CHAPTER 2. KEY STATISTICS – THE COMPARATIVE SCALE OF SA’s CONFLICT 2.1 Tables of comparison. The first table below illustrates the relatively small scale of South Africa’s internal conflict, when compared to other such conflicts of the 20 th century. The casualty figures are actually remarkable low (when compared to the truly terrible popular impression, one almost of genocide, created by years of local and international media hype). Especially when considering that the conflict lasted some three and a half decades – but even more so when taking into account that, of the total number of deaths, three-quarters occurred as a consequence of the black-on-black power struggle over the last five years, from the liberation of future president Nelson Mandela in 1990, to the establishment of the elected non-racial government. RELATIVE SCALE OF 20TH CENTURY IDEOLOGICAL, ETHNIC & IMPERIAL CONFLICTS: ESTIMATED TOTAL CIVILIAN & COMBATANT DEATHS, PLUS AS % OF THAT POPULATION. COUNTRY / IDEOLOGY Communist dictatorships Nazi extermination Jews WW2 Cambodia (Pol Pot) ZAR / OFS 2nd Anglo-Boer War Rwanda (Hutu / Tutsi) Chechnya (Russian Federation) Guatemala (Central America) Bosnia (ex Yugoslavia) Algeria (independence France) Rhodesia / Zimbabwe South Africa (1960 – 1994)
ESTIMATED NUMBER OF DEATHS 60,000,000 – 147,000,000 6,000,000+ 2,400,000 42,000 (incl. 28,000 women / children) 800,000 90,000 200,000 200,000 300,000 60,000 20,500
% of POPULATION ? 68% 33,3% 15% 10% 8,2% 5,3% 5% 3% 0,83% 0,05%
STATISTICAL COMPARISON OF ALL-CAUSE DEATHS IN SAP-SB DETENTION 1960 - 1990: ALL-CAUSE DEATHS IN DETENTION TIME SPAN WHERE AND WHO 50,000 Killed Dirty War: “Plan Condor” Cold War S. America (+30,000 “disappeared”) 11,000 inmates and police detainees 2005 - 2020 State of Texas (total pop = ½ of S.A.) 900 +- admitted to by ANC in its camps 1960 - 1990 ANC cadres died outside S. Africa 672 “Necklace” of opponents of UDF 1984 - 1987 Burned alive extra-judicially S. Africa 474 Aboriginal deaths in detention 1960 - 1990 Australia 214 Deaths in police detention 2019 only South Africa, custody of new SAPS 800 Black policemen assassinated 1990 - 1994 South Africa, mostly by ANC/UDF 67 all causes, in SAP-SB detention 1960 - 1990 South Africa (NB: See also PART TWO, which lists all ANC-MK violent acts in South Africa, 1960 – 1994) 2.2 The demographic and geographic impact of the conflict (as per ICRC data) The limited demographic impact of the internal political power struggle (i.e., what percentage of the different population groups actively took part in, or even took sides) as well as the restricted geographic distribution of the civil unrest, are both important further indicators of the relatively limited scale of South Africa’s internal conflict. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) undertook a detailed investigation, after the conflict. This important study, titled: Country Report South Africa (1999), provides significant data that helps one to better understand the nature of the 23 Nongqai Vol 12 No 12B : SAP-SB / ANC-MK
