industrial workers since the 1970s have not been shared by the nonunionized or the underemployed. On the other hand, employment opportunities in government, the professions, and business have grown rapidly for blacks, Indians, and Coloureds, and since the early 1990s nonwhites have gradually occupied more midlevel positions.

Housing

      Traditional housing varied according to ethnic group. The Nguni and the Swazi lived in dispersed households governed by chiefs, while the Sotho lived in villages and farmed on land outside the villages. The Xhosa built their houses near the tops of ridges that overlooked local rivers, and the Ndebele decorated their homesteads with colourful pictures and symbols. Zulu housing was centred around the imizi ( kraal), which consisted of a fence that enclosed a number of beehive-shaped one-room houses.

      Local authorities have been responsible for public housing since the 1920s, although control over black housing reverted to the central government in 1971. A housing shortage existed and was somewhat addressed through a massive program of township development in black areas begun in the 1950s but diminished in the 1970s. During the 1980s “site-and-service” schemes emerged to provide land equipped with basic infrastructure for poorer, usually black people around the cities to build upon, but the housing crisis remained severe in the face of rapid population growth and urban migration. Housing policy since the early 1990s has emphasized the joint roles of the public and private sectors; the government launched an ambitious program of capital subsidies and loan guarantees in an effort to upgrade housing conditions and assist all citizens in acquiring title to some form of shelter.

Education

Primary and secondary schools

      School education is compulsory for all children between 7 and 16 years of age or through ninth grade, whichever is reached first, and begins in one of the 11 official languages. After second grade, students begin learning another language.

 The right to a basic education is guaranteed in the constitution. The country has a national educational system, which oversees the education implemented in the provinces. The school system contains both private and public schools. During the apartheid era, schools run by white education departments had the best resources in the public school system, and white-oriented private schools received substantial public subsidies. Although some of these schools began to admit black pupils after 1990, informal white resistance, capacity limitations, and fees (often newly imposed with apparent exclusionary intent) generally have kept blacks out of historically white public schools. Private schools, many of which offer superior educational programs, remain largely inaccessible to most blacks because of the high cost. In an effort to rectify past inequalities, the government has pledged significant resources toward improving the physical and learning environment of the school system. To that end, the government implemented a new national curriculum in the early 21st century.

      Literacy rates in South Africa are high by African standards. Since 1970, literacy rates have grown from one-half to four-fifths of the population.

Higher education

      South Africa is home to many institutions of higher education. The oldest and largest of the universities is the University of South Africa (UNISA), which was established in Cape Town but is now based in Pretoria and offers correspondence courses in both English and Afrikaans. The oldest of the residential universities are those of Cape Town, Fort Hare, Stellenbosch, and the Witwatersrand (Johannesburg); of these, Stellenbosch began as an Afrikaans-language institution, while Fort Hare was originally established to serve blacks only. Other institutions in South Africa include the University of Pretoria, North-West University, the University of Johannesburg, and Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University. Historically, most blacks with postsecondary degrees earned them through UNISA or Fort Hare, but the English-language institutions—including the University of Natal (Pietermaritzburg and Durban) and Rhodes University—admitted a few black students until 1959, when their ability to do so was restricted by apartheid legislation that they fiercely opposed. The government then established several new institutions (the Universities of the North, Zululand, Western Cape, Durban-Westville, and Vista and the Medical University) for various black groups and increased the number of black-oriented technikons, schools designed to teach technical industrial skills. The officially independent homelands of Bophuthatswana, Transkei, and Venda also established their own universities.

      Even after apartheid-era restrictions were removed, many postsecondary institutions remained influenced by their historically dominant racial and ethnic character. Coloured and Indian students were integrated into historically white universities more rapidly than blacks. Professional and postgraduate courses were still concentrated at the formerly white universities until an ambitious restructuring program was undertaken in the early 21st century. Under the government's plan, several universities and technikons were consolidated in an effort to improve the access to and quality of education available to all students regardless of race, to eliminate duplication of services, and to better meet the country's projected workforce requirements.

Cultural life

      Blending Western technology with indigenous technology, Western traditions with African and Asian traditions, South Africa is a study in contrasts. It also provides lessons in how cultures can sometimes blend, sometimes collide: for example, within a short distance of one another can be found the villas of South Africa's white elite and the tar-paper shacks of black day labourers, office buildings with the most sophisticated electronic wiring and one-room houses that lack electricity. A great gulf still exists between the white minority and the black majority in matters of education and economic opportunity. Yet, South Africa is making steady progress in erasing some of these historic disparities and their consequences. Daily life is better for most of its people, and culture and the arts, which sometimes were forced into exile, are flourishing in the free climate of the postapartheid era.

Daily life and social customs

      As they are everywhere in the world, patterns of daily life in South Africa are conditioned by social class, ethnicity, religion, and residence: the life of a black diamond miner in Limpopo province is much different from that of an Indian shopkeeper in Durban, an Afrikaner office worker in Johannesburg, or a teacher of English extraction in Cape Town. As the government struggles to expand the economy in order to provide equally for all citizens, great disparities continue to exist. Yet, all these people are likely to enjoy much the same pleasures: the company of family and friends, films from the studios of Johannesburg and Hollywood alike, music and dance, and visits to South Africa's magnificent national parks and scenic landscapes.

      The great mixture of cultures makes for a wide variety of food choices in the country, from the traditional food of various cultures to the cosmopolitan cuisine that is available in many large cities throughout the world. African food is centred around vegetables, with maize (corn) as an important staple, often in the form of a porridge known as mealie pap. A dish made from broken dried corn kernels, sugar beans, butter, onions, potatoes, chiles, and lemon is called umngqusho. It is still possible to visit a shebeen, an African tavern where beer is home-brewed. Dutch and English settlers introduced sausages and bobotie, a meat pie made with minced meat that has been cooked with brown sugar, apricots and raisins, milk-soaked mashed bread, and curry flavouring. The Portuguese introduced various fish dishes to the country. The Indian influence added spices and even samosas, savoury pastries popular as a snack. All South Africans enjoy the braai, a South African barbeque. Beef, chicken, lamb, pork, ostrich, and other game meat are savoured, although meat consumption is limited in many places because of its expense.

      Among its holidays, South Africa celebrates Human Rights Day on March 21, Freedom Day on April 27 (to celebrate the first majority elections in 1994), National Women's Day on August 9, Heritage Day on September 24, and National Day of Reconciliation on December 16.

The arts

      A century and a half of white domination in most of the country (more than three centuries in the Western Cape) and the great extent of its ties to the global market economy have profoundly transformed black culture in South Africa. The strongest links to traditional societies have been through the many languages embodying the country's cultural diversity, whose nuances of idiom and sensibility carry over into the arts. Traditional art forms such as dancing and textile weaving are used as vehicles of ethnic identity and are carefully preserved, while modern art forms from painting to literature have flourished in the years since the end of apartheid. Still, much of this has taken place through private initiatives because major institutional support for culture has been largely abandoned, especially for cultural projects perceived as elitist or European in orientation; the closing of the National Symphony Orchestra in 2000 is one such example.

Music

      Many popular South African arts represent a fusion of cultural influences, such as township jazz and pop music, religious choral music, and so-called “traditional” dances performed competitively by mine workers in decidedly untraditional settings. Others are innovations created in response to new circumstances, such as the lifela song-poems composed by Sotho migrant workers to express and comment upon the life of miners. Because miners were frequently so far away from home, traditional rituals had to be performed during the weekends or on holidays. Mining companies often sponsored dances as an outlet for the men, and tourists came to view the exotic African musical forms.

 South African music is a fusion of various musical styles such as traditional indigenous music, jazz, Christian religious music, and forms of popular music from the United States. These combinations are evident in the music of such performers as the African Jazz Pioneers, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Miriam Makeba (Makeba, Miriam), Hugh Masekela, and others. During the apartheid period, black and white musicians were segregated, although they still collaborated on occasion; a notable example is Johnny Clegg, a white South African who learned traditional Zulu music and formed the mixed-race bands Juluka and Savuka, both of which had international followings. Township music, a lively form of music that flourished in the townships during the apartheid era, has also been popular within the country and abroad.

Art

      Rock and cave art attributable to the San, some of which is thought to be about 26,000 years old, has been found across much of Southern Africa. The greatest number of paintings, which primarily depict human figures and such animals as elands, elephants, cattle, and horses, have been found in the Drakensberg mountains (part of uKhahlamba/Drakensberg Park, designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2000). Terra-cotta figures dated to AD 500 are known as Lydenburg heads, named after the town in which they were discovered. Excavations at Bambandyanalo and Mapungubwe in the Limpopo River valley have found gold animal statues as well as a wealth of pottery and clay animal figurines. More recently, Zulu wooden statues, produced in the 19th century before the Zulu War (1879), are further examples of South Africa's artistic history.

      Visual artists continue to create in traditional forms, but many contemporary artists—including Jane Alexander, Helen Sebidi, Willie Bester, and Bongiwe Dhlomo—employ Western techniques as well.

Literature

       South African literature proved to be an important expression of resistance against apartheid throughout the 20th century. One of its best-known works is Alan Paton (Paton, Alan)'s novel Cry, the Beloved Country (1948), which drew world attention to the separatist system. Two decades later, literary resistance organized around journals and magazines, whose contributors were collectively known as the Sestigers (“Sixtyers,” writers of the 1960s). Reacting against the National Party's increasingly authoritarian policies, the Sestigers grew in influence but soon divided into factions insisting on the need for violent revolution on the one hand and art for art's sake on the other. In the 1970s many books continued to criticize the apartheid regime, including André Brink (Brink, André Philippus)'s Kennis van die aand (1973; Looking on Darkness), Nadine Gordimer (Gordimer, Nadine)'s Burger's Daughter (1979), and Breyten Breytenbach (Breytenbach, Breyten)'s In Africa Even the Flies Are Happy (1977). Also during this time, the government enacted the Publications Act of 1974, which expanded and strengthened existing censorship policies. Many authors went into exile; some did not return until the 1990s, while others remained abroad even after the end of apartheid. Brink, however, remained in South Africa and wrote, in Writing in a State of Siege (1983), about how unsuccessful the National Party had been in silencing South African writers:

For a very long time three different streams of literature ran their course: black, Afrikaans, and English. But during the last few years a new awareness of common identity as writers has arisen, creating a new sense of solidarity in a body of informed and articulate resistance to oppression.

Black literature

      Of those three streams, the least known is black literature. South Africa's various black cultures have rich oral traditions, including narrative, poetic, historical, and epic forms, which have changed and adapted as black life has changed. While there is a fear that classical forms of the oral traditions are at risk of being lost with the spread of literacy and recorded music, these oral traditions have exerted a major influence on the written literatures of South Africa, merging with literary influences from elsewhere in Africa, the Caribbean and the Americas, and Europe.

      Such writers as Oliver Kgadime Matsepe (North Sotho), Thomas Mofolo (Mofolo, Thomas Mokopu) (South Sotho), Guybon Sinxo (Xhosa), and B.W. Vilakazi (Vilakazi, Benedict Wallet) (Zulu) have been more deeply influenced in their written work by the oral traditions of their cultures than by European forms. Other black writers, beginning in the 1930s with Solomon Plaatje (Plaatje, Solomon Tshekiso) and his historical novel Mhudi (1930), have explicitly used black oral history when writing in English. As literacy spread, a commercial press developed, primarily in English, that was aimed at a black audience and shaped new generations of writers. Notable were the contributors to the journal Drum, including Nat Nakasa, Can Themba (Themba, Can), Bloke Modisane (Modisane, Bloke), and Lewis Nkosi (Nkosi, Lewis), who vividly captured the rhythms of urban township life and the milieu of rising black ambitions for freedom. Government crackdowns in the 1960s crushed much of that spirit and forced Dennis Brutus (Brutus, Dennis), Ezekiel Mphahlele (Mphahlele, Es'kia), Mazisi Kunene (Kunene, Mazisi), and other writers into exile.

Afrikaans literature

      The second stream, literature written in Afrikaans (Afrikaans language), has its origins in the culture and arts of the early Afrikaner nationalist movement. Beginning in the 1880s, the movement laid the foundation for the political nationalism that coalesced following British conquest and contributed to the ideology of apartheid. In the 1920s—through the secret organization called the Afrikaner-Broederbond and through cultural organizations—teachers, academics, Dutch Reformed Church ministers, writers, artists, and journalists began to develop a powerful, if also authoritarian, vision of an exclusive, divinely ordained national “racial” identity. That vision, promoted in literature, drama, music, and public commemorative sculpture and other forms of expression, became apartheid's official culture, asserting the paradoxical proposition that the other, non-Afrikaner cultures should develop along their own lines, in a manner prescribed by the state.

      Writers of Afrikaans literature later explored more-universal themes—such as love, conflict, nature, and daily life—and, eventually, even opposition to apartheid. The first two decades of the 20th century were dominated by such poets as Jakob Daniel du Toit (Du Toit, Jakob Daniel) and C. Louis Leipoldt (Leipoldt, C. Louis). The appearance of the Dertigers (“Thirtyers,” poets of the 1930s), a group of talented poets including W.E.G. Louw, signified the new standard in Afrikaans literature. Prominent among the Sestigers, who followed decades later, were the novelists Etienne Leroux and Brink and the poet Breytenbach. Post-Sestigers writers of note include the poets Wilma Stockenström, Sheila Cussons, and Antjie Krog and the novelists Elsa Joubert, Karel Schoeman, and Etienne van Heerden.

Anglophone literature

      The third stream, Anglophone literature, arose in the late 19th and the early 20th century with writers such as Olive Schreiner (Schreiner, Olive), an early feminist who is credited with writing the first great South African novel, The Story of an African Farm (1883), and Herman Charles Bosman (Bosman, Herman Charles), whose short stories chronicled the foibles of life on the veld. After World War II Paton, Gordimer (who later was awarded the 1991 Nobel Prize for Literature), and others produced what might be called a literature of the liberal conscience, combining sharp and critical social observation with meditation on the responsibilities and fates of individuals enmeshed in oppressive situations they lack the power to change.

Multicultural literature

      During the 1970s there emerged in the arts powerful themes of national and multiracial, multilingual cultural patterns, as writers and artists from all backgrounds concentrated on exploring and portraying the turmoil affecting South African society. Reaction to apartheid engendered a sense of black culture and history that drew inspiration from West and North African, Caribbean, and African American intellectual movements. The themes of black consciousness evident in the poetry and prose of urban writers such as Mothobi Mutloatse, Miriam Tlali, Mbulelo Mzamane, and Njabulo Ndebele and published in such periodicals as Staffrider were derived from the literary and oral traditions of black languages in South Africa and in literature by blacks in European languages.

      For many decades, works with strong political themes or explicit sexuality were banned. Authors such as Breytenbach, Brink, Leroux, and Dan Roodt, whose works were banned, began exploring the cultural ground on which Afrikaners would need to make their way in a reconstructed and democratic South Africa.

      The authors Adam Small and Alex La Guma (La Guma, Alex) have written vividly in Afrikaans and English, respectively, of the effects of racial discrimination and of the complex and frequently violent nature of life in South Africa. Many black and white writers addressing these and other themes have received international recognition. Writers such as J.M. Coetzee (Coetzee, J.M.) (awarded the 2003 Nobel Prize for Literature), Sipho Sepamla, and Mongane Wally Serote have joined such established figures as Mphahlele, Paton, Brink, and Leroux in bringing South African literary life to the wider world. With the end of apartheid, some South African writers have tried to write about nonapartheid subjects, while others cannot seem to escape the topic.

Theatre

 South African playwrights responded to the new cultural and political milieu with such innovations as multilingual plays. Support for the newer indigenous theatre came from independent and nonracial theatrical organizations, such as the Market Theatre in Johannesburg. Plays by Athol Fugard (Fugard, Athol), Mbongeni Ngema, Fatima Dike, Zakes Mda, and Pieter-Dirk Uys have been performed worldwide.

Film

      Since the 1890s, when the medium was first introduced, film has been an important means of cultural expression for South African artists. The country's first major narrative film, The Kimberley Diamond Robbery, appeared in 1910. It was followed through the 1910s and '20s by several epics that rivaled the Hollywood productions of Cecil B. DeMille, notably I.W. Schlesinger's Symbol of Sacrifice (1918), which employed 25,000 Zulu warriors as extras to depict the Zulu War of 1879.

      As is the case with other arts, film has also been used as a means of political commentary, despite official censorship in the apartheid era. In the 1970s director Ross Devenish brought Fugard's highly political play Boesman and Lena (1973) to the screen, and Soweto-based playwright and filmmaker Gibson Kente directed How Long (Must We Suffer…)? (1976), the first major South African film made by a black artist. A Dry White Season (1989), based on a novel by Brink, used a largely American cast to bring the harsh reality of apartheid to an international audience. Other films that reached a wider audience include Afrikaner director Jamie Uys's The Gods Must Be Crazy (1980), Oliver Schmitz and Thomas Mogotlane's Mapantsula (1988), Manie van Rensburg's Taxi to Soweto (1991), Anant Singh and Darrell Roodt's Sarafina! (1992), and Gavin Hood's Tsotsi (2005), based on a novel by Fugard.

Cultural institutions

      The South African National Gallery, home to 19th–20th-century African art and 16th–20th-century European art, and the District Six Museum, which honours an interracial bohemian enclave that was destroyed by government decrees during the apartheid era, are in Cape Town. Robben Island (designated a UNSECO World Heritage site in 1999), north of Cape Town in Table Bay, was once the site of an infamous prison and is now home to a museum. The National Museum at Bloemfontein contains institutes for such areas as herpetology, ornithology, mammalogy, arachnology, paleontology, archaeology, and local history. The African Art Centre in Durban exhibits work by local artists. The National Library of South Africa, the national reference and preservation repository formed in 1999 by the merger of the South African Library and the State Library, has campuses in Cape Town and Pretoria. The Nelson Mandela National Museum, honouring the life and work of Mandela, comprises three sites centred in or around Mandela's home village in Qunu, Eastern Cape. The museum opened on Feb. 11, 2000—10 years from the day that Mandela was released from prison. A museum dedicated to the history of apartheid opened in Johannesburg in 2001. Monuments to important South African historical figures—from both the colonial era as well as the antiapartheid struggle—can be found throughout the country.

Sports and recreation

      South Africans avidly participate in sports and outdoor recreational activities. The country's national parks provide opportunities not only to view wildlife but also to pursue activities such as rock climbing and hiking. As with most other aspects of South African life, however, sports and recreational activities developed differently for whites and blacks. Whites played football (football (soccer)) (soccer), rugby, and cricket and enjoyed sports in world-class facilities, while blacks were restricted to such sports as football, boxing, and, secondarily, athletics (track and field); moreover, their facilities were poorly maintained and ill-equipped.

      White South African athletes collected more than 50 Olympic medals from 1908 to 1960, but the country was suspended from the Olympic Games in 1964–92 because of its apartheid policies. During the transition from apartheid to democracy (1990–94), South Africa was readmitted to the Olympics, and a small, racially mixed Olympic team competed in the 1992 Summer Games. At the 1996 Summer Games, swimmer Penelope Heyns became the first South African Olympic gold medallist in the postapartheid era, and marathon runner Josia Thugwane earned the distinction of becoming the first black South African to claim a gold medal.

      Other postapartheid sports teams have also done well. South Africa's rugby team, the Springboks, returned to international competition in 1995 and won the Rugby World Cup that year and in 2007. When South Africa's national football team, affectionately nicknamed Bafana Bafana (Zulu for "The Boys"), returned to international competition, it won the 1996 African Cup of Nations at home, was runner-up to Egypt at the same competition in 1998, and qualified for its first World Cup finals in 1998. South Africa is scheduled to host the 2010 World Cup, the first time that an African country has been selected to do so.

Media and publishing

      The white-oriented press in contemporary South Africa, which has a long tradition of free expression for whites, found itself under increasing political and legal constraints from the 1950s onward and was subjected to heavy censorship in the 1980s. Legislation was passed in late 1993 and promulgated in 1994 to better ensure fairness in the press. Historically, the strongest elements of the press have been distinct English- and Afrikaans-language publishers, such as Argus and Perskor. Black readership has expanded greatly, though some papers aimed at that market, such as The World, were banned during the apartheid period, while individual journalists were banned, detained, and threatened. During the 1980s a new independent press emerged, represented by newspapers such as New Nation and Weekly Mail. Vrye Weekblad, the first Afrikaans-language antiapartheid newspaper, closed in 1994. With South Africa's reemergence in the world economy, foreign media interests began to take a greater interest in the local market; the largest daily newspaper group in the country was taken over by an international concern.

      Television, introduced in the mid-1970s, and radio constitute important forces in South African society. Until the lifting of emergency media restrictions in February 1990, the government tightly controlled both and used them to communicate its own views and to counter perceived threats to the apartheid system. Most electronic media remain publicly owned, but the pattern of management and public participation in their control changed decisively after 1994 from all white- and male-dominated management to a more representative mix under the new government. A number of privately owned radio stations have been set up in major urban markets since the mid-1990s, and independent television productions have become more common. Increasingly, programming is aimed at the many linguistic and cultural groups in the country.

      The digital revolution has markedly affected South Africa. Most major publications have an online presence, as do a rapidly growing number of companies and governmental agencies.

Randolph Vigne David Frank Gordon Alan S. Mabin Christopher C. Lowe

History

      The prehistory and history of South Africa span nearly the entire known existence of human beings and their ancestors—some three million years or more—and include the wandering of small bands of hominins through the savanna, the inception of herding and farming as ways of life, and the construction of large urban centres. Through this diversity of human experience, several trends can be identified: technological and economic change, shifting systems of belief, and, in the earlier phases of humanity, the interplay between physical evolution and learned behaviour, or culture. Over much of this time frame, South Africa's past is also that of a far wider area, and only in the last few centuries has this southernmost country of Africa had a history of its own. This article focuses on the country of South Africa. For information about the country in its regional context, see Southern Africa.

Prehistory

      The earliest creatures that can be identified as ancestors of modern humans are classified as australopithecines (Australopithecus) (literally “southern apes”). The first specimen of these hominins to be found (in 1924) was the skull of a child from a quarry site at Taung in what is now the North-West province. Subsequently more australopithecine fossils were discovered in limestone caves farther northeast at Sterkfontein, Swartkrans, and Kromdraai (collectively designated a World Heritage site in 1999), where they had originally been deposited by predators and scavengers.

      South Africa's prehistory has been divided into a series of phases based on broad patterns of technology. The primary distinction is between a reliance on chipped and flaked stone implements (the Stone Age) and the ability to work iron (the Iron Age). Spanning a large proportion of human history, the Stone Age in Southern Africa is further divided into the Early Stone Age, or Paleolithic Period (about 2,500,000–150,000 years ago), the Middle Stone Age, or Mesolithic Period (about 150,000–30,000 years ago), and the Late Stone Age, or Neolithic Period (about 30,000–2,000 years ago). The simple stone tools (stone-tool industry) found with australopithecine fossil bones fall into the earliest part of the Early Stone Age (Paleolithic Period).

The Early Stone Age

      Most Early Stone Age sites in South Africa can probably be connected with the hominin species known as Homo erectus. Simply modified stones, hand axes, scraping tools, and other bifacial artifacts had a wide variety of purposes, including butchering animal carcasses, scraping hides, and digging for plant foods. Most South African archaeological sites from this period are the remains of open camps, often by the sides of rivers and lakes, although some are rock shelters, such as Montagu Cave in the Cape region.

      Change occurred slowly in the Early Stone Age; for more than a million years and over a wide geographic area, only slight differences existed in the forms of stone tools. The slow alterations in hominins' physical appearance that took place over the same time period, however, have allowed physical anthropologists to recognize new species in the genus Homo. An archaic form of H. sapiens appeared about 500,000 years ago; important specimens belonging to this physical type have been found at Hopefield in Western Cape province and at the Cave of Hearths in Mpumalanga province.

The Middle Stone Age (Mesolithic Period)

      The long episode of cultural and physical evolution gave way to a period of more rapid change about 200,000 years ago. Hand axes and large bifacial stone tools were replaced by stone flakes (flake tool) and blades that were fashioned into scrapers, spear points, and parts for hafted, composite implements. This technological stage, now known as the Middle Stone Age, is represented by numerous sites in South Africa.

      Open camps and rock overhangs were used for shelter. Day-to-day debris has survived to provide some evidence of early ways of life, although plant foods have rarely been preserved. Middle Stone Age bands hunted medium-sized and large prey, including antelope and zebra, although they tended to avoid the largest and most dangerous animals, such as the elephant and the rhinoceros. They also ate seabirds and marine mammals that could be found along the shore and sometimes collected tortoises and ostrich eggs in large quantities. The rich archaeological deposits of Klasies River Mouth (Klasies) (see Klasies), on the Cape coast west of Port Elizabeth, have preserved the first known instance of shellfish being used as a food source.

      Klasies River Mouth has also provided important evidence for the emergence of anatomically modern humans. Some of the human skeletons from the lower levels of this site, possibly 115,000 years old, are decidedly modern in form. Fossils of comparable age have been excavated at Border Cave, in the mountainous region between KwaZulu-Natal province and Swaziland.

The Late Stone Age (Neolithic Period)

      Basic toolmaking techniques began to undergo additional change about 40,000 years ago. Small finely worked stone implements known as microliths became more common, while the heavier scrapers and points of the Middle Stone Age appeared less frequently. Archaeologists refer to this technological stage as the Late Stone Age. The numerous collections of stone tools from South African archaeological sites show a great degree of variation through time and across the subcontinent.

      The remains of plant foods have been well preserved at such sites as Melkhoutboom Cave, De Hangen, and Diepkloof in the Cape region. Animals were trapped and hunted with spears and arrows on which were mounted well-crafted stone blades. Bands moved with the seasons as they followed game into higher lands in the spring and early summer months, when plant foods could also be found. When available, rock overhangs became shelters; otherwise, windbreaks were built. Shellfish, crayfish, seals, and seabirds were also important sources of food, as were fish caught on lines, with spears, in traps, and possibly with nets.

      Dating from this period are numerous engravings on rock surfaces, mostly on the interior plateau, and paintings on the walls of rock shelters in the mountainous regions, such as the Drakensberg and Cederberg ranges. The images were made over a period of at least 25,000 years. Although scholars originally saw the South African rock art as the work of exotic foreigners such as Minoans or Phoenicians or as the product of primitive minds, they now believe that the paintings were closely associated with the work of medicine men, shamans (shamanism) who were involved in the well-being of the band and often worked in a state of trance. Specific representations include depictions of trance dances, metaphors for trance such as death and flight, rainmaking, and control of the movement of antelope herds.

Pastoralism and early agriculture

      New ways of living came to South Africa about 2,000 years ago. Until that time, human communities had survived by gathering plant foods and by hunting, trapping, and scavenging for meat, but with the introduction of agriculture—arguably the single most important event in world history—people began to make use of domesticated animals and plants. This in turn led to a slow but steady rise in population and to more-complex political and religious organizations, among other things. Crops could be grown and cattle, sheep, and goats herded near permanent villages and towns in the east, where rainfall was adequate. In the more arid west, domestic livestock were kept by nomadic pastoralists, who moved over wide territories with their flocks and herds.

      Although the origin of nomadic pastoralism in South Africa is still obscure, linguistic evidence points to northern Botswana as a probable source. The linguistic evidence is supported by finds of sheep bones and pottery from Bambata Cave in southwestern Zimbabwe that have been dated to about 150 BC. Whether new communities moved into South Africa with their flocks and herds or whether established hunter-gatherer bands took up completely new ways of living remains unclear. In any case, the results of archaeological excavations have shown that sheep were being herded fairly extensively by the first few centuries AD in eastern and western parts of the Cape and probably in the northern Cape as well.

      While traces of ancient herding camps tend to be extremely rare, one of the best-preserved finds is at Kasteelberg, on the southwest coast near St. Helena Bay. Pastoralists there kept sheep, hunted seals and other wild animals, and gathered shellfish, repeatedly returning to the same site for some 1,500 years. Such communities were directly ancestral to the Khoekhoe (also spelled Khoikhoi) herders who encountered European settlers at the Cape of Good Hope in the mid-17th century.

      The archaeological traces of farmers in the eastern regions of South Africa are more substantial. The earliest sites date to the 3rd century AD, although farming was probably already well established by this time. Scatters of potsherds with distinctive incised decoration mark early village locations in Mpumalanga and parts of KwaZulu-Natal.

The Iron Age

      Because the first farmers had knowledge of ironworking, their archaeological sites are characterized as Iron Age (c. AD 200). New groups of people arriving in South Africa at that time had strong connections to East Africa. They were directly ancestral to the Bantu-speaking peoples who form the majority of South Africa's population today.

Iron Age sites

      Early Iron Age farmers grew crops, cutting back the vegetation with iron hoes and axes, and herded cattle and sheep. They heavily supplemented farming by gathering wild plant foods, engaging in some hunting, and collecting shellfish if they lived near enough to the coast. Where conditions for agriculture were favourable, such as in the Tugela River valley in the east, villages grew to house several hundred people. Some trade existed between groups of farmers—evidence for specialization in salt making has been found in the northeast—and with the hunter-gatherer bands that continued to occupy most parts of South Africa. Finely made life-size ceramic heads found near the city of Lydenburg (now Mashishing) in eastern South Africa and dated to the 7th century AD are all that remains of the people who once inhabited this region.

      Early Iron Age villages were built in low-lying areas, such as river valleys and the coastal plain, where forests and savannas facilitated shifting (slash-and-burn) agriculture. From the 11th century, however, in the period conventionally known as the Late Iron Age, farming communities began to settle the higher-lying grasslands. It has not been established whether these new communities were inhabited by invaders or reflected the diffusion of new knowledge to existing populations. In many areas the new communities started making different forms of pottery and built villages out of stone. Most probably these and other changes in patterns of behaviour reflect the increasing importance of cattle in economic life.

First urban centres

      Other changes came in the north. Arab traders established small settlements on the Tanzanian and Mozambican coasts in their search for ivory, animal skins, and other exotica. The trade beads they offered in return began to reach villages in the interior, the first indications that the more complex economic and social structures associated with long-distance trade were developing. The arid Limpopo River valley, avoided by the earliest farmers, developed as a trade route. Sites such as Pont Drift (c. 800–1100) and Schroda (dated to the 9th century) show that their occupants were wealthy in both livestock and trade beads.

      The Limpopo River valley was also the setting in which Bambandyanalo and Mapungubwe developed as South Africa's first urban centres during the 11th century. Starting as a large village like Schroda and Pont Drift, Mapungubwe rapidly developed into a town of approximately 10,000 people. Differences in status were clearly demarcated: the elite lived and were buried at the top of the stark sandstone hill at the town's centre, while the rest of the population lived in the valley below. Hilltop graves contained lavish burial goods, including a carefully crafted gold rhinoceros and evidence of specialized crafts such as bone and ivory working. Bambandyanalo and Mapungubwe were abandoned after the 13th century after having been occupied for several hundred years. The trade connections that the Limpopo valley offered were taken over by Great Zimbabwe, farther to the north.

Europeans in South Africa

      The first Portuguese ships rounded the Cape of Good Hope (Good Hope, Cape of) in 1488, their occupants intent on gaining a share of the lucrative Arab trade with the East. Over the following century, numerous vessels made their way around the South African coast, but the only direct African contacts came with the bands of shipwreck survivors who either set up camp in the hope of rescue or tried to make their way northward to Portuguese settlements in present-day Mozambique. Both the British and the Dutch challenged the Portuguese control of the Cape sea route from the early 17th century. The British founded a short-lived settlement at Table Bay (Bay, Table) in 1620, and in 1652 the Dutch East India Company set up a small garrison under the slopes of Table Mountain for provisioning their fleets.

Settlement of the Cape Colony

      The Dutch East India Company, always mindful of unnecessary expense, did not intend to establish more than a minimal presence at the southernmost part of Africa. Because farming beyond the shores of Table Bay proved necessary, however, nine men were released from their contracts with the company and granted land along the Liesbeek River in 1657. The company made it clear that the Khoekhoe were not to be enslaved, so, beginning in that same year, slaves arrived in the Cape from West and East Africa, India, and the Malay Peninsula. By the end of the century, the imprint of Dutch colonialism (colonialism, Western) in South Africa was clear, with settlers, aided by increasing numbers of slaves, growing wheat, tending vineyards, and grazing their sheep and cattle from the Cape peninsula to the Hottentots (Khoekhoe) Holland Mountains some 30 miles (50 km) away. A 1707 census of the Dutch at the Cape listed 1,779 settlers owning 1,107 slaves.

      In the initial years of Dutch settlement at the Cape, pastoralists had readily traded with the Dutch. However, as the garrison's demand for cattle and sheep continued to increase, the Khoekhoe became more wary. The Dutch offered tobacco, alcohol, and trinkets for livestock. Numerous conflicts followed, and, beginning in 1713, many Khoekhoe communities were ravaged by smallpox. At the same time, colonial pastoralists—the Boers (Boer), also called trekboers—began to move inland beyond the Hottentots Holland Mountains with their own herds. The Khoekhoe chiefdoms were largely decimated by the end of the 18th century, their people either dead or reduced to conditions close to serfdom on colonial farms. The San—small bands of hunter-gatherers—fared no better. Pushed back into marginal areas, they were forced to live by cattle raiding, justifying in colonial eyes their systematic eradication. The men were slaughtered, and the women and children were taken into servitude.

      The trekboers constantly sought new land, and they and their families spread northeast as well as north, into the grasslands that long had been occupied by African farmers. For many generations these farmers had lived in settlements concentrated along the low ridges that break the monotony of the interior plateau. While it is difficult to make population estimates, it is thought that some of the larger villages could have housed several hundred people. Cattle were held in elaborately built stone enclosures, the ruins of which survive today across a large part of Free State province and in the higher areas north of the Vaal River. Extensive exchange networks brought iron for hoes and spears from specialized manufacturing centres in the Mpumalanga Lowveld and the deep river gorges of KwaZulu-Natal.

      Thus, by the closing decades of the 18th century, South Africa had fallen into two broad regions: west and east. Colonial settlement dominated the west, including the winter rainfall region around the Cape of Good Hope, the coastal hinterland northward toward the present-day border with Namibia, and the dry lands of the interior. Trekboers took increasingly more land from the Khoekhoe and from remnant hunter-gatherer communities, who were killed, were forced into marginal areas, or became labourers tied to the farms of their new overlords. Indigenous farmers controlled both the coastal and valley lowlands and the Highveld of the interior in the east, where summer rainfall and good grazing made mixed farming economies possible.

       Cape Town was developing into South Africa's major urban centre, although it took many years for it to equal the size that Mapungubwe had attained some five centuries earlier. The initial grid of streets had been expanded and linked the company's garden to the new fortress that overlooked Table Bay. Houses featuring flat roofs, ornate pediments, and symmetrical facades sheltered officials, merchants, and visitors en route between Europe and the East. A governor and council administered the town and colony. While the economy was in principle directed by the interests of the Dutch East India Company, in practice corruption and illegal trading were dominant forces. Both the town and the colony existed in large part because of slaves, who by now outnumbered their owners.

Martin Hall Julian R.D. Cobbing

Growth of the colonial economy

      From 1770 to 1870 the region became more fully integrated into the world capitalist economy. Trekboers, who were weakly controlled by the Dutch East India Company, advanced across the semidesert Karoo of the central Cape and collided with African agricultural peoples along a line running from the lower Vaal and middle Orange river valleys to the sea around the Gamtoos River (west of modern Port Elizabeth). These agriculture-based African societies proved resilient but, even at their height in the 1860s, were unable to unite completely enough to expel the Europeans.

      The decisive moment for the colony occurred in 1806 when Britain seized Cape Colony during the Napoleonic Wars. Initially the colony's importance was related to its function as a strategic base to protect Britain's developing empire in India. In the next few years, however, it also served as a market, a source of raw materials, and an outlet for emigration from Britain.

      African societies after the 1760s were increasingly affected by ivory and slave traders operating from Delagoa Bay, Inhambane, and the lower Zambezi River in the northeast as well as by traders and raiders based in the Cape to the south. In response to these invasions, the farming communities created a number of sister states different in structure, scale, and military capacity from anything that had existed before. The Pedi and Swazi in the eastern Highveld, the Zulu south of the Pongola River, the Sotho to the east of the Caledon River valley, the Gaza along the lower Limpopo, and the Ndebele in present-day southwestern Zimbabwe proved to be the most successful.

      The areas of the western Cape with the longest history of settlement by Europeans had evolved an agricultural economy based on wheat farming and viticulture, worked by imported slave labour (slavery). Slaves were treated harshly, and punishments for slaves who assaulted Europeans were brutal—one of the most heinous being death by impalement. Escaped slaves formed groups called Maroons—small self-sufficient communities—or fled into the interior. Because slave birth rates were low and settler numbers were increasing, in the 1780s the Dutch stepped up the enserfment of surviving Khoe (Khoekhoe) (also spelled Khoi; pejoratively called Hottentots) to help run their farms. Those Khoe who could escape Dutch subjugation joined Xhosa groups in a major counteroffensive against colonialism in 1799–1801, and there were slave rebellions in the outskirts of Cape Town in 1808 and 1825.

      The Dutch refusal to grant citizenship and land rights to the “ Coloured” offspring of unions between Europeans and Khoe or slaves produced an aggrieved class of people, known as Basters (Baster) (or Bastards), who were Christian, spoke Dutch, and had an excellent knowledge of horses and firearms. Many fled north toward and over the Orange River in search of land and trading opportunities. After merging with independent Khoe groups, such as the Kora, they formed commando states under warlords, three of the more successful being the Bloem, Kok, and Barends families, who were persuaded by missionaries in the early 19th century to change their name to Griqua. By the 1790s they were trading with and raiding local African communities such as the Rolong, Tlhaping, Hurutshe, and Ngwaketse. For self-defense some of these African communities formed larger groupings who competed against each other in their quest to control trade routes going south to the Cape and east to present-day Mozambique.

      The Portuguese and also some British, French, Americans, and Arabs traded beads, brass, cloth, alcohol, and firearms along the southeast coast in return for ivory, slaves, cattle, gold, wax, and skins. During the late 18th century, large volumes of ivory were exported annually from Delagoa Bay, and slaves were taken from the Komati and Usutu (a major tributary of the Maputo) river regions and sent to the Mascarene Islands in the Indian Ocean and to Brazil to work on sugarcane and coffee plantations. By 1800 trade routes linked Delagoa Bay and coastal trade routes with the central interior.

      European trade precipitated structural transformation within societies inland of Delagoa Bay. Warlords reorganized military institutions to hunt elephants and slaves. Profits from this trade enhanced the warlords' ability to disperse patronage, attract followers, and raise military potential and, in turn, their capacity to dominate land, people, and cattle. Near the bay, Tembe and Maputo were already powerful states by the 1790s. To the west of the coastal lowlands emerged the Maroteng of Thulare, the Dlamini of Ndvungunye, and the Hlubi of Bhungane. Between the Pongola and Tugela rivers evolved the Mthethwa (Mtetwa) of Dingiswayo south of Lake St. Lucia, the Ndwandwe of Zwide, the Qwabe of Phakatwayo, the Chunu of Macingwane, and, south of the Tugela, the Cele and Thuli. Several groups—for example, the Mthethwa, Ndwandwe, and Qwabe—later merged with the Zulu. These groups competed to dominate trade and became more militarized the closer they were to the Portuguese base.

      The Cape Colony had spawned the subcolonies of Natal, the Orange Free State, and the Transvaal by the 1860s. European settlement advanced to the edges of the Kalahari region in the west, the Drakensberg and Natal coast in the east, and the tsetse-fly- and mosquito-ridden Lowveld along the Limpopo River valley in the northeast. Armed clashes erupted over land and cattle, such as those between the Boers and various Xhosa groups in the southeast beginning in the 1780s, and Africans lost most of their land and were henceforth forced to work for the settlers. The population of European settlers increased from some 20,000 in the 1780s to about 300,000 in the late 1860s. Although it is difficult to accurately estimate the African population, it probably numbered somewhere between two and four million.

Increased European presence (c. 1810–35)

British (British Empire) occupation of the Cape (Cape Colony)

      When Great Britain went to war with France in 1793, both countries tried to capture the Cape so as to control the important sea route to the East. The British occupied the Cape in 1795, ending the Dutch East India Company's (Dutch East India Company) role in the region. Although the British relinquished the colony to the Dutch in the Treaty of Amiens (Amiens, Treaty of) (1802), they reannexed it in 1806 after the start of the Napoleonic Wars. The Cape became a vital base for Britain prior to the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, and the Cape's economy was meshed with that of Britain. To protect the developing economy there, Cape wines were given preferential access to the British market until the mid-1820s. Merino sheep were introduced, and intensive sheep farming was initiated in order to supply wool to British textile mills.

      The infrastructure of the colony began to change: English replaced Dutch as the language of administration; the British pound sterling replaced the Dutch rix-dollar; and newspaper publishing began in Cape Town in 1824. After Britain began appointing colonial governors, an advisory council for the governor was established in 1825, which was upgraded to a legislative council in 1834 with a few “unofficial” settler representatives. A virtual freehold system of landownership gradually replaced the existing Dutch tenant system, under which European colonists had paid a small annual fee to the government but had not acquired land ownership.

      A large group of British settlers arrived in 1820; this, together with a high European birth rate and wasteful land usage, produced an acute land shortage, which was alleviated only when the British acquired more land through massive military intervention against Africans on the eastern frontier. Until the 1840s the British vision of the colony did not include African citizens (referred to pejoratively by the British as “Kaffirs”), so, as Africans lost their land, they were expelled across the Great Fish River, the unilaterally proclaimed eastern border of the colony.

      The first step in this process included attacks in 1811–12 by the British army on the Xhosa groups, the Gqunukhwebe and Ndlambe. An attack by the Rharhabe-Xhosa on Graham's Town ( Grahamstown) in 1819 provided the pretext for the annexation of more African territory, to the Keiskamma River. Various Rharhabe-Xhosa groups were driven from their lands throughout the early 1830s. They counterattacked in December 1834, and Governor Benjamin D'Urban (D'Urban, Sir Benjamin) ordered a major invasion the following year, during which thousands of Rharhabe-Xhosa died. The British crossed the Great Kei River and ravaged territory of the Gcaleka-Xhosa as well; the Gcaleka chief, Hintsa, invited to hold discussions with British military officials, was held hostage and died trying to escape. The British colonial secretary, Lord Glenelg, who disapproved of D'Urban's policy, halted the seizure of all African land east of the Great Kei. D'Urban's initial attempt to rule conquered Africans with European magistrates and soldiers was overturned by Glenelg; instead, for a time, Africans east of the Keiskamma retained their autonomy and dealt with the colony through diplomatic agents.

      The British had chronic difficulties procuring enough labour to build towns and develop new farms. Indeed, though Britain abolished its slave trade in 1807 and pressured other countries to do the same, the British in Southern Africa continued to import some slaves into the Cape after that date, but in numbers insufficient to alleviate the labour problem. A ban in 1809 on Africans crossing into the Cape aggravated the labour shortage, and so the British, like the Dutch before them, made the Khoe serfs (serfdom) through the Caledon (1809) and Cradock (1812 ) codes.

      Anglo-Boer commandos provided another source of African labour by illegally capturing San women and children (many of the men were killed) as well as Africans from across the eastern frontier. Griqua raiding states led by Andries Waterboer, Adam Kok (Kok III, Adam), and Barend Barends captured more Africans from among people such as the Hurutshe, Rolong, and Kwena. Other people, such as those known as the Mantatees, were forced to become farmworkers, mainly in the eastern Cape. European farmers also raided for labour north of the Orange River.

      Cape authorities overhauled their policy in 1828 in order to facilitate labour distribution and to align the region with the growing imperial antislavery ethos. Ordinance 49 permitted black labourers from east of the Keiskamma to go into the colony for work if they possessed the proper contracts and passes, which were issued by soldiers and missionaries. This was the beginning of the pass laws that would become so notorious in the 20th century. Ordinance 50 briefly ended the restrictions placed on the Khoe, including removing the requirement for passes, and allowed them to choose their employers, own land, and move more freely. Because an insufficient labour force still existed, Anglo-Boer armies (supported by Khoe, Tembu, Gcaleka, and Mpondo auxiliaries) acquired their own workers by attacking the Ngwane east of the Great Kei at Mbolompo in August 1828. The formal abolition of slavery took place in 1834–38, and control of African labourers became stricter through the Masters and Servants Ordinance (1841), which imposed criminal penalties for breach of contract and desertion of the workplace and increased the legal powers of settler employers.

The Delagoa Bay slave trade

      While events were unfolding at the Cape, the slave trade at Delagoa Bay had been expanding since about 1810 in response to demands for labour from plantations in Brazil and on the Mascarene Islands. During the late 1820s, slave (slavery) exports from the Delagoa Bay area reached several thousand a year, in advance of what proved to be an ineffective attempt to abolish the Brazilian trade in 1830. After a dip in the early 1830s, the Bay slave trade peaked in the late 1840s.

      The impact of the slave trade was increasing destabilization of hinterland societies as populations were forcibly removed. The Gaza, Ngoni, and other groups became surrogate slavers and joined the Portuguese soldiers in inland raiding. Along the Limpopo and Vaal river networks, Delagoa Bay slavers competed with Griqua slavers in supplying the Cape. After slavers burned crops and famines became common, many groups—including the Ngwane, Ndebele, and some Hlubi—fled westward into the Highveld mountains during the 1810s and '20s. The Kololo, on the other hand, moved east out of Transorangia, where they ran into Bay slavers, and migrated west into Botswana. In 1826 they were attacked by an alliance of Ngwaketse and European mercenaries and ended up in Zambia in the 1850s exporting slaves themselves to the Arabs and Portuguese.

Emergence of the eastern states

      Four main defensive African state clusters had emerged in eastern South Africa by the 1820s: the Pedi (led by Sekwati) in the Steelpoort valley, the Ngwane (led by Sobhuza (Sobhuza I)) in the eastern Transvaal, the Mokoteli (led by Moshoeshoe (Mshweshwe)) in the Caledon River region, and the Zulu (led by Shaka) south of the Swart-Mfolozi River. The Pedi received refugees from the Limpopo and coastal plains, and the Mokoteli absorbed eastern Transorangian refugees, which enabled them to defeat the Griqua and Korana raiders by the mid-1830s. By 1825 Shaka had welded the Chunu, Mthethwa, Qwabe, Mkhize, Cele, and other groups into a large militarized state with fortified settlements called amakhanda. Zulu amabutho (age sets or regiments) defended against raiders, provided protection for refugees, and, apparently, began to trade in ivory and slaves themselves.

      From 1824 the Zulu began to clash with Cape colonists who came to Port Natal (renamed Durban in 1835) and organized mercenary armies. These groups were comparable to the Portuguese prazero armies along the Zambezi and to the warlord state set up by the Portuguese trader João Albasini in the eastern Transvaal in the 1840s, but they operated on a smaller scale. During the 1820s European raiders joined Zulu amabutho in attacking areas north of the Swart-Mfolozi River and south of the Mzimkulu River, where in the mid-1820s French ships exported slaves. Francis Farewell's raiders, in alliance with Zulu groups, seized women and children in the same area in 1828.

      Conflicts split the Zulu elite into rival factions and led to Shaka's assassination in 1828. Shaka's half brother Dingane became the Zulu leader, but his succession was accompanied by civil wars and by increasing interference in the Delagoa Bay trading alliances. By the mid-1830s a coalition of Cape merchants had begun planning for the formal colonization of Natal, with its superb agricultural soils and temperate climate. The British left the less-desirable malaria-ridden Delagoa Bay region to the Portuguese, who traded slaves out of Lourenço Marques (now Maputo, Mozam.) for another half century.

The expansion of European colonialism (colonialism, Western) (c. 1835–70)

The Great Trek

      A few Boer settlers had moved north of the Orange River before 1834, but after that the number increased significantly, a migration later known as the Great Trek. The common view that this was a bid to escape the policies of the British—i.e., the freeing of slaves—is difficult to sustain, as most of the former slave owners did not migrate (most trekkers came from the poorer east Cape), and the earlier labour shortage had been alleviated by 1835. Instead, the trek was more of an explosive culmination of a long sequence of colonial labour raids, land seizures, punitive commando raids, and commercial expansions. Europeans, who possessed technologically advanced weaponry, also had instructive examples of how small groups of raiders in Natal and Transorangia could cause disruption over large areas. Thus, the trekkers should not be seen as backward feudalists escaping the modern world, as some historians have maintained, but as energized people extending their frontier.

      Several thousand Boers migrated with their families, livestock, retainers, wagons, and firearms into a region already destabilized and partially depopulated by Griqua and coastal raiders. They did encounter some Africans (such as the Ndebele), who in the early 1830s had moved from the southeastern to the western Transvaal. The Boers and their Rolong, Taung, and Griqua allies, however, crushed the Ndebele during 1837, taking their land and many cattle, women, and children. The remaining Ndebele fled north, where they resettled in southern Zimbabwe.

      The trekkers had penetrated much of the Transvaal by the early 1840s. A grouping of commando states emerged based at Potchefstroom, Pretoria, and, from 1845, Ohrigstad-Lydenburg in the eastern Transvaal. Andries Hendrik Potgieter (Potgieter, Hendrik), Andries Pretorius (Pretorius, Andries), Jan Mocke, and others competed for followers, attacked weaker African chiefdoms, hunted elephants and slaves, and forged trading links with the Portuguese. Other Boers turned east into Natal and allied themselves with the resident British settlers. Farms developed slowly and, as had been the case in the Cape prior to the 1830s, depended on forced labour. Until the 1860s the Pedi and Swazi in the east and even the Kwena and Hurutshe in the west were strong enough to avoid being conscripted as labour and thus limited the labour supply.

The British in Natal

      The appearance of thousands of British settlers in Natal in the 1840s and '50s meant that for the first time Africans and European settlers lived together—however uneasily—on the same land. The Boers began to carve out farms in Natal as they had done along the eastern frontier, but further slave and cattle raids on the Bhaca south of the Mzimkulu provided the pretext for British annexation of Natal in 1843. Theophilus Shepstone (Shepstone, Sir Theophilus) received an appointment in 1845 as a diplomatic agent (later secretary for native affairs), and his position served as a prototype for later native commissioners. The Harding Commission (1852) set aside reserves for Africans, and missionaries (mission) and pliant chiefs were brought in to persuade Africans to work. After 1849 Africans became subject to a hut tax intended to raise revenue and drive them into labour. Roads were built, using forced labour, and Africans were obliged to pay rent on state land and European farms. To meet these burdens some African cultivators grew surplus crops to sell to the growing towns of Pietermaritzburg and Durban.

      The British were reluctant, though, to annex the Transorangian interior, where no strategic interests existed. Boer trade links with Delagoa Bay posed little threat because Portugal was virtually a client state of Britain. To the Boers fell the tasks of eroding African resistance and developing the land, although the policy never received clear enunciation or much financial backing. Britain halfheartedly attempted to protect some of its African client states, such as that of the Griqua and the Sotho state led by Moshoeshoe (Mshweshwe). However, after further fighting with the Rharhabe-Xhosa on the eastern frontier in 1846, Governor Colonel Harry Smith (Smith, Sir Harry, Baronet) finally annexed, over the next two years, not only the region between the Great Fish and the Great Kei rivers (establishing British Kaffraria) but also a large area between the Orange and Vaal rivers, thus establishing the Orange River Sovereignty. These moves provoked further warfare in 1851–53 with the Xhosa (joined once more by many Khoe), with a few British politicians ineffectively trying to influence events.

      A striking feature of this period was the capacity of the Sotho people to fend off military conquest by the British and Boers. After defeating and absorbing the rival Tlokwa in 1853–54, Moshoeshoe became the most powerful African leader south of the Vaal-Pongolo rivers. His soldiers utilized firearms and, in the cold Highveld, horses—which proved to be the keys to political and military survival there.

Attempts at Boer consolidation

      Faced with these unprofitable conflicts, the British temporarily withdrew from the southern African interior, and the Transvaal and Orange Free State Boers gained independence through the Sand River and Bloemfontein conventions (1852 and 1854, respectively). Both Boer groups wrote constitutions and established Volksraade (parliaments), although their attempts at unification failed. For more than a decade, civil wars and the struggle with the environment hampered consolidation among the Boers. Nevertheless, the Orange Free State's economy grew rapidly, and by the 1860s the Boers were exporting significant amounts of wool via Cape ports.

The Cape economy

      Capitalist infrastructure came earlier to the Cape than to the Boer regions because of its older colonial history and its seacoast links to the British Empire. Banks, insurance companies, and limited-liability companies arose in the 1840s and '50s, and a class of prosperous colonial shopkeepers, financiers, traders, and farmers emerged as Cape Town grew to more than 30,000 people in the 1850s. Port Elizabeth, established in 1820, also became an important trading centre and harbour. The British government granted the Cape settlers what was termed “representative government” in March 1853 (the Legislative Assembly had elected members, with an executive appointed from London) and “responsible government” in 1872 (the assembly appointed the executive). Franchise (suffrage) qualifications were relatively low, and even some Africans could vote, although their small number had no political impact. These nominal rights were reduced later in the century and abolished outright in 1936.

      Between 1811 and 1858 colonial aggression deprived Africans of most of their land between the Sundays and Great Kei rivers and produced poverty and despair. From the mid-1850s British magistrates held political power in British Kaffraria, destroying the power of the Xhosa chiefs. Following a severe lung sickness epidemic among their cattle in 1854–56, the Xhosa killed many of their remaining cattle and in 1857–58 grew few crops in response to a millenarian prophecy that this would cause their ancestors to rise from the dead and destroy the whites. Many thousands of Xhosa starved to death, and large numbers of survivors were driven into the Cape Colony to work. British Kaffraria fused with the Cape Colony in 1865, and thousands of Africans newly defined as Fingo (Mfengu) resettled east of the Great Kei, thereby creating Fingoland. The Transkei, as this region came to be known, consisted of the hilly country between the Cape and Natal. It became a large African reserve and grew in size when those parts that were still independent were annexed in the 1880s and '90s ( Pondoland lost its independence in 1894).

      European missionaries (mission) and their African catechists worked unremittingly from the 1820s to Christianize indigenous communities and to introduce them to European manufactured goods they had previously done well without. Whatever intentions the missionaries may have had, their efforts undermined African worldviews and contributed to the destruction of traditional African communities throughout South Africa. For a time nevertheless, a small number of African peasant farmers used plows, paid rents and taxes, produced for the market, and sold surplus grain to the towns in competition with colonial farmers. The difficulty they encountered obtaining capital, however, as well as the legal and political discrimination they faced, drove most of them out of business in the decades following the South African War of 1899–1902.

      The Cape economy, narrowly based on wine and wool, was not particularly prosperous. Wool exports, though soaring to some 6,000 tons in 1855, lagged far behind those of Australia and remained susceptible to drought and market slumps. African labour built roads, but only a few miles of railway were constructed before 1870. Various alternatives that would broaden the economic base were explored. Accumulations of guano (droppings of gannets and cormorants used as fertilizer) were exploited on off-coast islands; copper mining began in the southwestern party of the country; hunters operating as far north as the Zambezi sent back large quantities of ivory; and traders, hunters, missionaries, and full-time prospectors surveyed and sampled the rocks. The most potentially rewarding commodities were diamonds discovered in the Vaal valley and gold found in the Tati valley and in the northern and eastern Transvaal between 1866 and 1871.

Disputes in the north and east

      To the north, colonial communities and African states alternately cooperated and competed with each other, with the advantage slowly moving to the colonists. The Swazi and Gaza supplied slaves both to the Transvaal Boers and to the Portuguese. During the 1850s the Swazi overran much of the Lowveld, where they absorbed many groups and exchanged captured children for firearms and horses with the Transvaal settlers. After the death of Soshangane (leader of the Gaza state) in 1856, a Gaza civil war broke out that also involved the Swazi, Boers, and Portuguese. After the Swazi gained control of land almost to Maputo in 1864, the Gaza (under the victorious Mzila) migrated northward into the Buzi River area of present-day eastern Zimbabwe.

      Farther south the Zulu competed with the Swazi and the Boers to dominate the Pongolo and Ngwavuma valleys and with the Boers to control the Buffalo (Mziniathi) River area. The colonial administrator, Theophilus Shepstone (Shepstone, Sir Theophilus), interfered not only in Zulu politics but also in Ndebele succession dispute (1869–72), attempting to oust the eventual leader ( Lobengula) in favour of a pretender. Marthinus Pretorius (Pretorius, Marthinus Wessel), the Transvaal leader, annexed huge areas, at least on paper. To the irritation of settler farmers and plantation owners, few Zulu went south to work in Natal. Instead, a supply of Mozambican indentured labourers (some of them forced (forced labour)) entered the region. This eventually evolved into a steady flow of migrant workers (migrant labour) in the following decades, but, because not enough labour appeared initially in the early 1860s, indentured labourers from India were brought in to work on the new sugar plantations.

      The Sotho continued their tenacious hold on their lands along the Caledon River and for a time supplied the Boers of the Orange Free State with grain and cattle. The Sotho mobilized a force of 10,000 and defeated the Boers in 1858. The Boers, however, coveted the fertile Caledon valley and defeated the Sotho eight years later after the Boers regained their unity. The Sotho were forced to sign the Treaty of Thaba Bosiu (1866), and only British annexation of Sotho territory in 1868 prevented their complete collapse.

The Zulu after Shaka

      The Zulu, although initially successful at repelling the Europeans, were, like the Ndebele, eventually overpowered by them in clashes such as the Battle of Blood (Ncome) River (Blood River, Battle of) in 1838. Boer attacks on the Zulu between 1838 and 1839 precipitated a Zulu civil war between Dingane and Mpande. The latter allied himself with the Boer invaders and so split the kingdom. Between 1839 and 1840 the Boers seized large parts of the Zulu kingdom, including the area between the Tugela and the Swart-Mfolozi. When the British in turn evicted the Boers and annexed Natal in 1843, the southern region to the Tugela was restored to the Zulu. Mpande (reigned 1840–72), a formidable ruler, controlled territory between the Tugela in the south and, roughly, the Pongolo in the north, boundaries that were not seriously disturbed until 1879.

      In 1856 the primary conflict in the Zulu civil war (the Battle of Ndondakasuka on the lower Tugela River, close to the sea) elevated Mpande's younger son, Cetshwayo, over Mpande's older son, Mbuyazi. Although Cetshwayo formally became ruler of Zululand only upon his father's death in 1872, he had in fact effectively ruled the kingdom since the early 1860s.

      By the late 1870s, colonial officials had identified the Zulu kingdom as a major obstacle to confederation, and in January 1879 British and colonial troops invaded Zululand (Zulu War) (see Zulu War). During his rule Mpande had expanded Zulu military capacity, and Cetshwayo used this effectively against the British invaders at Isandhlwana in 1879. The annihilation of a large British force at Isandhlwana (Isandhlwana and Rorke's Drift, Battles of) slowed the invasion, but imperial firepower ultimately prevailed (see Battles of Isandhlwana and Rorke's Drift (Isandhlwana and Rorke's Drift, Battles of)). For the Zulu, political dismemberment followed military defeat. British divide-and-rule policies precipitated another civil war in 1883, and Zululand was annexed in 1887.

The decline of the African states

      As the 1860s came to an end, the great African states began to weaken. Not only did many important African leaders die during this period (Soshangane in 1858, Sekwati of the Pedi in 1861, Mswati in 1865, Mzilikazi in 1868, Moshoeshoe (Mshweshwe) in 1870, and Mpande in 1872), but, increasingly, Europeans were determined to exploit Africans as a source of labour and to acquire the last large fertile areas controlled by them.

      Colonial troops tipped the balance decisively against societies that had previously withstood attempts to bring them under the settlers' control. A century of military conflict on the Cape frontier (Cape Frontier Wars) ended with the Cape-Xhosa war of 1877–78 (see Cape Frontier Wars). Between 1878 and 1881 the Cape Colony defeated rebellions in Griqualand West, the Transkei, and Basutoland. Sir Bartle Frere (Frere, Sir Bartle, 1st Baronet), governor of the Cape and high commissioner for southern Africa from March 1877, rapidly decided that independent African kingdoms had to be tamed in order to facilitate political and economic integration of the region.

      Governor George Grey (Grey, Sir George) had already proposed a federated South Africa in 1858, and in the late 1860s the discovery of gold and diamonds reactivated this idea. The annexation of Basutoland in 1868 began a series of movements toward consolidation that included the British seizure of the diamond fields from the competing Griqua, Tlhaping, and Boers in 1871 (the Keate Award), Colonial Secretary Lord Carnarvon (Carnarvon, Henry Howard Molyneux Herbert, 4th earl of)'s more determined federation plan of 1875, Shepstone's invasion of the Transvaal in 1877, and the British invasions of Zululand and Pediland in 1879. British troops also took part in an 1879 campaign that crushed Pedi military power in the northern Transvaal. With the collapse of Zulu resistance in the 1880s, the invasions of the Gaza and Ndebele kingdoms in 1893–96, and the crushing of Venda resistance in 1898, by 1900 no autonomous African societies remained in the region.

Julian R.D. Cobbing

Diamonds (diamond), gold, and imperialist intervention (1870–1902)

      South Africa experienced a transformation between 1870, when the diamond rush to Kimberley began, and 1902, when the South African War ended. Midway between these dates, in 1886, the world's largest goldfields were discovered on the Witwatersrand. As the predominantly agrarian societies of European South Africa began to urbanize and industrialize, the region evolved into a major supplier of precious minerals to the world economy; gold especially was urgently needed to back national currencies and ensure the continued flow of expanding international trade. British colonies, Boer republics, and African kingdoms all came under British control (British Empire). These dramatic changes were propelled by two linked forces: the development of a capitalist mining industry and a sequence of imperialist interventions by Britain.

Diamonds and confederation

      A chance find in 1867 had drawn several thousand fortune seekers to alluvial diamond diggings along the Orange, Vaal, and Harts rivers. Richer finds in “dry diggings” in 1870 led to a large-scale rush. By the end of 1871 nearly 50,000 people lived in a sprawling polyglot mining camp that was later named Kimberley.

      Initially, individual diggers, black and white, worked small claims by hand. As production rapidly centralized and mechanized, however, ownership and labour patterns were divided more starkly along racial lines. A new class of mining capitalists oversaw the transition from diamond digging to mining industry as joint-stock companies bought out diggers. The industry became a monopoly by 1889 when De Beers Consolidated Mines (De Beers S.A.) (controlled by Cecil Rhodes (Rhodes, Cecil)) became the sole producer. Although some white diggers continued to work as overseers or skilled labourers, from the mid-1880s the workforce consisted mainly of black migrant workers housed in closed compounds by the companies (a method that had previously been used in Brazil).

      The diamond zone was simultaneously claimed by the Orange Free State, the South African Republic, the western Griqua under Nicolaas Waterboer, and southern Tswana chiefs. At a special hearing in October 1871, Robert W. Keate (then lieutenant governor of Natal) found in favour of Waterboer, but the British persuaded him to request protection against his Boer rivals, and the area was annexed as Griqualand West.

      The annexation of the diamond fields signaled a more progressive British policy under a Liberal ministry but fell short of the ambitious confederation policy pursued by Lord Carnarvon (Carnarvon, Henry Howard Molyneux Herbert, 4th earl of), the colonial secretary in Benjamin Disraeli (Disraeli, Benjamin, Earl Of Beaconsfield, Viscount Hughenden Of Hughenden)'s 1874 Conservative government; he sought to unite the republics and colonies into a self-governing federation in the British Empire, a concept inspired by Theophilus Shepstone (Shepstone, Sir Theophilus), who, as secretary for native affairs in Natal, urged a coherent regional policy with regard to African labour and administration.

      Carnarvon concentrated at first on persuading the Cape and the Free State to accept federation, but a conference in London in August 1876 revealed how unreceptive these parties were to the proposal. With his southern gambit frustrated, Carnarvon embarked on a northern strategy. The South African Republic ( Transvaal), virtually bankrupt, had suffered military humiliation at the hands of the Pedi, and support for President Thomas F. Burgers (Burgers, Thomas François) had declined because of this. Carnarvon commissioned Shepstone to annex the Transvaal, and, after encountering only token resistance at the beginning of 1877, he proclaimed it a British colony a few months later.

      The new possession proved difficult to administer as empty coffers and insensitivity to Afrikaner resentments led to a clash over tax payments, and, under a triumvirate of Paul Kruger (Kruger, Paul), Piet Joubert (Joubert, Petrus Jacobus), and Marthinus Wessel Pretorius (Pretorius, Marthinus Wessel), the Transvaal Boers opted to fight for independence. British defeats, especially at Majuba in 1881, ended British insistence on the concept of confederation. By the London Convention of 1884, republican self-government was restored, subject to an imprecise British “suzerainty” over external relations.

Afrikaner and African politics in the Cape

      The white population in the Cape numbered 240,000 by the mid-1870s and constituted about one-third of the colony's population. Cape revenues accounted for three-fourths of the total income in the region's four settler states in 1870, as the diamond discoveries created more revenue that could be used to build railways and public works. Although by this time some two-thirds of the settler population spoke Dutch or Afrikaans, political power rested largely with an English-speaking elite of merchants, lawyers, and landholders.

      The conflict between Afrikaners and English speakers led to the establishment of the Afrikaner Bond in 1879. The Bond initially represented poorer farmers and espoused an anti-British Pan-Afrikanerism in the Cape and beyond, but, after its reorganization a few years later under Jan Hendrik Hofmeyr (Hofmeyr, Jan), the group began to champion the Cape's commercial interests and acquired a new base of support—mainly wealthier farmers and urban professionals. When Hofmeyr threw his support behind Cecil Rhodes (Rhodes, Cecil) in 1890, he enabled Rhodes to become prime minister of the Cape; their alliance stemmed from a mutual desire for northward economic expansion. A major cleavage, however, opened up between Bond politicians and the English-speaking voters loosely defined as Cape liberals. The latter, particularly those in constituencies in the eastern Cape that had a significant percentage of black male voters, were tactically friendly to the small enfranchised stratum of fairly prosperous black peasants, whereas the Bond and most English-speaking white voters were hostile toward the black farmers growing cash crops and pursued more-restrictive franchise (suffrage) qualifications.

      The number of blacks in the colony greatly increased between 1872 and 1894 as heretofore independent territories were annexed to the Cape. As black farmers became more prosperous and as more blacks became literate clerks and teachers, many individuals qualified to vote. The rise of the Afrikaner Bond and new laws affecting franchise qualifications and taxes also stimulated more-vigorous black participation in electoral politics after 1884. New political and educational bodies came into existence in the eastern Cape, as did the first black newspapers and black-controlled churches. The period also witnessed the first political organizations among Coloureds (Coloured) in the Cape and Indians in Natal and the Transvaal.

gold mining

      Prospectors established in 1886 the existence of a belt of gold-bearing reefs 40 miles (60 km) wide centred on present-day Johannesburg. The rapid growth of the gold-mining industry intensified processes started by the diamond boom: immigration, urbanization, capital investment, and labour migrancy. By 1899 the gold industry attracted investment worth £75 million, produced almost three-tenths of the world's gold, and employed more than 100,000 people (the overwhelming majority of them black migrant workers (migrant labour)).

      The world's richest goldfield was also the most difficult to work. Although the gold ore was abundant, the layers of it ran extremely deep, and the ore contained little gold. To be profitable, gold mining had to be intensive and deep-level, requiring large inputs of capital and technology. A group system, whereby more than 100 companies had been arranged into nine holding companies (holding company), or “groups,” facilitated collusion between companies to reduce competition over labour and keep costs down. The gold mines rapidly established a pattern of labour recruitment, remuneration, and accommodation that left its stamp on subsequent social and economic relations in the country. White immigrant miners, because of their skills, scarcity, and political power, won relatively high wages. In contrast, the more numerous unskilled black migrants from throughout Southern Africa, especially from present-day Mozambique, earned low pay (at century's end about one-ninth the wage of white miners). Migrant miners were housed in compounds, which facilitated their control and reduced overhead costs.

The road to war

      Even before the discovery of gold, the South African interior was an arena of tension and competition. Germany annexed South West Africa in 1884. The Transvaal claimed territory to its west; Britain countered by designating the territory the Bechuanaland protectorate and then annexed it as the crown colony of British Bechuanaland. Rhodes secured concessionary rights to land north of the Limpopo River, founded the British South Africa Company, and in 1890 dispatched a pioneer column to occupy what became known as Rhodesia.

      While these forces jostled for position in the region at large, the domestic politics of the Transvaal became unsettled. Paul Kruger's government made strenuous efforts to accommodate the mining industry, but it was soon at loggerheads with Britain, the mine magnates, and the British and other non-Afrikaner Uitlander (“Outlander”) immigrants. British policy makers expressed concern about the Transvaal's potential as an independent actor, and deep-level-mine owners chafed at mine bosses' corruption and inefficiency. The grievances of the Uitlanders, largely excluded from the vote, provided both cause and cover for a conspiracy between British officials and mining capitalists. An Uitlander uprising in Johannesburg was to be supported by an armed invasion from Bechuanaland, headed by Leander Starr Jameson (Jameson, Sir Leander Starr, Baronet), Rhodes's lieutenant, who would intervene to “restore order.”

      The plot was botched. The Uitlander rising did not take place, but Jameson went ahead with his incursion in December 1895, and within days he and his force had been rounded up. While Rhodes had to resign as prime minister of the Cape, British Colonial Secretary Joseph Chamberlain (Chamberlain, Joseph) managed to conceal his complicity. The Jameson Raid polarized Anglo-Boer sentiment in South Africa, simultaneously exacerbating republican suspicions, Uitlander agitation, and imperial anxieties.

      In February 1898 Kruger was elected to a fourth term as president of the Transvaal. He entered a series of negotiations with Sir Alfred Milner (Milner, Alfred Milner, Viscount) (who became high commissioner and governor of the Cape in 1897) over the issue of the Uitlander franchise. Milner declared in private early in 1898 that “war has got to come” and adopted intransigent positions. The Cape government, headed by William P. Schreiner (Schreiner, William Philip), attempted to mediate, as did Marthinus Steyn (Steyn, Marthinus Theunis), the president of Free State, even while he attached his cause to Kruger's. In September 1899 the two Boer republics gave an ultimatum to Britain, and, when it expired on October 11, Boer forces invaded Natal.

The South African War (1899–1902)

 While the government of Lord Salisbury (Salisbury, Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd marquess of, Earl Of Salisbury, Viscount Cranborne, Baron Cecil Of Essendon) in Britain went to war to secure its hegemony in Southern Africa, the Boer republics did so to preserve their independence. The expensive and brutal colonial war lasted two and a half years and pitted almost 500,000 imperial troops against 87,000 republican burghers, Cape “rebels,” and foreign volunteers. The numerical weakness of the Boers was offset by their familiarity with the terrain, support from the Afrikaner populace, and the poor leadership and dated tactics of the British command. Although often styled a “white man's war,” both sides used blacks extensively as labour, and at least 10,000 blacks fought for the British.

      In the first phase of the war, Boer armies took the offensive and punished British forces at Colenso, Stormberg, and Magersfontein in December 1899 (“Black Week”). During 1900 Britain rushed reinforcements to the front, relieved sieges at Ladysmith, Kimberley, and Mafeking (Mafikeng), and took Bloemfontein, Johannesburg, and Pretoria. In the third phase, Boer commandos (commando) avoided conventional engagements in favour of guerrilla warfare. The British commander, Lord Kitchener (Kitchener, Horatio Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl), devised a scorched-earth policy against the commandos and the rural population supporting them, in which he destroyed arms, blockaded the countryside, and placed the civilian population in concentration camps. Some 25,000 Afrikaner women and children died of disease and malnutrition in these camps, while 14,000 blacks died in separate camps. In Britain the Liberal opposition vehemently objected to the government's methods for winning the war.

      Boer forces, which at the end consisted of about 20,000 exhausted and demoralized troops, sued for peace in May 1902. The Treaty of Vereeniging (Vereeniging, Peace of) reflected the conclusive military victory of British power but made a crucial concession. It promised that the “question of granting the franchise (suffrage) to natives [blacks]” would be addressed only after self-government had been restored to the former Boer republics. The treaty thus allowed the white minority to decide the political fate of the black majority.

Reconstruction, union, and segregation (1902–29)

      The Union of South Africa was born on May 31, 1910, created by a constitutional convention (in Durban in 1908) and an act of the British Parliament (1909). The infant state owed its conception to centralizing and modernizing forces generated by mineral discoveries, and its character was shaped by eight years of “reconstruction” between 1902 and 1910. During that period, efficient administrative structures were created, and a relationship developed between Afrikaner politicians and mining capitalists that consolidated the economic dominance of gold. Reconstruction also ensured that settler minorities would prevail over the black majority. Black societies were policed and taxed more effectively, and the new constitution excluded blacks from political power. Racial segregation (segregation, racial) was further developed through policies proposed during reconstruction and solidified after 1910.

      Both Afrikaner and black nationalism utilized new political vehicles. Syndicalist white workers and Afrikaner republican diehards fought against employers and government, their clashes culminating in the Rand Revolt of 1922. Black protests against the new order ranged from genteel lobbying and passive resistance to armed rural revolt, strikes, and mass mobilization.

Milner (Milner, Alfred Milner, Viscount) and reconstruction

      High Commissioner Milner transferred his headquarters from Cape Town to Pretoria in 1902. The move symbolized the centrality of the Transvaal to his mission of constructing a new order in South Africa. When Milner departed in 1905, his vision of a country politically dominated by English-speaking whites had failed. Schemes to flood the rural Transvaal with British settlers yielded only a trickle, and, worse yet, compulsory Anglicization of education only intensified feelings of Afrikaner nationalism. Opposition to “Milnerism” defined the emergent political groups led by former Boer generals Louis Botha (Botha, Louis), Jan Smuts (Smuts, Jan), and J.B.M. (Barry) Hertzog (Hertzog, J B M). Milner had hoped to withhold self-rule from whites in South Africa until “there are three men of British race to two of Dutch.” But, when Henry Campbell-Bannerman (Campbell-Bannerman, Sir Henry)'s Liberal ministry granted responsible government to the former republics in 1907, Afrikaner parties won elections in the Transvaal.

      Yet, if Milner's political design failed to take shape, he did largely realize his blueprint for economic and social engineering. Served by a group of handpicked young administrators, he made economic recovery a priority because it was imperative to restore the mines to profitability. He lowered rail rates and tariffs on imports and abolished the expensive concessions granted by the Kruger regime. Milner also made strenuous efforts to ensure cheap labour to the mines. To achieve this goal, he authorized the importation of some 60,000 Chinese indentured labourers when black migrants resisted wage cuts. Chinese miners, who would mostly return home by 1910, performed only certain tasks, but their employment set a precedent for a statutory colour bar in the gold mines. Although this experiment provoked political outcries in the Transvaal and in Britain, it succeeded in undercutting the bargaining power of black workers. The value of gold production swelled from £16 million in 1904 to £27 million by 1907.

      The administration worked to remodel the Transvaal as a stable base for agricultural, industrial, and finance capital, spending some £16 million to return Afrikaners to their farms and equip them. It established a land bank, promoted scientific farming methods, and developed more-efficient tax-collection methods, which increased pressures on black peasants to work for white farmers. Especially on the Witwatersrand, the young administrators tackled town planning, public transport, housing, and sanitation, and in each of these spheres a new urban geography proceeded from the principle of separating white and black workers.

      The South African Native Affairs Commission (SANAC) was appointed to provide comprehensive answers to “the native question.” Its report (1905) proposed territorial separation of black and white landownership, systematic urban segregation by the creation of black “locations,” the removal of black “squatters” from white farms and their replacement by wage labourers, and the segregation of blacks from whites in the political sphere. These (and other SANAC recommendations) provided the basis for laws passed between 1910 and 1936.

Convention and union

      Concern in London over the electoral victory by the Afrikaner party Het Volk evaporated as soon as it became clear that both Botha and Smuts understood the economic preeminence of mining capital. A policy of reconciliation between Afrikaans- and English-speaking whites was also promoted.

      A national convention, which met in Durban in 1908–09, drafted a constitution. Afrikaner leaders and Cape Premier John X. Merriman (Merriman, John X.) opted for a unitary state with Dutch and English as official languages and with parliamentary sovereignty. Executive authority was vested in a governor-general who would be advised by a cabinet from the governing party. Two “entrenched” clauses, on language and franchise (suffrage), could be amended only by a two-thirds majority vote in Parliament. While Cape delegates favoured a colour-blind franchise, those from the Transvaal and Orange Free State demanded an exclusively white electorate. A compromise simply confirmed existing electoral arrangements. The former republics retained white male adult suffrage and did not consider female suffrage (white women finally won the right to vote in 1930). In 1910, 85 percent of Cape (Cape Colony) voters were white, 10 percent Coloured, and 5 percent black. Representation was further limited on racial lines: even in the Cape, only whites could stand for Parliament.

Black, Coloured, and Indian political responses

      The South African War occurred at a time when many black communities suffered under great hardship. During the 1890s, drought and cattle disease (particularly rinderpest) impoverished pastoralists, while competition increased for black land and labour. During the war, most black South Africans identified with the British cause because imperial politicians assured them that “equal laws, equal liberty” for all races would prevail after a Boer defeat.

      However, the Treaty of Vereeniging (Vereeniging, Peace of) (see Vereeniging, Peace of ) withdrew such promises, and a sense of betrayal stimulated political protest, especially among mission-educated blacks. Various organizations arose to counter the impending union of white-ruled provinces by ethnically and regionally uniting blacks. In response to the constitutional convention, blacks held their own (the South African Native Convention) in Bloemfontein. This provided an important step toward the formation of a permanent national black political organization. Such an organization was finally founded on Jan. 8, 1912, when the South African Native National Congress (from 1923 the African National Congress; ANC) came into existence. Not all black protest occurred through the new middle-class organizations, however. Some black farmers from Natal refused to pay a poll tax in 1906, and their resistance developed into an armed rising led by Bambatha, a Zulu chief. At the end of this “reluctant rebellion,” between 3,000 and 4,000 blacks had been killed and many thousands imprisoned.

      Parallel developments took place among politically conscious Coloureds and Indians. Their first nationally based organization was the African Political (later People's) Organization, founded in Cape Town in 1902. Under the presidency of Abdullah Abdurahman, this body lobbied for Coloured rights and had links at times with other black political groups. Indians in the Transvaal, led by Mohandas K. Gandhi (Gandhi, Mohandas Karamchand), also resisted discriminatory legislation. Gandhi spent the years 1893 to 1914 in South Africa as a legal agent for Indian merchants in Natal and the Transvaal. Between 1906 and 1909, in protest against a Transvaal registration law requiring Indians to carry passes, Gandhi first implemented the methods of satyagraha (nonviolent noncompliance), which he later used with great effect in India.

Union and disunity

      Supported by the majority party in each province and by the British government, Louis Botha formed the first union government in May 1910. The Botha administration entered a period of continuous change and violent conflict as tensions arose from issues left unresolved by the constitution, from rapid but uneven economic growth, and from the legacy of conquest and dispossession of the indigenous peoples.

      One source of conflict was the relationship between employers and organized white workers. The Chamber of Mines and miners' trade unions on the Witwatersrand (organized labour) engaged in combat for a decade and a half. Whenever violent confrontations flared up—as they did in 1907, 1913, and 1914—the government deployed troops to end the strikes. White workers suspended strike action during World War I, but militancy returned in 1919, this time fueled by inflation. The Chamber of Mines announced in December 1921 that, because of rising costs and a falling gold price, it planned on replacing semiskilled white workers with lower-paid blacks. A miners' protest stoppage in January 1922 became a general strike, and in March it developed into an armed rising, with strikers organized as commandos (commando). Jan Smuts (Smuts, Jan), prime minister since Botha's (Botha, Louis) death in 1919, used artillery and aircraft to crush what became known as the Rand Revolt, at a cost of some 200 lives. This intense conflict between white unions and employers ended with the passage of the Industrial Conciliation Act in 1924, which set up new state structures for regulating industrial conflicts.

      Black workers also engaged in sporadic strikes before, during, and after World War I, giving rise to the first black trade unions. More than 70,000 African gold miners halted production for a week when they struck for higher wages in February 1920. Soldiers and police broke the strike, but not before 11 miners died and more than 100 were injured. This strike was part of a wave of protest in several cities as inflation eroded the real wages of black workers.

Afrikaner rebellion and nationalism

      When Britain declared war on Germany in 1914, South Africa's dominion status meant that it was automatically at war, and its troops mobilized to invade German South West Africa. This sparked a rebellion led by former Boer generals, who held high-ranking positions as officers in the Union Defence Force. Some 10,000 soldiers, mainly poverty-stricken rural Afrikaners, joined the rising. The government used 32,000 troops to suppress it, and more than 300 men lost their lives in the fighting.

      The rebellion, though, was an atypical episode in the rise of Afrikaner nationalism as a political force. More-telling responses came from those Afrikaners who had been profoundly affected by economic change, war, and reconstruction. After 1902, thousands of landless families streamed into the cities, indicating the extent to which the prewar rural social order had crumbled. One response to the threat of further disintegration was a “second language movement” spearheaded by teachers, clergymen, journalists, and lawyers who felt deeply threatened by the cultural dominance of English speakers. It succeeded in its immediate aim when Afrikaans (Afrikaans language) replaced Dutch as an official language in 1925.

      J.B.M. Hertzog (Hertzog, J B M) founded the National Party in 1914, with support mainly from “poor whites” and militant intellectuals. The general election of 1915 gave the National Party 30 percent of the vote, with Afrikaners deserting the South African Party led by Botha and Smuts. Hertzog's party won a majority of both seats and votes in 1920 on a platform of republicanism and separate school systems for Afrikaans- and English-speaking whites. The June 1924 election propelled Hertzog to the position of prime minister through a coalition between the National and Labour parties known as the Pact government.

Segregation

      In the first two decades of the union, segregation became a distinctive feature of South African political, social, and economic life as whites addressed the “native question.” Blacks were “retribalized” and their ethnic differences highlighted. New statutes provided for racial separation in industrial, territorial, administrative, and residential spheres. This barrage of legislation was partly the product of reactionary attitudes inherited from the past and partly an effort to regulate class and race relations during a period of rapid industrialization when the black population was growing steadily.

      The 1911 Mines and Works Act and its 1926 successor reserved certain jobs in mining and the railways for white workers. The Natives' Land Act of 1913 defined less than one-tenth of South Africa as black “reserves” and prohibited any purchase or lease of land by blacks outside the reserves. The law also restricted the terms of tenure under which blacks could live on white-owned farms. The Native (Urban Areas) Act of 1923 segregated urban residential space and created “influx controls” to reduce access to cities by blacks. Hertzog proposed increasing the reserve areas and removing black voters in the Cape from the common roll in 1926, aims that were finally realized through the Representation of Natives Act (1936). Blacks now voted on a separate roll to elect three white representatives to the House of Assembly.

The Pact years (1924–33)

      Hertzog's Pact government strengthened South Africa's autonomy, aided local capital, and protected white workers against black competition. Hertzog also played a leading role at the Imperial Conference in London that issued the Balfour Report (1926), establishing autonomy in foreign affairs for the dominions. When he returned from Britain, Hertzog turned his attention to creating the symbols of nationalism—flag and anthem. Economic nationalism included protective tariffs for local industry, subsidies to facilitate agricultural exports, and a state-run iron and steel industry. White trade unions grew more bureaucratic and less militant, although their members enjoyed at best modest material gains. Unskilled and nonunionized whites who received support through sheltered employment in the public sector and through prescribed minimum wages in the private sector gained more directly. Although the overall level of white poverty remained high, through these policies the manufacturing sector absorbed white labour nearly twice as fast as black.

      Blacks gained little during this period and continued to lose earlier benefits. For them, segregation meant restricted mobility, diminished opportunities, more-stringent controls, and a general sense of exclusion. Economic conditions in the reserves continued to deteriorate; the terms of tenancy became more onerous on white-owned farms; and the urban slums provided a harsh alternative for those who left the land.

      The first mass-based black political organization, the Industrial and Commercial Workers Union (ICU), flourished in response to deteriorating conditions. Until 1926 the ICU was a Cape-based organization with black and some Coloured members drawn mainly from urban areas. As a broadly based vehicle of rural protest, it had many thousands of supporters among black tenants on white farms. The ICU linked innumerable local rural grievances with a generalized call for land and liberation, but by 1929 its influence had declined. However, other organizations built on its base. The Communist Party of South Africa (CPSA), founded in 1921, was at first active almost solely within white trade unions, but from 1925 it recruited black members more energetically, and in 1928–29 it called for black majority rule and closer cooperation with the ANC. Its connection to the ANC occurred most prominently with Josiah Gumede (president 1927–30), whose political views moved leftward in the late 1920s. This led to a split in the ANC in 1930 as the more moderate members expelled the more radical ones.

      The 1929 general election reflected the political challenges to white supremacy. For the first time since union, questions of “native policy” dominated white electoral politics. Afrikaner nationalists made “black peril” and “communist menace” their rallying cries. It was not to be the last such occasion.

Colin J. Bundy Julian R.D. Cobbing

The apartheid years

The intensification of apartheid in the 1930s

      The Hertzog government achieved a major goal in 1931 when the British Parliament passed the Statute of Westminster (Westminster, Statute of), which removed the last vestiges of British legal authority (British Empire) over South Africa. Three years later the South African Parliament secured that decision by enacting the Status of the Union Act, which declared the country to be “a sovereign independent state.”

      Although Hertzog's National Party held a majority of the seats in the House of Assembly and dominated the South African cabinet in the early 1930s, its mismanagement of problems created by the Great Depression led him to form a coalition with his rival Smuts in 1933. Smuts was the leader of the South African Party, whose support came from the major industrialists and which was the party of most of the English-speaking whites (who made up less than half of the white population). In contrast, the National Party derived its main support from Afrikaner farmers and intellectuals. By 1934 the two organizations had merged to form the United Party, with Hertzog as prime minister and Smuts his deputy. The two parties and the two leaders had a common interest in favouring the enfranchised population, nearly all of whom were white, over the unenfranchised, all of whom were black. They agreed to provide massive support for white farmers, to assist poor whites by providing them with jobs protected from black competition, and to curb the movement of blacks from the reserves into the towns. Meanwhile, National Party member Daniel F. Malan (Malan, Daniel F) disagreed with the merger of the parties and chose to keep the National Party functioning.

      The earnings from South Africa's gold exports increased sharply after Britain and the United States abandoned the gold standard in the early 1930s. White farmers prospered; new secondary industries were established; and South Africans of all races continued to flock to the towns. South Africa changed from a predominantly rural country that exported raw materials and imported manufactured consumer goods into a country with a diverse economy. Although the standard of living for most whites improved greatly from this expansion, the lives of Coloureds, blacks, and Indians were hardly affected. The government did add some land to the reserves in 1936, but it never exceeded 13 percent of the area of the country. Until the end of apartheid, almost nine-tenths of South Africa—including the best land for agriculture and the bulk of the mineral deposits—belonged exclusively to whites. Unsurprisingly, conditions on the native reserves became progressively worse through overpopulation and soil erosion. The government attempted to resolve these problems through a series of programs called Betterment Schemes, which involved keeping tight control over land use in the reserves, often drastically culling cattle, and enforcing the building of contour ridges to reduce soil erosion. Overcrowding in the reserves made it necessary for a high proportion of the men to work for wages elsewhere—on white farms or in the towns, where they lived in a hostile world. Black and Coloured farm labourers, scattered in small groups throughout the agricultural areas, were isolated, and in the towns life was insecure and wages low. In the gold-mining industry the real wages of blacks declined by about one-seventh between 1911 and 1941; white miners received 12 times the salary of blacks.

      Education for blacks was left largely to Christian missions (mission), whose resources, even when augmented by small government grants, enabled them to enroll only a small proportion of the black population. Missionaries did, however, run numerous schools, including some excellent high schools that took a few pupils through to the university level; and missionaries were the dominant influence at the South African Native College at Fort Hare (founded 1916), which included degree courses. These institutions educated a small but increasing number of blacks, who secured teaching jobs and positions in the lower reaches of the civil service or functioned as clergy (especially in the independent churches that had broken away from mainstream white churches).

      Educated blacks were frustrated by the fact that whites did not treat them as equals, and some of them took part in opposition politics in the ANC. However, the ANC and two parallel movements—the African Political Organization (a Coloured group) and the South African Indian Congress—had little popular support and exerted little influence during this period. Their leaders were mission-educated men who had liberal goals and used strictly constitutional methods, such as petitions to the authorities. The radical African ICU had collapsed by 1930, and the CPSA made little headway among blacks.

World War II

      When Britain declared war on Germany on Sept. 3, 1939, the United Party split. Hertzog (Hertzog, J B M) wanted South Africa to remain neutral, but Smuts (Smuts, Jan) opted for joining the British war effort. Smuts's faction narrowly won the crucial parliamentary debate, and Hertzog and his followers left the party, many rejoining the National Party faction Malan had maintained since 1934. Smuts then became the prime minister, and South Africa declared war on Germany.

      South Africa made significant contributions to the Allied war effort. Some 135,000 white South Africans fought in the East and North African and Italian campaigns, and 70,000 blacks and Coloureds served as labourers and transport drivers. South African platinum, uranium, and steel became valuable resources, and, during the period that the Mediterranean Sea was closed to the Allies, Durban and Cape Town provisioned a vast number of ships en route from Britain to the Suez.

      The war proved to be an economic stimulant for South Africa, although wartime inflation and lagging wages contributed to social protests and strikes after the end of the war. Driven by reduced imports, the manufacturing and service industries expanded rapidly, and the flow of blacks to the towns became a flood. By the war's end, more blacks than whites lived in the towns. They set up vast squatter camps on the outskirts of the cities and improvised shelters from whatever materials they could find. They also began to flex their political muscles. Blacks boycotted a Witwatersrand bus company that tried to raise fares, they formed trade unions (organized labour), and in 1946 more than 60,000 black gold miners went on strike for higher wages and improved living conditions.

      Although the 1946 strike was brutally suppressed by the government, white intellectuals did propose a series of reforms within the segregation framework. The government and private industry made a few concessions, such as easing the industrial colour bar, increasing black wages, and relaxing the pass laws, which restricted the right of blacks to live and work in white areas. The government, however, failed to discuss these problems with black representatives.

      Afrikaners felt threatened by the concessions given to blacks and created a series of ethnic organizations to promote their interests, including an economic association, a federation of Afrikaans cultural associations, and the Afrikaner Broederbond (Afrikaner-Broederbond), a secret society of Afrikaner cultural leaders. During the war many Afrikaners welcomed the early German victories, and some of them even committed acts of sabotage.

      The United Party, which had won the general election in 1943 by a large majority, approached the 1948 election complacently. While the party appeared to take an ambiguous position on race relations, Malan's National Party took an unequivocally pro-white stance. The National Party claimed that the government's weakness threatened white supremacy and produced a statement that used the word apartheid to describe a program of tightened segregation and discrimination. With the support of a tiny fringe group, the National Party won the election by a narrow margin.

The National Party and apartheid (apartheid)

      After its victory the National Party rapidly consolidated its control over the state and in subsequent years won a series of elections with increased majorities. Parliament removed Coloured voters from the common voters' rolls in 1956. By 1969 the electorate was exclusively white: Indians never had any parliamentary representation, and the seats for white representatives of blacks and Coloureds had been abolished.

      One plank of the National Party platform was for South Africa to become a republic, preferably outside the Commonwealth. The issue was presented to white voters in 1960 as a way to bring about white unity, especially because of concern with the problems that the Belgian Congo was then experiencing as it became independent. By a simple majority the voters approved the republic status. The government structure would change only slightly: the governor-general would be replaced by a state president, who would be chosen by Parliament. At a meeting in London in March 1961, South Africa had hoped to retain its Commonwealth status, but, when other members criticized it over its apartheid policies, it withdrew from the organization and on May 31, 1961, became the Republic of South Africa.

      The government vigorously furthered its political goals by making it compulsory for white children to attend schools that were conducted in their home language, either Afrikaans (Afrikaans language) or English (except for the few who went to private schools). It advanced Afrikaners to top positions in the civil service, army, and police and in such state corporations as the South African Broadcasting Corporation. It also awarded official contracts to Afrikaner banks and insurance companies. These methods raised the living standard of Afrikaners closer to that of English-speaking white South Africans.

      Following a recession in the early 1960s, the economy grew rapidly until the late 1970s. By that time, owing to the efforts of public and private enterprise, South Africa had developed a modern infrastructure, by far the most advanced in Africa. It possessed efficient financial institutions, a national network of roads and railways, modernized port facilities in Cape Town and Durban, long-established mining operations producing a wealth of diamonds, gold, and coal, and a range of industries. De Beers Consolidated Mines (De Beers S.A.) and the Anglo American Corporation of South Africa, founded by Ernest Oppenheimer (Oppenheimer, Sir Ernest) in 1917, dominated the private sector, forming the core of one of the world's most powerful networks of mining, industrial, and financial companies and employing some 800,000 workers on six continents. State corporations (parastatals) controlled industries vital to national security. South African Coal, Oil, and Gas Corporation (SASOL) was established in 1950 to make South Africa self-sufficient in petroleum resources by converting coal to gasoline and diesel fuel. After the United Nations (UN) placed a ban on arms exports to South Africa in 1964, Armaments Corporation of South Africa (Armscor) was created to produce high-quality military equipment.

      The man who played a major part in transforming apartheid from an election slogan into practice was Hendrik F. Verwoerd (Verwoerd, Hendrik Frensch). Born in The Netherlands, Verwoerd immigrated with his parents to South Africa when he was a child. He became minister of native affairs in 1950 and was prime minister from 1958 until 1966, when Dimitri Tsafendas, a Coloured man, assassinated him in Parliament. (Tsafendas was judged to be insane and was confined to a mental institution after the murder.) Verwoerd's successor, B.J. Vorster (Vorster, John), had been minister of justice, police, and prisons, and he shared Verwoerd's philosophy of white supremacy. In Verwoerd's vision, South Africa's population contained four distinct racial groups—white, black, Coloured, and Asian—each with an inherent culture. Because whites were the “civilized” group, they were entitled to control the state.

      The all-white Parliament passed many laws to legalize and institutionalize the apartheid system. The Population Registration Act (1950) classified every South African by race. The Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act (1949) and the Immorality Act (1950) prohibited interracial marriage or sex. The Suppression of Communism Act (1950) defined communism and its aims broadly to include any opposition to the government and empowered the government to detain anyone it thought might further “communist” aims. The Indemnity Act (1961) made it legal for police officers to commit acts of violence, to torture, or to kill in the pursuit of official duties. Later laws gave the police the right to arrest and detain people without trial and to deny them access to their families or lawyers. Other laws and regulations collectively known as “petty apartheid” segregated South Africans in every sphere of life: in buses, taxis, and hearses, in cinemas, restaurants, and hotels, in trains and railway waiting rooms, and in access to beaches. When a court declared that separate amenities should be equal, Parliament passed a special law to override it.

 “Grand apartheid,” in contrast, related to the physical separation of the racial groups in the cities and countryside. Under the Group Areas Act (1950) the cities and towns of South Africa were divided into segregated residential and business areas. Thousands of Coloureds, blacks, and Indians were removed from areas classified for white occupation.

      Blacks were treated like “tribal” people and were required to live on reserves under hereditary chiefs (chief) except when they worked temporarily in white towns or on white farms. The government began to consolidate the scattered reserves into 8 (eventually 10) distinct territories, designating each of them as the “homeland,” or Bantustan, of a specific black ethnic community. The government manipulated homeland politics so that compliant chiefs controlled the administrations of most of those territories. Arguing that Bantustans matched the decolonization process then taking place in tropical Africa, the government devolved powers onto those administrations and eventually encouraged them to become “independent.” Between 1976 and 1981 four accepted independence— Transkei, Bophuthatswana, Venda, and Ciskei—though none was ever recognized by a foreign government. Like the other homelands, however, they were economic backwaters, dependent on subsidies from Pretoria.

      Conditions in the homelands continued to deteriorate, partly because they had to accommodate vast numbers of people with minimal resources. Many people found their way to the towns; but the government, attempting to reverse this flood, strengthened the pass laws by making it illegal for blacks to be in a town for more than 72 hours at a time without a job in a white home or business. A particularly brutal series of forced removals were conducted from the 1960s to the early '80s, in which more than 3.5 million blacks were taken from towns and white rural areas (including lands they had occupied for generations) and dumped into the reserves, sometimes in the middle of winter and without any facilities.

      The government also established direct control over the education of blacks. The Bantu Education Act (1953) took black schools away from the missions, and more state-run schools—especially at the elementary level—were created to meet the expanding economy's increasing demand for semiskilled black labour. The Extension of University Education Act (1959) prohibited the established universities from accepting black students, except with special permission. Instead, the government created new ethnic university colleges—one each for Coloureds, Indians, and Zulus and one for Sotho, Tswana, and Venda students, as well as a medical school for blacks. The South African Native College at Fort Hare, which missionaries had founded primarily but not exclusively for blacks, became a state college solely for Xhosa students. The government staffed these ethnic colleges with white supporters of the National Party and subjected the students to stringent controls.

Resistance to apartheid

      Apartheid imposed heavy burdens on most South Africans. The economic gap between the wealthy few, nearly all of whom were white, and the poor masses, virtually all of whom were black, Coloured, or Indian, was larger than in any other country in the world. While whites generally lived well, Indians, Coloureds, and especially blacks suffered from widespread poverty, malnutrition, and disease. Most South Africans struggled daily for survival despite the growth of the national economy.

      After the ANC Youth League emerged in the early 1940s, the ANC itself came to life again under a vigorous president, Albert Luthuli (Luthuli, Albert John), and three younger men—Walter Sisulu, Oliver Tambo (Tambo, Oliver), and Nelson Mandela (Mandela, Nelson) (the latter two briefly had a joint law practice in Johannesburg). The South African Indian Congress, which had also been revitalized, helped the ANC organize a defiance campaign in 1952, during which thousands of volunteers defied discriminatory laws by passively courting arrest and burning their pass books. A mass meeting held three years later, called Congress of the People, included Indians, Coloureds, and sympathetic whites. The Freedom Charter was adopted, asserting that “South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black or white, and no Government can justly claim authority unless it is based on the will of the people.” The government broke up the meeting, subsequently arrested more than 150 people, and charged them with high treason. Although the trial did not result in any guilty verdicts, it dragged on until 1961. To prevent further gatherings, the government passed the Prohibition of Political Interference Act (1968), which banned the formation and foreign financing of nonracial political parties.

      Robert Sobukwe, a language teacher at the University of the Witwatersrand, led a group of blacks who broke away from the ANC in 1959 and founded the Pan-Africanist Congress (Pan-Africanist Congress of Azania) (PAC) because they believed that the ANC's alliance with white, Coloured, and Indian organizations had impeded the struggle for black liberation. The PAC launched a fresh antipass campaign in March 1960, and thousands of unarmed blacks invited arrest by presenting themselves at police stations without passes. At Sharpeville (Sharpeville massacre), a black township near Johannesburg, the police opened fire on the crowd outside a police station. At least 67 blacks were killed and more than 180 wounded, most of them shot in the back. Thousands of workers then went on strike, and in Cape Town some 30,000 blacks marched in a peaceful protest to the centre of the city. Rebellion in rural areas such as Pondoland also erupted at this time against the controls of homeland authorities. The government reestablished control by force by mobilizing the army, outlawing the ANC and the PAC, and arresting more than 11,000 people under emergency regulations.

      After Sharpeville the ANC and PAC leaders and some of their white sympathizers came to the conclusion that apartheid could never be overcome by peaceful means alone. PAC established an armed wing called Poqo, and the ANC set up its military wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe (“Spear of the Nation”), in 1961. Although their military units detonated several bombs in government buildings during the next few years, the ANC and PAC did not pose a serious threat to the state, which had a virtual monopoly on modern weaponry. By 1964 the government had captured many of the leaders, including Mandela (Mandela, Nelson) and Sobukwe, and they were sentenced to long terms at the prison on Robben Island in Table Bay, off Cape Town. Other perpetrators of acts of sabotage, including John Harris (who was white), were hanged. Hundreds of others fled the country, and Tambo presided over the ANC's executive headquarters in Zambia.

The unraveling of apartheid

      The government was successful at containing opposition for almost a decade, and foreign investment that had been briefly withdrawn in the early 1960s returned. Such conditions proved to be only temporary, however.

      A new phase of resistance began in 1973 when black trade unions (organized labour) organized a series of strikes for higher wages and improved working conditions. Stephen Biko (Biko, Steve) and other black students founded the Black Peoples Convention (BPC) in 1972 and inaugurated what was loosely termed the Black Consciousness movement, which appealed to blacks to take pride in their own culture and proved immensely attractive.

      On June 16, 1976, thousands of children in Soweto, an African township outside Johannesburg, demonstrated against the government's insistence that they be taught in Afrikaans rather than in English. When the police opened fire with tear gas and then bullets, the incident initiated a nationwide cycle of protest and repression. Using its usual tactics, the government banned many organizations such as the BPC, and within a year the police had killed more than 500, including Biko. These events focused worldwide attention on South Africa. The UN (United Nations) General Assembly had denounced apartheid in 1973; four years later the UN Security Council voted unanimously to impose a mandatory embargo on the export of arms to South Africa.

      The illusion that apartheid would bring peace to South Africa had shattered by 1978. Most of the homelands proved to be economic and political disasters: labour was their only significant export, and most of their leadership was corrupt and unpopular. The national economy entered a period of recession, coupled with high inflation, and many skilled whites emigrated. South Africa, increasingly isolated as the last bastion of white racial domination on the continent, became the focus of global denunciation.

      At that time the leadership of the National Party passed to a new class of urban Afrikaners—business leaders and intellectuals who, like their English-speaking white counterparts, believed that reforms should be introduced to appease foreign and domestic critics. Pieter W. Botha (Botha, P. W.) succeeded B.J. Vorster (Vorster, John) as prime minister in August 1978, and his government introduced some reforms, but it also increased state controls. It repealed the bans on interracial sex and marriage, desegregated many hotels, restaurants, trains, and buses, removed the reservation of skilled jobs for whites, and repealed the pass laws. Provided that black trade unions registered, they received access to a new industrial court, and they legally could strike. A new constitution was promulgated that created separate parliamentary bodies for Indians and for Coloureds, but it also vested great powers in an executive president, namely Botha.

      The Botha reforms, however, stopped short of making any real change in the distribution of power. The white parliamentary chamber could override the Coloured and Indian chambers on matters of national significance, and all blacks remained disenfranchised. The Group Areas Act and the Land Acts maintained residential segregation (segregation, racial). Schools and health and welfare services for blacks, Indians, and Coloureds remained segregated and inferior, and most nonwhites, especially blacks, were still desperately poor. Moreover, Botha used the State Security Council, which was dominated by military officers, rather than the cabinet as his major policy-making body, and he embarked on a massive military buildup. Military service for white males, already universal, increased from nine months to two years and included annual reserve duty.

      South Africa's black neighbours formed the Southern African Development Coordinating Conference (Southern African Development Community) in 1979 in an effort to limit South Africa's economic domination of the region, but it made little progress. Most of the export trade from the region continued to pass through the country to South African ports, and South Africa provided employment for some 280,000 migrant workers from neighbouring countries. Botha also used South Africa's military strength to restrain its neighbours from pursuing antiapartheid policies. The South African Defense Force (SADF) assisted the Renamo (Mozambique National Resistance) rebels in Mozambique and the UNITA (National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA)) faction in Angola's civil war. SADF troops entered Botswana, Swaziland, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, and Mozambique in order to make preemptive attacks on ANC groups and their allies in these countries. Botha kept what was then called South West Africa/Namibia under South African domination in defiance of the UN, which had withdrawn the mandate it had granted to South Africa over the region. The country even produced a few nuclear weapons, the testing of which was detected in 1979. Increasingly, South African dissidents from all race groups were harassed, banned, or detained in prison without necessarily being charged under renewable 90-day detention sentences.

      During the 1980s the conservative administrations of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher (Thatcher, Margaret) in Britain and President Ronald Reagan (Reagan, Ronald W.) in the United States faced increasingly insistent pressures for sanctions (sanction) against South Africa. A high-level Commonwealth mission went to South Africa in 1986 in an unsuccessful effort to persuade the government to suspend its military actions in the townships, release political prisoners, and stop destabilizing neighbouring countries. Later that year American public resentment of South Africa's racial policies was strong enough for the U.S. Congress (Congress of the United States) to pass—over a presidential veto—the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act, which banned new investments and loans, ended air links, and prohibited the importation of many commodities. Other governments took similar actions.

      The struggle intensified during the early 1980s and became further polarized. The new constitution of 1983 attempted to split the opposition to apartheid by meeting Indian and Coloured grievances while at the same time giving blacks no political rights except in the homelands. In response, more than 500 community groups formed the United Democratic Front, which became closely identified with the exiled ANC. Strikes, boycotts, and attacks on black police and urban councillors began escalating, and a state of emergency was declared in many parts of the country in 1985; a year later the government promulgated a nationwide state of emergency and embarked on a campaign to eliminate all opposition. For three years policemen and soldiers patrolled the black townships in armed vehicles. They destroyed black squatter camps and detained, abused, and killed thousands of blacks, while the army continued its forays into neighbouring countries. Rigid censorship laws tried to conceal those actions by banning television, radio, and newspaper coverage.

      The brute force used by the government did not halt dissent. Long-standing critics such as Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu (Tutu, Desmond), the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, defied the government, and influential Afrikaner clerics and intellectuals withdrew their support. Resistance by black workers continued, including a massive strike by the National Union of Mineworkers, and saboteurs caused an increasing number of deaths and injuries. The economy suffered severe strain from the costs of sanctions, administering apartheid, and military adventurism, especially in Namibia and Angola. The gross domestic product decreased; annual inflation rose above 14 percent; and investment capital became scarce. Moreover, in 1988 the army suffered a military setback in Angola, after which the government signed an accord paving the way for the removal of Cuban troops that had been sent to Angola and for the UN-supervised independence of Namibia in 1990. Given these circumstances, many whites came to realize that there was no stopping the incorporation of blacks into the South African political system.

      Government officials held several discussions with imprisoned ANC leader Mandela (Mandela, Nelson) as these events unfolded, but Botha balked at the idea of allowing blacks to participate in the political system. National Party dissent against Botha in 1989 forced him to step down as both party leader and president. The National Party parliamentary caucus subsequently chose F.W. de Klerk (de Klerk, F.W.), the party's Transvaal provincial leader, as his successor. More than 20 years younger than Botha, de Klerk exhibited more sensitivity to the dynamics of a world where, as democracy arose in eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, the blatant racism that still existed in South Africa could no longer be tolerated. De Klerk announced a program of radical change in a dramatic address to Parliament on Feb. 2, 1990; nine days later Mandela was released from prison. During the next year Parliament repealed the basic apartheid laws, lifted the state of emergency, freed many political prisoners, and allowed exiles to return to South Africa.

Postapartheid South Africa

The Mandela presidency

Transition to majority rule

 Mandela was elected president of the ANC in 1991, succeeding Tambo, who was in poor health and died two years later. Mandela and de Klerk, who both wanted to reach a peaceful solution to South Africa's problems, met with representatives of most of the political organizations in the country, with a mandate to draw up a new constitution. These negotiations took place amid pervasive and escalating violence, especially in the southern Transvaal, the industrial heart of the country, and in Natal. Most of the conflicts in the Transvaal occurred between Zulu migrant workers, who were housed in large hostels, and the residents of the adjacent townships. The conflicts in Natal existed mainly between Zulu supporters of the ANC and members of the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP), a Zulu movement led by Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi (Buthelezi, Mangosuthu G.), who was chief minister of the KwaZulu homeland.

      As the bargaining continued, both Mandela and de Klerk made concessions, with the result that both of them ran the risk of losing the support of their respective constituencies. While whites were loath to forfeit their power and privileges, blacks had hoped to win complete control of the state. A majority of white voters endorsed the negotiating process in a referendum in 1992, but both white and black extremists tried to sabotage the process through various acts of terror.

      Mandela and de Klerk finally reached a peaceful agreement on the future of South Africa at the end of 1993, an achievement for which they jointly received the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize. In addition, leaders of 18 other parties endorsed an interim constitution, which was to take effect immediately after South Africa's first election by universal suffrage, scheduled for April 1994. A parliament to be elected at that time would oversee the drafting of a permanent constitution for the country. The temporary constitution enfranchised all citizens 18 and older, abolished the homelands, and divided the country into nine new provinces, with provincial governments receiving substantial powers. It also contained a long list of political and social rights and a mechanism through which blacks could regain ownership of land that had been taken away under apartheid.

 The ANC won almost two-thirds of the 1994 vote, the National Party slightly more than one-fifth, and the IFP most of the rest; all three received proportional cabinet representation. The ANC also became the majority party in seven of the provinces, but the IFP won a majority in KwaZulu-Natal, and the National Party—supported by mixed-race (people formerly classified as “Coloured” under apartheid) as well as white voters—won a majority in Western Cape. Mandela was sworn in as president of the new South Africa on May 10 before a vast jubilant crowd that included the secretary-general of the UN, 45 heads of state, and delegations from many other countries. Thabo Mbeki (Mbeki, Thabo), a top official in the ANC, and de Klerk both became deputy presidents.

      The new, multiparty “government of national unity” aimed to provide Africans with improved education, housing, electricity, running water, and sanitation. Recognizing that economic growth was essential for such purposes, the ANC adopted a moderate economic policy, dropping the socialist elements that had characterized its earlier programs. Mandela and his colleagues campaigned vigorously for foreign aid and investment, but capital investment entered the new South Africa slowly.

      The government also had to grapple with a host of daunting institutional problems associated with the transition to a postapartheid society. Blacks joined the civil service; antiapartheid guerrillas became members of the police and the army; and new municipal governments that embraced both the old white cities and their black township satellites sprang into existence. Labour disputes, criminal violence, and conflict between Zulu factions, especially in KwaZulu-Natal, continued. The IFP (which supported a new provincial constitution that granted a sweeping autonomy to KwaZulu-Natal but was struck down by the Constitutional Court) refused to participate in the process that resulted in the creation of the new national constitution that Parliament passed in May 1996. Parliament revised the constitution in October after it was reviewed by the Constitutional Court; Mandela signed it into law in December of the same year. Also in 1996, the National Party left the government to form a “dynamic but responsible” opposition.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission

      The most important domestic agency created during Mandela's presidency was the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), which was established to review atrocities committed during the apartheid years. It was set up in 1995 under the leadership of Archbishop Tutu (Tutu, Desmond) and was given the power to grant amnesty to those found to have committed “gross violations of human rights” under extenuating circumstances. By the time the TRC delivered its five-volume report in 1999, more than 7,000 applications for amnesty had been reviewed; of those, about 150 had been granted. Applicants not given amnesty were subject to further legal proceedings.

      The TRC was the target of widespread criticism: whites saw it as selectively targeting them, and blacks viewed its actions as a charade that allowed perpetrators of heinous crimes to go free. Former president P.W. Botha refused to answer a summons to give testimony to the commission and received a fine and a suspended sentence, although the sentence was later appealed and overturned. Nonetheless, the TRC uncovered information that otherwise would have remained hidden or taken longer to surface. For example, details of the murders of numerous ANC members were exposed, as were the operations of the State Counterinsurgency Unit at Vlakplaas; its commander, Colonel Eugene de Kock, was subsequently sentenced to a long prison term. The commission also investigated those opposed to apartheid. One of the most prominent was Winnie Madikizela-Mandela (Madikizela-Mandela, Winnie), the former wife of Nelson Mandela, who served briefly as a deputy minister in 1994–95. Her attempts to attain other offices ended when the TRC report indicated that she had been involved in apartheid-era violence. The report also allowed many to finally learn the fate of relatives or friends who had “disappeared” at the hands of the authorities.

South Africa since Mandela

 Mbeki (Mbeki, Thabo) replaced Mandela as president of the ANC in December 1997 and became president of the country after the ANC's triumphant win in the June 1999 elections. Mbeki pledged to address economic woes and the need to improve the social conditions in the country. The ANC (African National Congress) was again victorious in the April 2004 elections, and Mbeki was elected to serve another term. South Africa had entered the 21st century with enormous problems to resolve, but the smooth transition of power in a government that represented a majority of the people—something unthinkable less than a decade earlier—provided hope that those problems could be addressed peaceably.

Leonard Monteath Thompson Julian R.D. Cobbing

      In March 2005 deputy president Jacob Zuma (Zuma, Jacob)—who was widely held to be Mbeki's successor as president of the ANC and, eventually, as president of the country—was dismissed by Mbeki amid charges of corruption; the next year Zuma stood trial for an unrelated charge of rape. He was acquitted of rape in May 2006, and the corruption charges were dropped later that year. Despite the repeated allegations of wrongdoing, which his supporters claimed were politically motivated, Zuma remained a popular figure within the ANC and was selected over Mbeki to be party president at the ANC conference in December 2007, in what was one of the most contentious leadership battles in the party's history.

      Following an allegation by a High Court judge that there had been political interference in Zuma's prosecution on corruption charges, on Sept. 20, 2008, Mbeki was asked by the ANC to resign from the South African presidency, which he agreed to do once the relevant constitutional requirements had been fulfilled. On September 25 he was succeeded by Kgalema Motlanthe (Motlanthe, Kgalema), who was selected by the National Assembly to serve as interim president until elections could be held in 2009.

Ed.

Additional Reading

Geography

Rita M. Byrnes (ed.), South Africa: A Country Study, 3rd ed. (1997), surveys South African society, economy, politics, and geography. Monica M. Cole, South Africa, 2nd ed. (1966), is a basic, comprehensive physical and human geography. An introduction to the social structure and politics of the country is Bernard Makhosezwe Magubane, The Political Economy of Race and Class in South Africa (1979, reissued 1990). David M. Smith (ed.), The Apartheid City and Beyond (1992); and Mark Swilling, Richard Humphries, and Khehla Shubane (eds.), Apartheid City in Transition (1991), are collections of essays on urbanization, social change, urban politics, and development. Historical studies of the economy include Belinda Bozzoli, The Political Nature of a Ruling Class: Capital and Ideology in South Africa, 1890–1933 (1981). Contemporary economic conditions are treated in Jill Nattrass, The South African Economy: Its Growth and Change, 2nd ed. (1988); Nicoli Nattrass and Elisabeth Ardington (eds.), The Political Economy of South Africa (1990); Francis Wilson and Mamphela Ramphele, Uprooting Poverty: The South African Challenge (1989), a study of income distribution and aspects of poverty and unemployment; and Stephen R. Lewis, Jr., The Economics of Apartheid (1990), an excellent review.

History

General

Broad coverage of South Africa's history is provided in Monica Wilson and Leonard Thompson (eds.), The Oxford History of South Africa, 2 vol. (1969–71), the only general reference work to make a serious attempt to record the history of all the peoples of the country; Leonard Monteath Thompson, A History of South Africa, rev. ed. (1995), a fluent and elegantly written account; T.R.H. Davenport and Christopher Saunders, South Africa: A Modern History, 5th ed. (2000); Dougie Oakes (ed.), Reader's Digest Illustrated History of South Africa (1989); Robert Ross, A Concise History of South Africa (1999); Frank Welsh, South Africa: A Narrative History (1999); and J.D. Omer-Cooper, History of Southern Africa, 2nd ed. (1994). Christopher Saunders and Nicholas Southey, Historical Dictionary of South Africa, 2nd ed. (2000), presents useful information on historical topics. Cherryl Walker (ed.), Women and Gender in Southern Africa to 1945 (1990), discusses the changing status of women in the past 100 years.

Prehistory to 1870

Early history is explored in Richard Elphick, Kraal and Castle (1977; also published as Khoikhoi and the Founding of White South Africa, 1985), a detailed study of the interactions between the Dutch at the Cape of Good Hope and the Khoekhoe chiefdoms of the region; and Richard Elphick and Hermann Giliomee (eds.), The Shaping of South African Society, 1652–1840, 2nd ed. (1989), essays that review the history comprehensively from the first years of Dutch settlement. David Lewis-Williams and Thomas Dowson, Images of Power: Understanding Bushman Rock Art (1989), is an introduction to the rock paintings of southern Africa.There is still no good published overview account of the period 1770–1870 in South African history, and there are enormous gaps in knowledge. Nevertheless, the following titles are useful: Clifton C. Crais, White Supremacy and Black Resistance in Pre-Industrial South Africa: The Making of the Colonial Order in the Eastern Cape, 1770–1865 (1992); Ben Maclennan, A Proper Degree of Terror: John Graham and the Cape's Eastern Frontier (1986), a study of the colonial invasion of the Zuurveld in 1811–12; Robert Ross, Cape of Torments: Slavery and Resistance in South Africa (1983); Nigel Worden, Slavery in Dutch South Africa (1985); Noël Mostert, Frontiers: The Epic of South Africa's Creation and the Tragedy of the Xhosa People (1992); Julian Cobbing, “The Mfecane as Alibi: Thoughts on Dithakong and Mbolompo,” Journal of African History, 29(3):487–519 (1988), which argues that the Mfecane is largely a creation of early 20th-century South African historians; Carolyn Hamilton (ed.), The Mfecane Aftermath: Reconstructive Debates in Southern African History (1995), which attempts to put the debate on the Mfecane in perspective; J.B. Peires, The House of Phalo: A History of the Xhosa People in the Days of Their Independence (1981), up to the 1840s, and The Dead Will Arise: Nongqawuse and the Great Xhosa Cattle-Killing Movement of 1856–7 (1989); Colin Bundy, The Rise and Fall of the South African Peasantry, 2nd ed. (1988), on the emergence of the African peasants after the 1840s; Jeff Guy, The Destruction of the Zulu Kingdom: The Civil War in Zululand, 1879–1884 (1979, reissued 1994), mainly on the British invasion of 1879 and its aftermath; and Shula Marks and Anthony Atmore (eds.), Economy and Society in Pre-Industrial South Africa (1980), essays on the pre-1900 period. Bill Freund, The Making of Contemporary Africa: The Development of African Society Since 1800, 2nd ed. (1998), examines economic and social conditions in Africa during the 19th and 20th centuries.

1870 to 1930

Useful works on this period include William H. Worger, South Africa's City of Diamonds: Mine Workers and Monopoly Capitalism in Kimberley, 1867–1895 (1987), a history of diamond mining, paying particular attention to questions of labour recruitment and the rise of De Beers Consolidated Mines; Shula Marks and Richard Rathbone, Industrialisation and Social Change in South Africa: African Class Formation, Culture, and Consciousness, 1870–1930 (1982), a collection of essays exploring some of the consequences of an industrial revolution for the country's African population; Frederick A. Johnstone, Class, Race, and Gold (1976, reprinted 1987), an influential Marxist study of how racial discrimination was institutionalized in the gold-mining industry; T.R.H. Davenport, The Afrikaner Bond: The History of a South African Political Party, 1880–1911 (1966); Thomas Pakenham, The Boer War (1979), a highly readable, well-researched popular history; Shula Marks and Stanley Trapido, “Lord Milner and the South African State,” History Workshop, 8:50–80 (Autumn 1979), an important article that led to the reevaluation of Milner's role in South Africa; David Yudelman, The Emergence of Modern South Africa: State, Capital, and the Incorporation of Organized Labor on the South African Gold Fields, 1902–1939 (1983); Peter Walshe, The Rise of African Nationalism in South Africa: The African National Congress, 1912–1952 (1971, reissued 1987); Helen Bradford, A Taste of Freedom: The ICU in Rural South Africa, 1924–1930 (1987); Gail M. Gerhart, Black Power in South Africa: The Evolution of an Ideology (1978); and Ken Luckhardt and Brenda Wall, Organize or Starve!: The History of the South African Congress of Trade Unions (1980).

Since 1930

Numerous books have appeared that chronicle South Africa's most recent history. Useful works include William Beinart, Twentieth-Century South Africa (1994); and Nigel Worden, The Making of Modern South Africa: Conquest, Segregation, and Apartheid, 2nd ed. (1995). Jonathan Crush, Alan Jeeves, and David Yudelman, South Africa's Labor Empire: A History of Black Migrancy to the Gold Mines (1991), deals with the ways in which the history of the region has been connected through labour migrancy. Francis Wilson, Labour in the South African Gold Mines, 1911–1969 (1972), describes the dependence of South Africa's premier industry on African migrant workers and details how the mining groups held down miners' wages so that they were lower in 1969 than in 1911. Randall M. Packard, White Plague, Black Labour: Tuberculosis and the Political Economy of Health and Disease in South Africa (1989), discusses the interaction between disease and oppressive labour conditions in 20th-century South Africa.T. Dunbar Moodie, The Rise of Afrikanerdom: Power, Apartheid, and the Afrikaner Civil Religion (1975, reprinted 1980), shows how an Afrikaner civil religion, with antecedents dating to the 19th century, contributed to the political victory of the Afrikaner National Party in 1948. Leonard Monteath Thompson, The Political Mythology of Apartheid (1985), examines how the mythology of the Afrikaner nationalist movement originated as a myth about liberation from British colonialism but later was used to legitimate the oppression of the black people of South Africa. Dan O'Meara, Volkskapitalisme: Class, Capital, and Ideology in the Development of Afrikaner Nationalism, 1934–1948 (1983), provides a useful account of a crucial period.George M. Fredrickson, White Supremacy: A Comparative Study in American and South African History (1981), is an illuminating comparison of these two countries. The essays in Hermann Giliomee and Lawrence Schlemmer (eds.), Up Against the Fences: Poverty, Passes, and Privilege in South Africa (1985), describe the forces that led to the massive migration of Africans from the reserves to the cities and show that the government was failing to stop it. David Pallister, Sarah Stewart, and Ian Lepper, South Africa Inc.: The Oppenheimer Empire, rev. and updated ed. (1988), describes the global reach of the great industrial and financial conglomerate centred in the Anglo American Corporation and the De Beers diamond cartel. Joseph Hanlon, Beggar Your Neighbours: Apartheid Power in Southern Africa (1986), details how South African economic, political, and military power was used during the 1980s to destabilize other countries in Southern Africa. William Minter, King Solomon's Mines Revisited: Western Interests and the Burdened History of Southern Africa (1986), offers a radical critique of the involvement of Britain, the United States, and other Western powers and financial interests in the exploitation of the black people of Southern Africa.Tom Lodge, Black Politics in South Africa Since 1945 (1983), is the basic history of black protest movements since World War II, with detailed examinations of specific campaigns and episodes. Sebastian Mallaby, After Apartheid: The Future of South Africa (1992), explores the options. David Ottaway, Chained Together: Mandela, De Klerk, and the Struggle to Remake South Africa (1993), traces the common commitment of the white and black leaders to the transformation of South Africa. Jacklyn Cock, Colonels & Cadres: War & Gender in South Africa (1991; also published as Women and War in South Africa, 1993), explores the link between war and gender in South Africa in the final apartheid years. Heribert Adam and Kogila Moodley, The Opening of the Apartheid Mind: Options for the New South Africa (1993), provides a cogent analysis of the complex forces that operate in the new South Africa.The post-1994 years are covered in T.R.H. Davenport, The Transfer of Power in South Africa (1998); Tom Lodge, South African Politics Since 1994 (1999); and Stephen Ellis, “The New Frontiers of Crime in South Africa,” in Jean-Francois Bayart, Stephen Ellis, and Beatrice Hibou, The Criminalization of the State in Africa (1999; originally published in French, 1997). Antjie Krog, Country of My Skull (1998), is a moving account of the deliberations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.Julian R.D. Cobbing

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