NCJ Number
192108
Journal
Terrorism and Political Violence Volume: 13 Issue: 2 Dated: Summer 2001 Pages: 107-142
Date Published
2001
Length
36 pages
Annotation
This article examines the use of assassination as a tool of state policy in South Africa.
Abstract
The first part of this study examined how assassination by states develops as an adjunct of both counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism. In this second part, the author discusses the basis for the systemization of assassination in South Africa, which included the development of a counter-insurgency philosophy by the state followed by the development of a “Total National Strategy” and the means to implement it. Also, the rise of the security forces and the capability they delivered was considered an extremely important aspect of the counter-revolutionary strategy. Finally, the article examines a number of examples of assassinated opponents of the apartheid state. The general reasoning for the use of assassination by the South African state was that order was essential to the maintenance of the Afrikaner nationalist socio-political system, in which class was divided along ethno-nationalistic lines. Opponents of the system were eliminated in order to either remove them from political opposition to that state system, or to kill them as a symbolic example of the fate of opponents of the state system, or to kill them in retribution for the actions of the opponents of that state system. Overall, the assassination policy aimed at the opponents of apartheid did not succeed in putting the ANC (African National Congress)/SACP (South African Communist Party) alliance off its course, nor in preserving the apartheid state. In terms of its usefulness as an adjunct of counter-revolutionary warfare, it was more successful in convincing the ANC/SACP that moving into the final phase of revolutionary war (open and direct military confrontation against the state) was unfeasible. The fact that the white South African power structure was able to target individual leaders successfully within the liberation movements accounted for some of this belief. In the end, both assassination and counter-revolutionary warfare were for the same purpose, and individuals were killed in that name: the maintenance of white minority rule in South Africa during a process of controlled reform. When this understanding is combined with the purposes for which assassination is employed, a complete understanding of the basis for assassination as a tool of the South African state can be achieved. 1 figure, 93 notes