More than half the number of fatalities occurred after 1990, that is: after the National Party had unbanned the liberation movements, and committed itself to negotiated political change; and after the ANC had suspended its armed struggle. The three-month period preceding the first democratic elections in April 1994 was especially tense; during this period around 1,000 people were killed.
The timing of the training of the Zulus to fight the ANC by the Boers was not accidental. It coincided with the move by the ANC's leadership in exile to return some of its key leaders to South Africa from Lusaka, Mbabane, Mozambique, Russia and the Ukraine. These leaders who were re-infiltrated to South Africa were from both the political wing as well as from Umkonto we Sizwe (MK). This process was given the name Operation Vula. These leaders formed an important cadre of the ANC and were known as the 'Vula Boys'.
The Vula boys are the collection of communists and ANC intelligence operatives who formed the backbone of Operation Vula, the secret pre-1990 ANC programme to develop the necessary leadership and material networks inside South Africa to launch a revolution or mass armed uprising. Vula was controversial because it was secret even inside the ANC: a special operation, sanctioned by the ailing Oliver Tambo from Lusaka, which was not known to the wider ANC leadership - including Thabo Mbeki operating out of Angola.
Vula was led by Mac Maharaj, the former Minister of Transport. It included Siphiwe Nyanda, Ronnie Kasrils, Mo Shaik and his brother Schabir. The then ANC intelligence chief, Jacob Zuma, was also within the network. This operation was supervised by the ANC leadership in Lusaka and was unknown to the ANC leadership in Luanda who were just then starting to establish links with the Nationalist Government in a search for a negotiated settlement. Vula coincided with a parallel and contrary initiative within the ANC, led by Mbeki - the beginning of dialogue with the apartheid state. Vula continued, even after the unbanning of the ANC in 1990, but there was increasing conflict between the Vula operatives and the ANC leadership about the strategy and direction of negotiations. Despite repeated criticism from Maharaj and others the views of the Vula comrades were largely ignored.
By June 1990 Vula was blown, following the arrest in Natal of two Vula operatives, Charles Ndaba and Mbuso Shabalala. The two were later killed by the security police. In the midst of negotiations, Mbeki was confronted with evidence of a secret ANC unit he was unaware of - and which the de Klerk government claimed was still plotting a revolutionary insurrection, rather than a negotiated settlement. Mbeki was angry and allowed the Vula network to be sanctioned. Maharaj and others were arrested and only released on bail in November, after the Pretoria agreement with de Klerk had already been signed. Key 'hawks' within the ANC, especially the MK, were side-lined during that period of negotiation and held a deep resentment against Mbeki.
With the coming of an ANC Government many of the ANC and MK leaders were installed in powerful positions in the government. The Vula boys were not excluded. They positioned themselves rather strategically. The hard-line communist Pravin Gordhan became head of the SA Revenue Service, and was joined by Vuso Shabalala (as general manager of customs); Ivan Pillay took over special investigations at SARS and Sirish Soni joined him. Solly Shoke became mission director for the SANDF; Raymond Lalla became a senior official in police intelligence and Mpho Scott was elected as an MP.
While the Vula boys progressed in their roles, the Mbeki boys rose to dizzying heights of power and wealth in the new South Africa. When the ANC moved into the control of the Government it found a country with immense wealth, well-developed industries; a thriving banking system; and a nexus of secretive relationships between government and the private sector.
These ANC loyalists were appointed to high posts in all levels of the South African government and were also spurred on in their invasion of the private sector by a program of Black Empowerment. This Black Empowerment made many African millionaires and put key ANC supporters at the heads of many indigenous industries. However, this was an upwards enrichment of the African leadership. For many of the ANC supporters, their leaders' lifestyles and economic opportunities did not live up to their expectations in the wake of the ANC takeover from the Nationalists. There were now African plutocrats as well as white plutocrats but poor people tended to stay poor. This has been the key area of disenchantment with the Mbeki and Zuma governments.
The danger of the challenge of communism has been a key preoccupation of the South African defence establishment and its overseas supporters for decades. The ANC and the fighters of MK were often trained by the Soviets and East Germans. Many were taken to Russia and the Ukraine for military training and most of the military equipment was supplied by the Soviet Union. Many of the leaders of the ANC were members or supporters of the South African Communist Party ('SACP'). The SACP started as a communist party for White workers. In the 1922 strike on the Rand the SACP marched on Pretoria under the banner "White Workers of the World Unite". By 1928 the visit to the Soviet Union of J.T. Gumede (ANC President) and Cape President La Guma cemented a link between the Soviet party and the ANC. The vehicle was the SACP which was told that the party line was to identify with the revolutionary masses.
The links between the SACP and the ANC were strong and overlapping. The SACP was told by the Soviet party, through the Zambian embassy which co-ordinated Soviet activity in Africa that the communists should engage in mass movements, like the ANC. In 1977 the Russians installed Vassily Grogoriyevich Solodovnikov, the KGB'S ranking expert on southern Africa, as Ambassador to Zambia. Solodovnikov used the embassy in Lusaka to direct arms aid to Rhodesian nationalist Joshua Nkomo, to Neto's MPLA in Angola and to the ANC through the SACP. Solodovnikov was subsequently awarded the Order of the Companions of OR Tambo in Silver by the ANC South African Presidency. Many of the current 'siloviki' in power in Russia today served in Southern Africa.
There was, in fact, a tight control of the ANC by the SACP, especially among the prisoners at Robben Island. It was the SACP which controlled the ANC policy there. It was impossible for De Klerk to negotiate a peaceful transition with Mandela as long as Mandela was kept locked up with the stalwarts of the SACP in Robben Island. They exercised a veto on Mandela's actions. This is why the government released some of the hardliners from Robben Island before they released Mandela and then moved Mandela out of Robben Island to Pollsmoor Prison in Capetown and then to Victor Verster, near Paarl. This removed the automatic SACP veto on Mandela and opened the door to compromise. Many of the others were scattered outside South Africa for training and mobilisation which kept them out of the policy-making business.
The ties between the ANC and the SACP continue. The ANC and the SACP are part of the Tripartite Alliance, uniting the ANC, the SACP and the Confederation of South African Trades Unions ('COSATU'). The South African military intelligence people used to say that the SACP was the brains of the alliance; the ANC the mouth; and the COSATU the hands. It is the third element, the COSATU which is currently the most important as, when Chris Hani died, the SACP lost a great deal of its power in the ANC Tripartite Alliance. However, the SACP is still strong and well-organised despite its battles with the ANC over privatisation. The main battle is the struggle for control of the labour movement and the simultaneous battle against BEE grandees who have put personal gain over the needs of the South African workers (as at Marikana).
This has allowed revolutionary wannabes like Julius Malema, the former head of the ANC Youth League to form his own organisation, the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) which is now the third largest party in the Parliament. In reaction to the Nene affair, the EFF called for the resignation of Zuma before he could inflict further damage to the country. "The EFF calls for the immediate resignation of Zuma before he plunges the country into a deeper crisis. Zuma is a humiliation and disaster for South Africa, who prioritises personal aspirations at the expense of the country. The ruling party should now appreciate that the country is more important than the personal interests of one individual."[ii]
This rift between the political beneficiaries of the system and those outside the system has been shown as well with the split in the nation's main trade union confederation, COSATU, the "third leg of the ANC. In the last three years COSATU's membership has dropped by 324,835. In November 2014 COSATU expelled its biggest affiliate, the National Union of Metalworkers (Numsa). In November 2015 COSATU confirmed its former general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi's expulsion from the party.
In practice Zuma has largely ignored or isolated the Mbeki wing of the ANC, except for those engaged with BEE corporations. He has turned away from the Xhosa Mafia to the Zulu Mafia who stuff the South African political chairs. Despite his 'revolutionary credentials" Zuma has found he has much better common cause with Goldman Sachs and the hedge funds than the toiling masses of South Africa's disenfranchised.
The current case, in addition to the scandal of the 13 million of taxpayer-funded upgrades to his private estate at Nkandla which have been described as "obscene" by local politicians is not much diferent. For many this is a manifestation of "Tokoloshe", the affliction brought on by 'Tokoloshe'.
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