Huw Lawford - The Mandela Revolution: A British Soldiers Inside View of His Rise to Power

The Mandela Revolution

A British Soldiers Inside View of His Rise To Power

By Huw Lawford

First published in Great Britain in 2021 by

Pen & Sword Military

An imprint of

Pen & Sword Books Ltd

YorkshirePhiladelphia

Copyright Huw Lawford 2021

ISBN 9781 3 9900 9 058

eISBN 9781 3 9900 9 065

The right of Huw Lawford to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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The time comes in the life of any nation when there remain only two choices submit or fight. That time has now come to South Africa. We shall not submit and we have no choice but to hit back by all means in our power in defence of our people, our future, and our freedom. Nelson Mandelas statement from the dock at the opening of the defence case in the Rivonia Trial, Pretoria Supreme Court, 20 April 1964

I am not prepared to lead White South Africans and other minority groups on a road to abdication and suicide. Destroy White South Africa and our influence, and this country will drift into faction strife, chaos and poverty. President P.W. Botha address at the opening of the National Party Natal Congress, Durban, 15 August 1985

O n 27 April 1994, South Africa went to the polls. This was the first general election in which all South Africans were allowed to vote, and the landslide victory for the African National Congress allowed Nelson Mandela to be inaugurated as President on 10 May 1994. The movement for change, although figure-headed by the African National Congress, had many constituent parts. It was a multi-faceted quasi-coalition of political beliefs and races, from the simmering black activists in the townships surrounding Johannesburg and Cape Town to the liberal white crusaders in the leafy suburbs of the cities and in the universities.

This is not the whole story of how the Rainbow Nation was formed, but it tells a story of one part of the revolution; a vital part, that had to occur to give legitimacy to the new South Africa both at home and abroad. It highlights the political necessity that drove a process and the seemingly inevitable failure that it became. Not a failure of the process itself, but a failure that had to occur to permit acceptability; it resulted in the end of South Africa as a hegemony.

This account focusses on how the military forces supporting the Apartheid regime and those committed to its overthrow came together to form a new national force, reflecting the new multi-racial, multi-faith democracy. The process appeared unacceptable in some measure to all sides, but the political instruction in 1994 was that there was to be the integration of the South African Defence Force and the armed wings of the African National Congress and the Azanian Peoples Liberation Army to form the South African National Defence Force. The consequence was a new military, weaker than before and no longer able to stamp its authority in sub-Saharan Africa, but one that truly reflected the colours of the Rainbow Nation.

Within the revolution, there was a small detachment from the British armed forces that was charged with assisting this transition. Many have reflected that what its members were asked to oversee was the equivalent of the political instruction to merge the Irish Republican Army with the British Army in the wake of the Good Friday Agreement. They were required to oversee and assist a process that included everything from the assessment and selection that took individuals from the three assembly areas, to the basic and specialist training to allow individuals to begin the integration process.