An analysis of guerilla attacks in South Africa this year reveals that the vast majority have been directed at police and military personnel. Shootouts between combatants and the police in urban areas have become more frequent, and patrols in townships have on many occasions come under fire.
Of 71 incidents surveyed in the press in the first half of the year, 19 incidents – about a quarter – were guerilla attacks on police and military targets, often on personnel rather than installations as in the past. A further 14 incidents involved shootouts between combatants and the police or army.
Of the other incidents, 12 were sabotage attacks on strategic installations, government buildings or the transport network, and 12 were aimed at commercial targets such as factories or shops. There were 7 incidents in which individuals responsible for apartheid administration were attacked. The remaining actions consisted of landmine incidents, attacks on farms in militarised areas, and actions which could not be categorised. Attacks on police and military personnel have continued since June, including the bombing of a Johannesburg military headquarters and a military residence in Cape Town.
Most of the attacks were ascribed by the regime to Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), the armed wing of the ANC, and a few were claimed by the Azanian People's Liberation Army (APLA), attached to the Pan-Africanist Congress. The ANC no longer publicly acknowledges all the operations carried out by its guerillas, but has stated its responsibility for some of the major attacks.
According to the ANC, a large percentage of guerilla actions are not reported in the press, especially those involving the death of police or army personnel. Following a double car bomb attack outside the Johannesburg Magistrates' Court in May, which killed four policemen, the movement stated that another 12 policemen had been killed by MK units operating in Soweto and six soldiers had been killed in the town of Ventrersdorp. Only one of these deaths had been reported in the press. Under the State of Emergency regulations and other legislation, police can prevent the release of information on armed actions.
Guerilla actions have escalated rapidly since 1984, when a total of 44 incidents was recorded. According to the Institute of Strategic Studies at the University of Pretoria, there were 136 incidents in 1985 and at least 228 in 1986. In March this year Brigadier Stadler of the Security Police stated that guerilla actions had tripled since 1976.
The nature of the armed struggle has changed. The emphasis on attacks on strategic targets has shifted to the deliberate targeting of military, police and administrative personnel. Furthermore, the ANC has sought to expand the armed struggle by linking resistance structures in black areas with MK units and by training guerillas inside the country.
It is now difficult from press reports to distinguish between MK operations and actions carried out by semi-formal combat groups using petrol bombs, stones, knives or homemade weapons. These actions arise when communities organise to defend themselves from attack by police, army or vigilante groups intent on destroying the incipient structures of people's power. For this reason, the quantification of armed incidents is difficult, and the figures used above refer only to incidents in which military equipment was used.
The defence of communities from police and troops has been a feature of guerilla actions over the past 18 months. There have been reports this year of police being shot or attacked with grenades – often by relatively large groups of people – in the townships and squatter camps around Cape Town and in the Witwatersrand area and Sharpeville. Most commonly, police foot patrols have been attacked by groups of residents, some or all of whom have been armed. On one occasion, a police barracks at Osizweni near Newcastle in northern Natal was attacked, while 64 police were wounded and one killed when a grenade was thrown onto a parade ground in Soweto.
Shootouts between police and guerillas have also occurred in townships, usually arising when police have surrounded houses in which guerillas have been staying. On at least six occasions during the first half of this year trapped guerillas refused to surrender, fighting back and killing or wounding policemen. In two incidents the police resorted to driving armoured vehicles into the houses.
Guerillas have also taken action in support of community and workers' struggles, fighting off police attempting to evict people for participating in rent boycotts and reinforcing stay-at-home protests by sabotaging rail lines. In the course of a strike by OK Bazaars supermarket workers last year and early in 1987, limpet mines and bombs were planted at company facilities.
During the strike by SA Transport Services (SAT'S) workers which paralysed much of the rail system, trains, stations and railway lines were sabotaged. These actions were carried out both by guerillas using equipment such as limpet mines and by workers armed with petrol bombs and homemade weapons.
As well as carrying out urban operations, guerillas have been active in the countryside. In the Transkei bantustan in particular, quite large groups of guerillas appear to be active. In June the bantustan administration gave information on several guerilla incidents and indicated that combatants in remote areas were using trading stores as bases. In Natal, a unit of nine guerillas was involved in a shootout with police in the Umbumbulu area of the South Coast in April.
White farmers in rural areas have also been attacked and since the end of 1985 landmines have been planted in militarised rural areas, particularly near border patrol roads. The ANC stated that it had decided to attack farmers because they have been armed and mobilised into Commando units to act as the regime's 'first line of defence'.
Many of these developments in the armed struggle reflect the adoption by the ANC of a strategy it terms 'people's war'.
In January this year President Tambo called for a 'mass military offensive' which would disperse and reduce the enemy forces and undermine the material base through which the apartheid regime maintained itself in power. He also stated that the armed struggle should not be contained in black residential areas, but that apartheid forces needed to be engaged everywhere in the country. The call was raised to 'take the war to the enemy'.
In later interviews, ANC leaders explained more precisely what it envisaged by a 'people's war'. Trained MK fighters would act as a vanguard or nucleus of a wider armed force which would develop out of democratic political structures established inside the country. The 'organisations of people's power' – street and area committees – as well as youth and other organisations would establish 'mass combat units' which, in conjunction with MK units, would carry out both defensive and attacking actions.
Trials of alleged MK combatants increasingly reveal the recruitment and training of people inside South Africa. Trained guerillas, often people who were themselves involved in community, student or youth groups, recruit local residents, train them and arm them from the extensive network of arms caches which appears to have been established throughout the country. In a number of trials the state has alleged that local organisations such as youth congresses have been assisting guerillas and providing recruits.
Growing support for the armed struggle has been manifested in a number of ways in South Africa. It is most concretely seen at the funerals of MK combatants killed in action, where thousands have turned out despite police attempts to enforce restrictions limiting the number of mourners, preventing the use of ANC flags and banning speeches.
Recognition of the right to armed struggle was made clear at a meeting in Lusaka in May organised by the World Conference of Churches. More than 100 representatives of churches in South Africa and internationally issued a statement declaring: 'We affirm the unquestionable right of the people of Namibia and South Africa to secure justice and peace through the liberation movements. While remaining committed to peaceful change we recognise that the nature of the South African regime, which wages war against its own inhabitants and neighbours, compels the movements to the use of force along with other means to end oppression.'
Similarly, a meeting held between 61 mainly Afrikaans-speaking South Africans and the ANC in Senegal in July concluded: 'the source of violence in South Africa derives from the fact that the use of force is fundamental to the existence and practice of racial domination'. Further, the Afrikaners stated that they 'accepted the historical reality of the armed struggle ... although not all could support it'.
The regime's response to the spread of the armed struggle has been increasingly ruthless repression. An MK combatant, Robert McBride, is amongst the 32 South Africans currently facing execution and another MK member, Andrew Zondo, was hanged in September last year. The accused in many MK trials of guerillas have been brutally tortured by the police. There is also a growing number of incidents in which suspected guerillas have been shot after being captured. The events surrounding the death of MK combatant Ashley Kriel earlier this year and the deaths of seven alleged MK members in March last year provide further examples.
