Sharpeville massacre
The Sharpeville massacre was an event which occurred on 21 March 1960, at the police station in the South African township of Sharpeville in Transvaal. After a day of demonstrations against pass laws, a crowd of about 5,000 to 7,000 protesters went to the police station; the South African Police opened fire on the crowd, injuring 180 others. Sources disagree as to the behaviour of the crowd. There were 249 casualties including 29 children. Many sustained back injuries from being shot; the massacre was photographed by photographer Ian Berry, who believed the police were firing blanks. In present-day South Africa, 21 March is celebrated as a public holiday in honour of human rights and to commemorate the Sharpeville massacre. South African governments since the eighteenth century had enacted measures to restrict the flow of black South Africans into cities. Pass laws intended to control and direct their movement and employment were updated in the 1950s. Under the country's National Party government, black residents in urban districts were subject to influx control measures.
Individuals over sixteen were required to carry passbooks, which contained an identity card and influx authorisation from a labour bureau, name of employer and address, details of personal history. Leading up to the Sharpeville massacre, the National Party administration under the leadership of Dr. Hendrik Verwoerd used these laws to enforce greater racial segregation and, in 1959-1960, extended them to include women. From the 1960s, the pass laws were the primary instrument used by the state to detain and harass its political opponents; the African National Congress prepared to initiate a campaign of protests against pass laws. These protests were to begin on 31 March 1960, but the rival Pan-Africanist Congress, led by Robert Sobukwe, decided to pre-empt the ANC by launching its own campaign ten days earlier, on 21 March, because they believed that the ANC could not win the campaign. On March 21, a group of between 5,000 and 10,000 people converged on the local police station in the township of Sharpeville, offering themselves up for arrest for not carrying their passbooks.
The Sharpeville police were not unprepared for the demonstration, as they had been forced to drive smaller groups of more militant activists away the previous night. Many of the civilians present attended to support the protest, but there is evidence that the PAC used intimidating means to draw the crowd there, including the cutting of telephone lines into Sharpeville, the distribution of pamphlets telling people not to go to work on the day, coercion of bus drivers and commuters. By 10:00, a large crowd had gathered, the atmosphere was peaceful and festive. Fewer than 20 police officers were present in the station at the start of the protest; the crowd grew to about 20,000, the mood was described as "ugly", prompting about 130 police reinforcements, supported by four Saracen armoured personnel carriers, to be rushed in. The police were armed including Sten submachine guns and Lee -- Enfield rifles. There was no evidence. F-86 Sabre jets and Harvard Trainers approached to within a hundred feet of the ground, flying low over the crowd in an attempt to scatter it.
The protesters responded by menacing the police barricades. Tear gas proved ineffectual, policemen elected to repel these advances with their batons. At about 13:00 the police tried to arrest a protestor, resulting in a scuffle, the crowd surged forward; the shooting began shortly thereafter. The official figure is that 69 people were killed, including 8 women and 10 children, 180 injured, including 31 women and 19 children. Many were shot in the back as they turned causing some to be paralyzed. Police reports in 1960 claimed that young and inexperienced police officers panicked and opened fire spontaneously, setting off a chain reaction that lasted about forty seconds, it is that the police were nervous as two months before the massacre, nine constables had been assaulted and killed, some disembowelled, during a raid at Cato Manor. In addition, few of the policemen present had received public order training; some of them had been on duty for over twenty-four hours without respite. Lieutenant Colonel Pienaar, the commanding officer of the police reinforcements at Sharpeville, said in his statement that "the native mentality does not allow them to gather for a peaceful demonstration.
For them to gather means violence." He denied giving any order to fire and stated that he would not have done so. Other evidence given to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission 38 years in 1998 by two of the victims claimed "a degree of deliberation in the decision to open fire"; the uproar among South Africa's black population was immediate, the following week saw demonstrations, protest marches and riots around the country. On 30 March 1960, the government declared a state of emergency, detaining more than 18,000 people, including prominent anti-apartheid activists who were known as members of the Congress Alliance. A storm of international protest followed the Sharpeville shootings, including sympathetic demonstrations in many countries and condemnation by the United Nations. On 1 April 1960, the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 134. Sharpeville marked a turning point in South Africa's history.
Bonnievale, Western Cape
Bonnievale is a settlement in Cape Winelands District Municipality in the Western Cape province of South Africa. Town 64km south-east of Worcester, in the Breede River Valley. Founded in 1922 and named after the railway siding, called Vale since its opening in 1902 and Bonnie Vale in 1917. Municipal status was gained in April 1953
Steve Biko
Bantu Stephen Biko was a South African anti-apartheid activist. Ideologically an African nationalist and African socialist, he was at the forefront of a grassroots anti-apartheid campaign known as the Black Consciousness Movement during the late 1960s and 1970s, his ideas were articulated in a series of articles published under the pseudonym Frank Talk. Raised in a poor Xhosa family, Biko grew up in Ginsberg township in the Eastern Cape. In 1966, he began studying medicine at the University of Natal, where he joined the National Union of South African Students. Opposed to the apartheid system of racial segregation and white-minority rule in South Africa, Biko was frustrated that NUSAS and other anti-apartheid groups were dominated by white liberals, rather than by the blacks who were most affected by apartheid, he believed that when well-intentioned, white liberals failed to comprehend the black experience and acted in a paternalistic manner. He developed the view that to avoid white domination, black people had to organise independently, to this end he became a leading figure in the creation of the South African Students' Organisation in 1968.
Membership was open only to "blacks", a term that Biko used in reference not just to Bantu-speaking Africans but to Coloureds and Indians. He was careful to keep his movement independent of white liberals, but opposed anti-white racism and had various white friends and lovers; the white-minority National Party government were supportive, seeing SASO's creation as a victory for apartheid's ethos of racial separatism. Influenced by Frantz Fanon and the African-American Black Power movement and his compatriots developed Black Consciousness as SASO's official ideology; the movement campaigned for an end to apartheid and the transition of South Africa toward universal suffrage and a socialist economy. It organised Black Community Programmes and focused on the psychological empowerment of black people. Biko believed that black people needed to rid themselves of any sense of racial inferiority, an idea he expressed by popularizing the slogan "black is beautiful". In 1972, he was involved in founding the Black People's Convention to promote Black Consciousness ideas among the wider population.
The government came to see Biko as a subversive threat and placed him under a banning order in 1973 restricting his activities. He remained politically active, helping organise BCPs such as a healthcare centre and a crèche in the Ginsberg area. During his ban he received repeated anonymous threats, was detained by state security services on several occasions. Following his arrest in August 1977, Biko was beaten by state security officers, resulting in his death. Over 20,000 people attended his funeral. Biko's fame spread posthumously, he became the subject of numerous songs and works of art, while a 1978 biography by his friend Donald Woods formed the basis for the 1987 film Cry Freedom. During Biko's life, the government alleged that he hated whites, various anti-apartheid activists accused him of sexism, African racial nationalists criticised his united front with Coloureds and Indians. Nonetheless, Biko became one of the earliest icons of the movement against apartheid, is regarded as a political martyr and the "Father of Black Consciousness".
His political legacy remains a matter of contention. Bantu Stephen Biko was born on 18 December 1946, at his grandmother's house in Tarkastad, Eastern Cape; the third child of Mzingaye Mathew Biko and Alice'Mamcete' Biko, he had an older sister, Bukelwa, an older brother, a younger sister, Nobandile. His parents had married in Whittlesea. Mzingaye was transferred to Queenstown, Port Elizabeth, Fort Cox, King William's Town, where he and Alice settled in Ginsberg township; this was a settlement of around 800 families, with every four families sharing a water supply and toilet. Both Bantu African and Coloured people lived in the township, where Xhosa and English were all spoken. After resigning from the police force, Mzingaye worked as a clerk in the King William's Town Native Affairs Office, while studying for a law degree by correspondence from the University of South Africa. Alice was employed first in domestic work for local white households as a cook at Grey Hospital in King William's Town.
According to his sister, it was this observation of his mother's difficult working conditions that resulted in Biko's earliest politicisation. Biko's given name "Bantu" means "people"; as a child he was nicknamed "Goofy" and "Xwaku-Xwaku", the latter a reference to his unkempt appearance. He was raised in his family's Anglican Christian faith. In 1950, when Biko was four, his father fell ill, was hospitalised in St. Matthew's Hospital and died, making the family dependent on his mother's income. Biko spent two years at St. Andrews Primary School and four at Charles Morgan Higher Primary School, both in Ginsberg. Regarded as a intelligent pupil, he was allowed to skip a year. In 1963 he transferred to the Forbes Grant Secondary School in the township. Biko topped the class in his exams. In 1964 the Ginsberg community offered him a bursary to join his brother Khaya as a student at Lovedale, a prestigious boarding school in Alice, Eastern Cape. Within three months of Steve's arrival, Khaya was accused of having connections to Poqo, the armed wing of the Pan Africanist Congress, an African nationalist group which the government had banned.
Both Khaya and Steve were interrogated by the police.
P. W. Botha
Pieter Willem Botha known as "P. W." and Die Groot Krokodil, was the leader of South Africa from 1978 to 1989, serving as the last Prime Minister from 1978 to 1984 and the first executive State President from 1984 to 1989. First elected to Parliament in 1948, Botha was an outspoken opponent of majority rule and international communism. However, his administration did make concessions towards political reform, whereas internal unrest saw widespread human rights abuses at the hands of the government. Botha resigned as leader of the ruling National Party in February 1989 after suffering a stroke and six months was coerced to leave the presidency. In F. W. de Klerk's 1992 apartheid referendum, Botha campaigned for a No vote and denounced De Klerk's administration as irresponsible for opening the door to black majority rule. In early 1998, when Botha refused to testify at the Mandela government's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, he was supported by the right-wing Conservative Party, which had earlier contested his rule as the official opposition.
For his refusal, he was given a suspended jail sentence for crimes against humanity. The sentence was overturned on appeal. Shortly before his death in late 2006, he renewed his opposition towards egalitarian democracy in favour of a confederate system based upon the principles of "separate development". Pieter Willem Botha was born on a farm in the Paul Roux district of the Orange Free State Province, the son of Afrikaner parents, his father, Pieter Willem Botha Sr. fought as a commando against the British in the Second Boer War. His mother, Hendrina Christina Botha, was interned in a British concentration camp during the war. Botha attended the Paul Roux School and matriculated from Voortrekker Secondary School in Bethlehem, South Africa. In 1934, he entered the Grey University College in Bloemfontein to study law, but left early at the age of twenty in order to pursue a career in politics, he began working for the National Party as a political organiser in the neighbouring Cape Province. In the run-up to World War II, Botha joined the Ossewabrandwag, a right-wing Afrikaner nationalist group, sympathetic to the German Nazi Party.
In 1943, Botha married Anna Elizabeth Rossouw. The couple had three daughters. At age 30, Botha was elected head of the National Party Youth in 1946, two years won a race for the House of Assembly as representative of George in the southern Cape Province in the general election which saw the beginning of the National Party's 46-year tenure in power, his opponent in the 1948 election was JP Marais from the United Party. In 1958 Botha was appointed Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs by Hendrik Verwoerd, in 1961 advanced to Minister of Coloured Affairs, he was appointed Minister for Defence by Verwoerd's successor B. J. Vorster, upon Verwoerd's murder, in 1966. Under his 14 years as its leader, the South African Defence Force reached a zenith, at times consuming 20% of the national budget, compared to 1.3% in 1968, was involved in the South African Border War. When Vorster resigned following allegations of his involvement in the Muldergate Scandal in 1978, Botha was elected as his successor by the National Party caucus, besting the electorate's favourite, 45-year-old Foreign Minister Pik Botha.
In the final internal ballot, he beat the scandal's namesake, in a 78 -- 72 vote. Botha was keen to promote constitutional reform, hoped to implement a form of federal system in South Africa that would allow for greater "self-rule" for black homelands, while still retaining the supremacy of a white central government, foremost expand the rights of Coloureds and Asians in order to widen support for the government. Upon enacting the reforms, he remarked in the House of Assembly. Upon becoming Prime Minister, Botha retained the defence portfolio until October 1980, when he appointed SADF Chief General Magnus Malan, his successor. From his ascension to the cabinet, Botha pursued an ambitious military policy designed to increase South Africa's military capability, he sought to improve relations with the West – the United States – but with mixed results. He argued that the preservation of the apartheid government, though unpopular, was crucial to stemming the tide of African Communism, which had made in-roads into neighbouring Angola and Mozambique after these two former Portuguese colonies obtained independence.
As Prime Minister and State President, his greatest parliamentary opponents were Harry Schwarz and Helen Suzman of the Progressive Federal Party until 1987, when his former cabinet colleague Andries Treurnicht's new Conservative Party became the official opposition on a anti-concessionist agenda. In 1977, as Minister of Defence he began a secret nuclear weapons program, which culminated in the production of six nuclear bombs destroyed only in the early 1990s, he remained steadfast in South Africa's administration of the neighbouring territory South-West Africa while there was a presence of Cuban troops in Angola to the north. Botha was responsible for introducing Koevoet, he was instrumental in building the SADF's strength. Adding momentum to establishing units such as 32 Battalion. South African intervention, with support of the rebel UNITA movement, in the An
Congress of South African Trade Unions
The Congress of South African Trade Unions is a trade union federation in South Africa. It was founded in 1985 and is the largest of the country's three main trade union federations, with 21 affiliated trade unions. On 30 Nov 1985, 33 unions met at the University of Natal for talks on forming a federation of trade unions; this followed four years of unity talks between competing unions and federations that were opposed to apartheid and were "committed to a non-racial, non-sexist and democratic South Africa." COSATU was established on 1 December 1985. Among the founding unions was the Federation of South African Trade Unions. Elijah Barayi was Jay Naidoo the first general secretary. Several resolutions were passed at this first meeting that defined the aim of the federation and how the federation operates, namely: To establish one union for each industry within six months. To focus on the exploitation of women workers. To call for the lifting of the state of emergency, withdrawal of troops from the townships and release of all political prisoners.
To continue the call for international pressure, including disinvestment. To demand for the right to strike and picket. To determine a national minimum wage. To extend the struggle for trade union rights in the homelands; the COSATU congress decided in 2012 to affiliate with the class-struggle oriented World Federation of Trade Unions, while maintaining its membership within the International Trade Union Confederation. During the 2016 congress, held in Durban, Michael Mzwandile Makwayiba, president of COSATU affiliate NEHAWU Michael Mzwandile Makwayiba was elected President of the World Federation of Trade Unions. On 5–6 May 1987 a strike as part of COSATU's Living Wage Campaign was held coinciding with 1987 General Election. More than 2.5 million workers took part in the stay-away. On 7 May 1987, in the early hours of the morning two bombs exploded near the support columns in the basement of the federation headquarters, COSATU House; the resulting damage caused the building to be declared unsafe.
At the second national congress held from 14–18 July 1987, the Freedom Charter was adopted by the federation after the resolution was proposed by the National Union of MineworkersAt the third congress held from 12–16 July 1989, a resolution was adopted that called on the members of COSATU to "join a campaign of sustained action against apartheid" in the week leading up to the 1989 General Election of South Africa. On 26 July 1989, COSATU, the United Democratic Front and the Mass Democratic Movement, instigated the National Defiance Campaign, in which facilities reserved for whites were invaded, organisation, banned by the state declared themselves ‘unbanned’; the following unions are listed by COSATU as their affiliate unions: Chemical, Paper, Printing and Allied Workers' Union Creative Workers Union of South Africa National Education and Allied Workers' Union National Union of Mineworkers Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union South African Commercial and Allied Workers Union Southern African Clothing and Textile Workers Union South African Democratic Nurses' Union South African Democratic Teachers Union South African Medical Association South African Municipal Workers' Union SASBO – The Finance Union South African Security Forces Union South African Transport and Allied Workers Union (South African Emergency Medical Services Union The following affiliated unions have suspended their participation in COSATU due to the expulsion of the National union of Metalworkers of South Africa.
Food and Allied Workers Union South African State and Allied Workers' Union South African Football Players Union The following union has been expelled by COSATU. National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa On 8 November 2014, Irvin Jim, the general secretary of the largest COSATU affiliate, the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa, announced that the union had been expelled from the COSATU after a vote at a special central executive committee had been convened resulting in a 33-24 vote in favour of the expulsion. NUMSA was charged with violating the constitution of COSATUOn 6 November 2014, an urgent legal application by NUMSA to prevent the special central executive committee from being convened was postponed by South Gauteng High Court, thus allowing the meeting to take place. On 10 November 2014, 7 unions announced they were voluntarily suspending their participation in COSATU's decision making bodies due to the expulsion of NUMSA and called for a special national congress to be convened.
Irvin Jim described the expulsion as "a dark day for workers". COSATU is part of an alliance with the ANC and the South African Communist Party, called the Tripartite Alliance. COSATU's role in the alliance has been the subject of debate, since the organisation has been critical of some of the ANC government's policies. While some affiliates have argued for greater independence from the ruling political party, others have argued that the arrangement gives COSATU a political influence beneficial to its members. COSATU's former secretary general, Zwelinzima Vavi, has described Jacob Zuma's government as a "predator society." South Africa has one of the largest incidence of HIV/AIDS in the world, with a 2005 estimate of 5.5 million people living with HIV — 12.4% of the population. The trade union movement has taken a role in combating this pandemic. COSATU is a key partner in the Treatment Action Campaign, a registered charity and political force working to
Apartheid
Apartheid was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa from 1948 until the early 1990s. Apartheid was characterised by an authoritarian political culture based on baasskap, which encouraged state repression of Black African and Asian South Africans for the benefit of the nation's minority white population; the economic legacy and social effects of apartheid continue to the present day. Broadly speaking, apartheid was delineated into petty apartheid, which entailed the segregation of public facilities and social events, grand apartheid, which dictated housing and employment opportunities by race. Prior to the 1940s, some aspects of apartheid had emerged in the form of minority rule by White South Africans and the enforced separation of Black South Africans from other races, which extended to pass laws and land apportionment. Apartheid was adopted as a formal policy by the South African government after the election of the National Party at the 1948 general election.
A codified system of racial stratification began to take form in South Africa under the Dutch Empire in the late-eighteenth century, although informal segregation was present much earlier due to social cleavages between Dutch colonists and a creolised, ethnically diverse slave population. With the rapid growth and industrialisation of the British Cape Colony in the nineteenth century, racial policies and laws became rigid. Cape legislation that discriminated against Black South Africans began appearing shortly before 1900; the policies of the Boer republics were racially exclusive. The first apartheid law was the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act, 1949, followed by the Immorality Amendment Act of 1950, which made it illegal for most South African citizens to marry or pursue sexual relationships across racial lines; the Population Registration Act, 1950 classified all South Africans into one of four racial groups based on appearance, known ancestry, socioeconomic status, cultural lifestyle: "Black", "White", "Coloured", "Indian", the last two of which included several sub-classifications.
Places of residence were determined by racial classification. From 1960–1983, 3.5 million Non-White South Africans were removed from their homes and forced into segregated neighbourhoods, in one of the largest mass evictions in modern history. Most of these targeted removals were intended to restrict the Black population to ten designated "tribal homelands" known as bantustans, four of which became nominally independent states; the government announced that relocated persons would lose their South African citizenship as they were absorbed into the bantustans. Apartheid sparked significant international and domestic opposition, resulting in some of the most influential global social movements of the twentieth century, it was the target of frequent condemnation in the United Nations and brought about an extensive arms and trade embargo on South Africa. During the 1970s and 1980s, internal resistance to apartheid became militant, prompting brutal crackdowns by the National Party government and protracted sectarian violence that left thousands dead or in detention.
Some reforms of the apartheid system were undertaken, including allowing for Indian and Coloured political representation in parliament, but these measures failed to appease most activist groups. Between 1987 and 1993, the National Party entered into bilateral negotiations with the African National Congress, the leading anti-apartheid political movement, for ending segregation and introducing majority rule. In 1990, prominent ANC figures such as Nelson Mandela were released from prison. Apartheid legislation was repealed on 17 June 1991, pending democratic, multiracial elections set for April 1994. Apartheid is an Afrikaans word meaning "separateness", or "the state of being apart" "apart-hood", its first recorded use was in 1929. Under the 1806 Cape Articles of Capitulation the new British colonial rulers were required to respect previous legislation enacted under Roman Dutch law and this led to a separation of the law in South Africa from English Common Law and a high degree of legislative autonomy.
The governors and assemblies that governed the legal process in the various colonies of South Africa were launched on a different and independent legislative path from the rest of the British Empire. In the days of slavery, slaves required passes to travel away from their masters. In 1797 the Landdrost and Heemraden of Swellendam and Graaff-Reinet extended pass laws beyond slaves and ordained that all Khoikhoi moving about the country for any purpose should carry passes; this was confirmed by the British Colonial government in 1809 by the Hottentot Proclamation, which decreed that if a Khoikhoi were to move they would need a pass from their master or a local official. Ordinance No. 49 of 1828 decreed that prospective black immigrants were to be granted passes for the sole purpose of seeking work. These passes were to be issued for Coloureds and Khoikhoi, but not for other Africans, who were still forced to carry passes; the United Kingdom's Slavery Abolition Act 1833 abolished slavery throughout the British Empire and overrode the Cape Articles of Capitulation.
To comply with the act the South African legislation was expanded to include Ordinance 1 in 1835, which changed the status of slaves to indentured labourers. This was followed by Ordinance 3 in 1848, which introduced an indenture system for Xhosa, little different from slave
South African Defence Force
The South African Defence Force comprised the South African armed forces from 1957 until 1994. Shortly before the state reconstituted itself as a republic in 1961, the former Union Defence Force was succeeded by the SADF, established by the Defence Act of 1957; the SADF, in turn, was superseded by the South African National Defence Force in 1994. The SADF was organised to perform a dual mission: to counter possible insurgency in all forms, to maintain a conventional military arm which could defend the republic's borders, making retaliatory strikes as necessary; as the military expanded during the 1970s, the SADF general staff was organised into six sections—finance, logistics, operations and planning. The military was composed of white South Africans, who alone were subject to conscription; however and Coloured citizens with mixed ancestry were eligible to serve as volunteers, several attaining commissioned rank. From 1971 onwards several Black battalions were raised in the Infantry and Service Corps on a tribal basis, most Black soldiers served in these exclusive tribal Battalions, which had Black NCOs but White commissioned officers.
The first Black personnel were accepted into commissioned ranks only from 1986, only for serving Black soldiers and NCOs. The regular Commission would not be open for Bantus until 1991, again they would serve only in Black units or Support/Service Support units, to avoid having position of authority over White combat arms personnel; the first Black officer to be promoted to Lieutenant Colonel rank and have command over a Battalion sized unit was only appointed in February 1994, by which time the old SADF was on its deathbed. However, Black officer candidates from the various Homeland Forces and from South West Africa/SWATF had been accepted since 1981 Units such as the 32 Battalion incorporated many black volunteers from Angola. Conscription was opposed by organisations such as the End Conscription Campaign, but overall, white morale remained high—as indicated by the few recruits tried for serious disciplinary offences. During apartheid, armed SADF troops were used in quelling opposition to minority rule directly supporting the South African Police.
South African military units were involved in the long-running Mozambican and Angolan civil wars supporting Pretoria's allies, the Mozambican National Resistance and the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola. SADF personnel were deployed during the related South African Border War. Before 1957, the Union of South Africa had relied on small standing cadres for defence, expanding during wartime through the use of white conscripts. During the Second World War the Union Defence Force fielded only 3,353 full-time soldiers, with another 14,631 active in reserve roles; these troops were not prepared to fight in Europe proper, as they had hitherto been trained only in basic light infantry tactics and bush warfare. However, Jan Christiaan Smuts proved remarkably resourceful in raising 345,049 men for overseas operations. After 1957, the new South African Defence Force was faced with a post-war upsurge in African nationalism, forced to expand its resources accordingly. In 1963 its total strength stood at around 25,000 men.
By 1977, the United Nations was imposing arms sanctions on the republic due to its controversial policy of racial apartheid. South Africa responded by developing a powerful domestic arms industry, capable of producing quality hardware, including jet fighters, guided missiles, armoured cars, multiple rocket launchers, small arms. SADF units fought in the Angolan Civil War during Operation Savannah and were active alongside Rhodesian Security Forces during the Rhodesian Bush War. Although both campaigns were strategically unsuccessful, it was proven that South Africa's military was immeasurably superior in strength and sophistication than all her African neighbours combined. Further enlargement and modernisation of the armed forces continued under former defence minister Pieter Willem Botha, who became state president in 1984. Shortly after Botha took office, the SADF numbered some 83,400 men: one armoured brigade, one mechanised infantry brigade, four motorised brigades, one parachute brigade, a special reconnaissance regiment, twenty artillery regiments, supporting specialist units, a balanced air force, a navy adequate for coastal protection in all.
In addition, numerous auxiliary formations were trained as support units capable of occupying strategic border areas, including the predominantly Angolan 32 Battalion, Namibia's South West African Territorial Force, several Bantustan militias. During Botha's term, the SADF began focusing on taking a more aggressive stance to the ongoing war against communist-supported nationalist guerrillas in South Africa and Namibia and targeting neighboring countries that offered them support; this was justified as a new structure intended to turn back a "total onslaught" on the republic from abroad. The post-colonial rise of newly independent black governments on the apartheid administration's doorstep created a perceived menace to the existing structure, Pretoria's occupation of Namibia threatened to bring it into direct confrontation with the world community. On the ground, militant guerrilla movements such as the African National Congress, South West African People's Organisation and the Pan Africanist Congress of
