support came from Moscow. It had gained general international standing by both its discipline and its realism. Its military wing,
Other opposition organizations-from which many defected to join the more powerful and effective ANC — included the South African Youth Revolutionary Council, which had a strong base in Botswana; the Black Consciousness Movement of Azania; and the Azania People's Organization, which had been particularly successful in controlling some of the new black trade unions and disrupting work at a number of international industrial concerns. The ANC were quick to applaud such activities. It regarded trade union action as a crucial force in the struggle for liberation, not least because it was able to engage in this struggle within the law.
Also within the law was the Inkhata, the largest black organization in South Africa, based in Zululand and headed by Chief Kwazulu. Kwazulu, a direct descendant of the great Zulu warrior King Cetewayo, had always been a controversial figure. Indeed to be denounced by Pretoria and the ANC yet remain on constructive speaking terms with both put him firmly in the centre of South African politics. However dangerous this ground might be, it did offer some hope of compromise in adjusting South Africa's constitution so that it corresponded more closely to the racial balance within the country.
Just as moderation and compromise had for the moment won the day in Namibia in the face of opposing extremes, so a comparable course was charted for non-violent change in South Africa itself. Kwazulu's proposals for power-sharing were in essence that the white-administered state of Natal and the neighbouring black homeland of the Zulus should be merged. Although the ANC had not hesitated in 1977 to condemn Kwazulu's acceptance of limited self-government, they found his new proposals more difficult to reject. Indeed they recognized that while urban black support for the ANC was still far greater than for Inkhata, an increasing number of ANC militants were joining Inkhata because, in their own words, 'It was the legitimate offspring of the ANC. Implementing Kwazulu's proposals for Natal, with their emphasis on
However reasonable Kwazulu's proposals might be and however much the ANC might be prepared to wait and see, no progress towards reform was possible except by the ruling National Party itself. But in the elections of the early 1980s, the National Party had not received a mandate for reform. Indeed, the far more extreme Herstigte National Party had gained support although it had won no seats in parliament. Yet within the country there was a growing body of liberal support for a programme of gradual reform. It was because of this, together with South African undertakings to open a 'new chapter' of relations with the United States (which would bring great economic benefits to South Africa), that the Prime Minister determined to embark on a programme of reform in 1983. There were other reasons for not leaving it any later. He wished to exploit what goodwill might be forthcoming from the valuable progress that had been made over Namibia. He was also conscious that by the end of the century the white South African population could not possibly provide all the skilled workers that would be needed. Above all, the Prime. Minister wished to avoid conflict.
He reconciled himself to the creation of a black middle class by training and education to fill higher posts in industry and government, to decentralized regional development to enhance the prosperity of the homelands, and to granting more political representation to non-whites in order to start a process of co-operation and consultation that would at length lead to responsible power-sharing. In this mood, he was at least prepared to consider what Chief Kwazulu had to propose. It was unfortunate that the Prime Minister's programme of
Their unwillingness to forgo an advantage put back a solution to the injustices of apartheid many years, and the solution when it came was accompanied by violence.
Violence was no stranger to the African scene, as we shall see if we examine what was happening elsewhere during the early 1980s. Much of this violence had occurred because Libya had attempted to set up a Saharan hegemony to incorporate Chad, Niger and the Sudan, and even to link up with Ethiopia, so that Egypt could be encircled and isolated. Fortunately for Libya, and indeed for that part of Africa as a whole, things did not develop exactly as the Libyan leadership had planned. In the first years of the 1980s, however, if revolutionary zeal, large oil revenues, weak, irresolute or distracted neighbours and unlimited arms supplies from the Soviet Union could be said to be the right ingredients for indulging insatiable ambition, Libya was clearly on to a good thing. Chad had an army of three infantry battalions and a few guns and mortars; Niger had an even smaller army, but was still rich in uranium; Sudan, it was true, had respectably sized armed forces, but many of them were deployed in the troublesome southern areas of the country and to the east near the border with Ethiopia, both to maintain security there and to keep an eye on Eritrean guerrillas. In any event, Sudan's 250 tanks and forty combat aircraft looked puny enough compared with Libya's estimated strength of 3,000 tanks and over 400 MiGs and
Libya had soon recovered from the temporary setback in Chad at the beginning of 1982 when the OAU peacekeeping force had replaced its own troops there. The Libyan regime persuaded those who controlled the principal Arab tribes in Chad to form an uneasy alliance with the leader of the main rebel forces in the eastern provinces near the Sudanese frontier. Thus with two of the three private armies on its side, Libya was still able to deploy some of its own troops at Abeche and continue to harass the Sudanese, all with a view to subverting the rule of Sudan's President. This subversion was directed not only from Chad but also from Ethiopia. To the west of Chad, Libya's sponsorship of the Tuaregs had resulted in continued fighting between its so-called Islam legions and Niger's small army.
All these manoeuvrings, designed to isolate Egypt and create Libyan hegemony over the Sahara, were brought to an end in 1983 as a result of action against Libya by Egypt itself which removed the Libyan military regime once and for all. The effect of its fall was generally beneficial. Libyan troops, who had not relished the experience or the prospect of being hideously and agonizingly mutilated by the savage tribesmen of Niger and Chad, were allowed to return home to the far more agreeable duties of garrisoning their own country. The Sudan-Chad border quarrels were patched up and the border itself policed by OAU patrols. Niger settled down under its military ruler, looking to Algeria and France for further assistance both with its security and its economy — indeed Libya's interference there had facilitated some degree of rapprochement between these two countries. Sudan was able to concentrate more on its internal difficulties in the south, while keeping an eye on the activities of Ethiopia and further cementing good relations with Egypt. Somalia's position was strengthened, while the Egyptian-Libyan axis, as we have seen in the last chapter, helped to give great impetus to growing Arab unity and a peaceful settlement in Palestine.
The great game between the superpowers of reassuring both their friends and themselves that they could be relied upon in times of danger or tension was still much in evidence in Africa during 1983. The continuing exercises by the US Rapid Deployment Force were of some comfort to Somalia and Sudan and were answered by comparable Soviet manoeuvres in South Yemen and Ethiopia. Much more serious was the Soviet build-up of arms and advisers in Mozambique, Botswana and Angola; indeed support for the latter was so extensive that some of it was clearly destined for Namibia. By 1984 there were some 10,00 °Cubans in Mozambique together with increased numbers of
