Quick questions on End of apartheid in South Africa 1948-1994: VCE Modern History Unit 4

The National Party under D. F. Malan won the 26 May 1948 South African general election on the slogan "apartheid" (separateness), defeating Jan Smuts's United Party. The NP base was rural Afrikaners and the Broederbond network.

The African National Congress (founded 8 January 1912) launched the Defiance Campaign of Unjust Laws on 26 June 1952 in alliance with the South African Indian Congress. Around 8,000 volunteers, including Nelson Mandela (campaign volunteer-in-chief), deliberately broke apartheid laws. The campaign ended in 1953 after government violence and crackdowns; ANC membership had grown from around 7,000 to around 100,000.

The Pan Africanist Congress (PAC), founded by Robert Sobukwe in April 1959 as an Africanist split from the ANC, planned a national anti-pass-law campaign for 21 March 1960. At Sharpeville township, around 5,000 protesters gathered at the police station. Police opened fire, killing 69 and wounding around 180, many shot in the back.

Mandela was arrested on 5 August 1962 and sentenced to five years on incitement and travel charges. The MK underground headquarters at Liliesleaf Farm in Rivonia was raided on 11 July 1963. Walter Sisulu, Govan Mbeki, Ahmed Kathrada and others were arrested.

The Black Consciousness Movement, led by Steve Biko (Students' African Students Organisation, 1968; Black People's Convention, 1972), built a new generation of Black political organisation outside ANC and PAC structures.

The 1983 Constitution introduced a tricameral parliament (Whites, Coloureds, Indians) but excluded Black South Africans completely. The United Democratic Front (UDF), launched on 20 August 1983, was a coalition of around 600 community, church, student, women's and trade union organisations that opposed the new constitution and coordinated mass resistance.

The Anti-Apartheid Movement had campaigned for international sanctions since the 1960s. Major escalations came in the mid-1980s.

Cuban troops fought the South African Defence Force in southern Angola through the 1980s (Battle of Cuito Cuanavale, December 1987 to March 1988). The New York Accords (22 December 1988) ended the war, withdrew Cuban troops from Angola, and provided for Namibian independence (which came on 21 March 1990).

Negotiations were difficult. The Inkatha Freedom Party under Mangosuthu Buthelezi, partly armed by the apartheid security forces, fought the ANC in KwaZulu-Natal and the Witwatersrand; around 14,000 people died in this violence between 1990 and 1994. The Boipatong Massacre (17 June 1992, 45 dead) and the Bisho Massacre (7 September 1992, 28 dead) threatened to derail talks.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), chaired by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, was established by the Promotion of National Unity and Reconciliation Act (19 July 1995). It opened hearings in April 1996. The TRC offered amnesty in exchange for full disclosure of politically motivated crimes; it heard around 21,000 victim statements and around 7,000 amnesty applications. The Final Report (29 October 1998, supplemented 21 March 2003) documented apartheid-era abuses by the state, the ANC, Inkatha and others.

Saul Dubow (Apartheid 1948 to 1994, 2014) is the standard recent academic history of the apartheid period and its end.

P. W. Botha's "Rubicon" speech on 15 August 1985 promised reform but offered no specifics.

The US Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act passed over Reagan's veto on 2 October 1986 banned new US investment, loans and air links. The Commonwealth (excluding the UK), the EEC and Australia imposed parallel sanctions. Sports boycotts and cultural boycotts had been growing since the 1960s (the Springboks were excluded from rugby tours; the Special AKA's "Free Nelson Mandela," 1984, became an anthem).

Racial segregation existed long before 1948 (the Glen Grey Act 1894, the Mines and Works Act 1911, the Natives Land Act 1913 reserving 87 per cent of land for whites). The National Party systematised and intensified segregation as apartheid.

The National Party used "anti-communism" to justify apartheid and the Cold War shielded South Africa diplomatically. The end of the Cold War removed both the rhetoric and the shield.