Soldiers in a Storm: The Armed Forces in South Africa's Democratic Transition

266 Pages·2000·26.21 MB·English

by  Philip Frankel

Soldiers in a Storm
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diers in a Storm
The Armed Forces in South Africa's
Democratic Tvansition
-- A Member of tl~eP crseus Rooks Group
%
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Frankel, Philip H.
Suldiers in a storm : the armed forces in South Africa" dernncratic transiticm / Philip
Frankel.
p. a.
Includes bibligraphieal references and index.
lSBN Cl-82 33-3747-X
1, Pratsidents-Soutln Africa-Transition pexliods, 2. Sotltk Africa-Politics and govern-
ment-1989-1994e 3, Soutln Africa-Ijolitics and government-1994- . 4. Soudn Africa-
Anned Ft3rces-Political activity. 5. Guerrillas-%uth Africa-Pccllilical activity. E. Title.
The paper used in this publication meets the reqrrirernenb of the American National Stan-
dard for Permanence sf Paper for Printed Library Materials Z39.48-19M.
FBB
QN DEMAND
Contents
Preface vii
List of Acrtlnyms XV
1 Negotiation: Forging the Military Fact
Prelude: Talks about Talks, 1991---1993,1
Round One: Admiralty House, Blenny, and
the First Bilaterals, 6
Scrorhg Fohts: Mid-19%' 14
Fo~ingC onsensus: The Run-up to Elections, 20
Transitional Arrangements: The SCD and JMCC, 30
Concllusio~4~0,
Notes, 42
2 Caesarim Setion: The Birth of the South African
National Defence Force
Soft 9tions: The TBVCs, 49
Hards Cases: The Liberation Armies, 56
A Balmce Sheet: Has Integration Worked? 84
Notes, 96
3 Smoke md Mirrms: Transforming the Armed Furces
Institutional &engineering: The Agenda, 102
Bureaucratic Control: DOD, MOD#a nd
the Defence Secretariat, 104
Parliamentary Oversi.ght: The JPSCU, 117
Constitutional Prescription: Human Rights and
Military Law 125
The Politics sl Gender, 128
Reaccultusatian: Toward a new
Civil-Military blationship? 135
Notes, 142
4 Guns and Butter: Social Reconstruction and Rearmarnmt 147
Out of Pocket: The Dcfense Budget, 148
Internal Deployment: The Service Corps and
Collateral Utility, 155
External Deployment: The Dilemmas of Peacekeeping, 164
Bloc Obsolescence and I-Ceamament, 179
Notes, I89
Epilogue: Beyond the Millennium
Preface
Agartheid has been one of the grcat moral issues of our tirne. In fitting
tribute, its passirrg has encouraged an explosion of literature seeking to
explain why South Afsica escaped the blod and civil war long deemed
predictable and deserving for what arguably ranks as one of the most
consciously vicious social syskms of the twentiet-h cent-ury*
Some writings, cobbled together in explaining South Africa" suex-
pected negotiated revolution, have sought refuge in the extensive general
literature on international trends toward democratization in the last
decades of this era. A second category, linked to trheories that emphasize
the strategic role of elites in the movement horn authoritarhnism to
democracy have zeroed in on South Africa's leadership, particulafly Nel-
son Mandela, to explain why apartheid a~roidedr acial G6tterdgm-
merung and, like its commnist counterpart, imploded with a whirnpes.
Still others have focused on such diverse variabtes as the peculiarities
and increasing contradictions of apatheid as an instrurnenl:o f repression
in the face of bemic mass mobilization in the black townships, structural
dewebpments in both the domestic a d g bbal political eccmomies, t-he
changing balance of regiond power that progressively tightened the
noose on the apartheid state, or the role of strategic institutions and kter-
est groups at the interface between gove ent and civit society. W-
ston Churchill orlce made the point that the art and sejence of poli,tics is
to predlct the iuture-and then explah why it did not happen, Tl~isc er-
tainly applies to contemporary analysts of South Africa.
In addressing this agenda, seholars and other writers m y w ell derive
valuable insight from the fact that democratizations seldorn succeed
when they arc. opposed by the military forces of authoritarian regimes
and that their success rate is improved imrncaszxrably shod$ the rnilitacy
assist or otherwise display forms of social performance that do not dis-
courage t-he emergence of democratic culbes and stmctures.
Militaries, a substmtial body of universally recog~~izeldit erature em-
phasize, are actually critical among public- and. private-sector hstitu-
tions in determining the irnitiatim of dewcratic transitions-tl-te shape,
asped, and ultimate st~stahabilityo f the democratization process. Given
the enormous polilieal: ixrfluence wielded by the South AErican Defence
. . .
vztt Preface
Force (SADF) under apartheid, particularly near the end, it is not unrea-
sonable to assme that the armed forces were comparably important
players in the local transition. Since postauthoritarian military behavior
is hcreasixrgly regarded as vital to the short- to mdium-term. outcomes
of demcrcratization in other settings, it also seems =asonable to conclude
that the South AJrican trajectory into the twenty-first cerltufy will, in all
likelihood, continue to be influenced by the p~cho1ogi.ean~d . actions
Zlrougbt to the social arena by its soldiers.
Yet s~l"prishglyt,h ere has bee11 no systematic, overall study of the so-
ciopolitlcal role of the maitary since the mid-1980~w~h en the leitmotif-
for myself md other military sc,eitrlogists-was to "prove'" that apartheid
was a full-fledged, il creaky, garrisoll st&e driven by a tuklary military
behind. the masquerade of constrained civilian governance. Since then,
despite extraordinary constitutional deveicrpments that have allowed
South Mrica to escape kom the brink of the apocalypse-of which the
armd forces have been an intrhsic if discrcte part-very little has been
produced to accurately demonstrate the link between military disengage-
mem.t. and the demise of apartheid; the internal recoxlstruetim oE the d-
tary as a facet of a new political dispensation with residual katures of the
dd authoritarim order; md, perhaps most important, the persistent role
of" the "iron surgeons" in shaping public policy to protect corporate
power md autonomy as South Africa moves past its second set of elec-
tions into fie more advanced, consolidative stages of democratization.
Part of this has to do, no doubt, with the sheer pace of local dewlap-
ments, which makes it exceedh~glyd ifficdt to pinpoint, least of all ma-
lyze, instih;ltional aspects of the political landscape. :Nfuch like other writ-
ers who wrestle with bterpreting the complex dynamics of a resurreded
civil society we must make sense of material that shifts and changes al-
most daily Part of the analytic& neglect of the armed forces has to do
with the astou~zdinga chievements of civil society in pacting a political
settlement that the military has seen to be in its corporate interests; but a
conseyucnce has been to move the generals into the shadows from the
cer~ters tage they et~joyedd uring the last years of apartheid,.
Certain hybrid peculiarj.ties of the South Africm experience in democ-
ratization have also made it difficult to locate the local experience within
the universal cmtext. of crjvif-military relations in somwhat less deeply
dividcd yet demcratizing societies, Finally, much like those elsewhere,
the South African military has maintained an apparently conservative re-
serve md opaque appearance, rclsistant to external intrusion, wh,ieh has
discouraged most analysts-some associated with the antiapartheid.
struggle, others with the Truth and f\tecmciliation Co
nal stages at this witing)-from attempting to h& through the bureau-
cratic barriers in probing the veiied. norms and structures of mititar). life.
The fdlowing work is cmstmcted atop several intellectual piSlars, some
obvious, some less so. First, it seeks to feed ftvhik feedkg upon) the glcthal
experience of militaries that have el~terczdc ivilian politics with a mbture of
relish and reluctance, only to exit in the face of popular pressure from
Wi*in their own ranks, political coalitims in civil society, and, in many in-
st..ances, the jntemtimal system. Although som of the co~~cepotf st his
broader civil-military experience are not readily and directly trans-
plantable across the social md kistoric boundaries that distinwish South
.Africa front demncratizing cou,nterparts elsewhere, there is, I believe,
much, that can be rclated to the military dismgagement and civifianization
already existing in tJle bargemint; literaktre eferived from other examples.
Second, the work aims to add to the fairly extensive but uneven body
of writing on the South AfPicm ""miracle," which rclimahs largely inex-
plicable (at least until analysts enjoy the twin 1uxurit.s of historic retro-
spect and nekvly unearthed ma.t.eria,l).T hat being said, the work is con-
sciously iconoclastic in, its focus on a specific network of in.stitutions
located within the state wherein =cent ercperiences mRect the pregnancy
birth pangs, and nervous first steps of an emergent democracy. h1sdar as
it is possible to measure tbe progress of democratic transition, the South
Africa experience is far more complete that that of many Eastern Euro-
pean counbies, where nationalist xenophobia has undercut or neutral-
ized the essential spirit oi democratic pluralism, or Latin Amdcan coun-
tries, where ingrained state militarism lurks behind the ostensible
democratization of governmemtd institu.tions. Vet the popular myths wo-
ven asomd the much-vaunted ""rinbsw nation" hw hich South Afrisms
proudly and not unjustifiably lay claim belie a situation wherc. the so-
ciopditical prerewisi.tes for a stable md enduring dcmocratic culture re-
main to be fully institutionalized behind the formal and procedural
mechmisms set in place by national elections.
Nokvhex are the tramas, difficulties, and cross-cutting agendas in
building democracy more pointed than in the legacy hherited by the
military. 'I'he armed forces are an index to both the past and fubre of the
political system, md should the fledgling experiment fail, distort, or be-
come unsustahable among the guardims of state securit4; it is extremely
unlikely that it call succeed elsewhew in civil society*
The South .hfrican asmed forces did not necessasily steer the timing
md agenda of the trmsition to the extent of other societies where rede-
mocratization fotlowed on the heels of direct military governance. By the
late 1,98C)s,p rofound disquiet existed hvithin the officer corps as to the
long-term sustainability of "totd strategy" as the programmatic founda-
tion of apartheid.
Three distinct yet overlapping and loose factio~e~ms erged in the ensu-
ing debate over the mlationship between the corporate interests of the