CHAPTER 2: KEY STATISTICS (the comparative scale of SA’s internal conflict

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 20th 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 ESTIMATED NUMBER OF DEATHS % of POPULATION Communist dictatorships 60,000,000 – 147,000,000 ? Nazi extermination Jews WW2 6,000,000+ 68% Cambodia (Pol Pot) 2,400,000 33,3% ZAR / OFS 2nd Anglo-Boer War 42,000 (incl. 28,000 women / children) 15% Rwanda (Hutu / Tutsi) 800,000 10% Chechnya (Russian Federation) 90,000 8,2% Guatemala (Central America) 200,000 5,3% Bosnia (ex Yugoslavia) 200,000 5% Algeria (independence France) 300,000 3% Rhodesia / Zimbabwe 60,000 0,83% South Africa (1960 – 1994) 20,500 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

This ICRC study shows that only 34% of the black population had actually even in their minds taken one or other side in the conflict between the white government and the liberation movements. Furthermore, only 3% of blacks had regarded themselves as having been actively involved as actual “combatants” in what had been portrayed by the ANC as having been a popular “people’s war”. Only 33% of blacks reported living near to an area where conflict had actually occurred (with even that level only being reached during the latter, black-on-black phase of the struggle for political power).

The ICRC investigation also shows that the civilian population, particularly blacks in conflict areas, experienced a marked increase in violence when the power struggle shifted to black-on-black: “For a large number of the participants in the consultation, the political violence among black South Africans was even more vividly horrifying than the struggle against the white regime. Participants in the consultation, many of whom were active in this later stage of the conflict, recall that this violence often included the shooting of women and children, rape, burning or bulldozing of buildings with civilians inside, and the infamous “necklacings” – placing a tyre around the neck of an opponent, filling it with gasoline (petrol), and setting it on fire. The comments of participants in the focus groups and in-depth interviews suggest that in these and other ways the limits broke down in the township clashes in a way that was both horrifying and bewildering.” The findings of the ICRC correlate well with other surveys done at the time, which for example indicated that nearly four in ten blacks in 1992 said that they placed their trust in then-president FW de Klerk. It is thus evident that, contrary to the impression created in the media, the South African internal conflict was in fact rather limited in scope: in terms of comparative statistics, demographic impact and geographical footprint (which explains in part why – to the surprise of many international observers – a negotiated settlement could be reached among South Africans themselves, without needing to follow the example of the ex-Portuguese colonies, Rhodesia, and Namibia where talks were held outside the respective countries, under foreign auspices, only after bloody guerrilla wars).

2.3 Visual representations of South Africa’s 1960-1994 internal conflict, in graph form.

DEATHS IN SAPS CUSTODY / DUE TO SAPS ACTION, 1997-2004

Credit: David Bruce - Senior Researcher, Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation ICD = Independent Complaints Directorate (set up to investigate complaints against SA Police Service) South African Review of Sociology 2005, 36(2) p. 144

(SAPS figures are rendered here, to enable comparison between pre-1994 and post-1994 data; it shows clearly that deaths in detention are an unfortunate fact of life in practically any society, under any government – a reality which should therefore be kept in mind when judging the SAP-SB).