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The Integration of Armies and Civil-Military Relations in Post-Apartheid South Africa *
INTRODUCTION
The integration of South African armies into a single national Defence Force - an item which should be high on the agenda of negotiations leading to the remaking of South Africa along non-racial lines - carries enormous implications for the survival of any new democratic (or other!) civilian regime. Successful coups have occurred since independence in the majority of sub-Saharan African states, and most of the rest have experienced failed coup attempts. Devising constitutional structures to preserve democracy and to prevent military intervention will in any case be difficult enough; combining this with the task of integrating the SADF with the homeland armies and the guerrilla forces of the ANC and PAC will be double difficult.
This article will seek to identify how the relationship between a new South African regime and a combined Defence Force might be forged. Following Luckham (1971), it will approach the problem along three dimensions, viz (i) the strength or weakness of the 'new' South Africa's civilian institutions; (ii) the strength or weakness of its military; and (iii) the maintenance or otherwise of the boundaries between the military and its socio-political environment.
THE POLITICAL ENVIRONMENT OF THE MILITARY IN THE NEW SOUTH AFRICA
Luckham argues that there are two key dimensions which determine the strength or weakness of civilian institutions. These are (i) the amount of public support which political structures can aggregate; and (ii) their effectiveness, that is, the extent of their institutionalisation and the degree of their internal coherence.
At this point, we do not know what political structures will emerge from the process of constitutional negotiations currently taking place in South Africa, or when it will result in the installation of a democratic - or even an 'interim' - government. What we do know is that the creation of a functioning democracy in an as severely divided and hitherto authoritarian country as South Africa will be no easy task.
However, we may argue that there are certain requirements which a new set of constitutional arrangements will need to meet if they are to generate enduring political support.
The first is the emplacement of an electoral system which undermines democracy, and one which combines the imperative of majority rule with some guarantee of effective minority representation in the legislature and acknowledgement of minority interests and rights in the process of policy-making.
What is already agreed by the major parties involved is that the present 'first-past-the-post' (plurality) electoral system - which South Africa inherited from Britain and which has consistently over represented the National Party (NP) in parliament since 1948 - must be replaced by a system which more fairly reflects voter preferences (either by some form of proportional representation or possibly by an Alternative Voting system). But the major point here must be that, whatever electoral system is chosen, it must embody not only electoral justice (including guarantee of electoral regularity), but in addition it must be sustained by other political institutions and practices which secure the accountability of government to the general public. This would seem to imply some guaranteed separation of powers (perhaps between an executive President and a separately elected legislature, perhaps between two chambers of parliament, most certainly between the executive and judiciary).
A second requirement of a negotiated and enduring transition to democratic rule in South Africa is that the constitutional arrangements arrived at should allow for the new authorities to tackle the problem of South Africa's extreme racial inequalities. As noted by Horowitz (1991: 233), although the question of inequality is not strictly a matter of political structure, it necessarily has constitutional importance, for failure to address it could well delegitimise a new regime. A new government will therefore need to have the will and freedom to redress racial imbalances - by redirecting resources and opportunities away from whites towards blacks - without fear of constitutional reprisal by entrenched minority vetoes, right wing assault or sabotage by private capital, for as I have noted elsewhere (Southall 1990: 502) 'the making and viability of any political deal depends heavily upon the simultaneous forging of socio-economic compromise' between capitalism and socialism in the direction of a mixed economy and/or social democracy.
Horowitz is most certainly correct when he observes that the severe economic problems a new government will encounter will render it unlikely to meet even the basic material aspirations of the mass of ordinary people; yet he is also correct when he further maintains that the political loyalty which a new regime generates need not necessarily be strictly tied to its ability to solve the country's enormous policy problems - so long as it can convince the public of its fundamental commitment to equality.
None the less, no system of civilian government in South Africa is likely to last unless it can be seen to deliver at least some of the goods which the public and key political forces (not excluding the military!) require. No post-apartheid government, whatever its political composition, is likely to retain widespread support for long unless it can engineer or at least preside over an expansion of the economy. As in any democracy, governments which enjoy good economic fortune are likely to be re-elected. Yet the reality is that at some point, the first post-apartheid government will find itself confronting economic difficulties which greatly diminish its popularity, and the test of the new South Africa's credentials will then be whether the constitution is sufficiently entrenched to ensure that the electorate has a chance of replacing those in power. If they do not, if the existing government resorts to extra-constitutional or emergency powers to retain its grip on the state, then it will not only be following in the footsteps of the apartheid regime it has replaced, but it could well be encouraging a military intervention.
The ability of a civilian regime to broach the post-apartheid constitution and to suspend democracy would be greatly facilitated by political arrangements which concentrated power at the centre without allowing for its partial dispersal to regions, provinces or states. A key aspect of the present negotiation process is not just the issue of the political reincorporation of the TBVC states, but also the extent to which political power will still be allocated along geographical lines.
The present indications are that the NP and the ANC are moving towards agreement on a system of regional governments which, whilst falling short of federalism, will allow for the considerable devolution of official functions and policy making and implementation. Whilst as with the case of Transkei, such regionalism may well involve continuity with ethnicised political structures that evolved under apartheid, the more important point is that such a dispersal of power will delegitimise and counter any drive to hegemony by any central government over the entire state. Whilst it is important to ensure that the central authorities retain sufficient power to steer the economy and determine the direction of policy in major spheres, the existence of separately elected regional governments could well help entrench the loyalty of citizens to the post-apartheid order.
The major point must be that manifest failure of the new political institutions - whether by abrogation or perhaps simply decline of democratic practices, loss of control over major segments of the population, and/or proven inability to cope with extended political or economic crises - could well provide an environment which, as throughout the rest of Africa, might serve to induce a roughshod entry of the military into the civilian arena.
This would be especially likely if the military were to prove hard pressed to manage its own post-apartheid transformation.
THE INTEGRATED MILITARY IN POST-APARTHEID SOTUH AFRICA
In discussing the strengths and weaknesses of the military, Luckham refers to the coercive, political and organisational resources at the army's dispersal. The crucial determinants here refer to such factors as the army's size, budget and utilizable firepower; the standing and reputation of the army within society; and the size, skills, quality, experience and composition of the officer corps. However, in the South African situation, all these various factors will be closely related to how the government addresses the two major issues which will dominate military reorganisation. These are, first, the need for the integration of the TBVC and liberation movement guerrilla armies with the South African Defence Force (SADF); and second, the need to address the racial composition of these armed forces to make their combined result reflective of the racial composition of South African society as a whole.
The sheer strength and size of the SADF will ensure that it forms the core of an integrated Defence Force. Grundy (1988:21) records that whereas in 1960 the SADF numbered 11 500 Permanent Force and 56 500 part-timer (plus 10 000 national servicemen), by 1986 these figures had increased to 43 000 in the Permanent Force, 265 000 part-timers and 67 000 conscripts. Similarly, the military budget increased from R44 million in 1960 to R9,9 billion in 1989-90 (SAIRR 1988/89), this reflecting the government's commitment to armed strength and military excellence (although ironically the level of expenditure - 4 per cent of Gross National Product in 1987/88 - has never been particularly high in comparison to other countries of the third world). Grundy elaborates, too, upon the extent to which the SADF has worked hand in hand with the South African Police in the maintenance of domestic political order. Meanwhile, it goes without saying that the SADF is by far the most powerfully equipped army on the African continent.
As Grundy further notes, the rate of growth of the SADF has not been particularly unusual when compared with the expansion of the military in numerous third world states. However, what was remarkable was the increased level of absorption by the SADF of the white population: in 1970 the total SADF involved some 3,1 per cent of whites in some capacity; but by 1975 this had risen to 6,5 per cent and by 1983 to 8,6 per cent. Connected to a major escalation of the military service obligations of whites, this represented a marked increase of the level of militarisation of white society which corresponded fairly directly to the increased security threat posed to the apartheid regime by its internal and external opponents.
This increasing strain upon white society led to the increased recruitment of blacks. The SADF had been authorised to form a Coloured Corps in 1963; ten years later an African unit (later known as 21 Battalion) was created; and later still, in 1979, a number of ethnic-cum-regional formations were established and attached to various regional commands. By 1989 such regional Battalions included the 111 Battalion based at Amsterdam for the Swazi; the 113 Battalion based at Letaba Ranch for the Shangaan; the 115 Battalion based at Messina for the northern Sotho; and the 121 Battalion at Dukuduku for the Zulu (SAIRR 1988/89: 522). Most controversial of all, however, was the 32 Battalion. Composed of Angolan other ranks and by SADF, Portuguese and white mercenary officers, this was formed (initially secretly) in 1979 following the collapse of the FNLA in Angola, and institutionalised the involvement of the Defence Force in the Angolan civil war within the very ranks of the military itself. Overall, by early 1986, the SADF had an estimated 13 600 black (coloured, Indian and African) members, and was committed to making increasing use of black groups to satisfy its personnel requirements (SAIRR 1988/89: 521).
These figures excluded the various armies and national guards attached to the independent national states which - apart from being intended to symbolise bantustan 'statehood - were designed mainly for internal security and for the maintenance in power of less than popular governments. The first such army to be established was that of the Transkei in 1975, followed by the creation of the Bophuthatswana Defence Force (BDF) in 1977, and by the Venda National Force (VNF) in 1979 and by the Ciskei Defence Force (CDF) in 1982. the overall size of these various armies remains small. Estimates put the strength of the Transkei Defence Force at around 3 000 in 1988, of the VNF at 1 000 in 1987, of the BDF at 3 100 in 1988, and of the CDF at 1 000 in 1987 (SAIRR 1988-89: 522; Africa Contemporary Record 1987/88: B779; B789), so it is unlikely that together they number more than 10 000 at the present time.
The early history of these homeland armies was characterised by their close relation with and control by the SADF. Indeed, the extent of their continuing dependence upon the latter for supplies, logistics, intelligence, training and border defence remains extensive, even though - from the moment of the rupture of diplomatic relations between Transkei and South Africa in 1978 - the assumption that these armies would remain for ever indisputably loyal to the SADF could not be taken for granted. However, given that they remain small, that they are organised along conventional lines, and that in their operational capacities they are more akin to police mobile units, anti-riot forces and crowd control instruments than they are designed for serious military and defensive purposes, their absorption into an integrated SADF would not seem to pose intractable problems, even if the exaggerated size of their officer corps - and the surfeit of high ranking officers these include - could well cause initial indigestion.
The integration of Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), the armed wing of the ANC, and the Azanian People's Liberation Army (APLA) (the PAC's equivalent) could prove more problematic, not least because they have been developed as highly politically committed, guerrilla armies. The size of the problem is doubtless related to the number of men that the ANC especially has under arms, for we should have no doubts that APLA is a much smaller and more rudimentary force than MK. (MK was estimated as having around 10 000 members in 1987, at which time the APLA was deemed 'possibly inactive') (Africa Contemporary Record 1987/88: B746). Likewise, the course of integration will be significantly affected by the extent to which the ANC will be prepared to see its army effectively dissolved and absorbed into an SADF against which it has been fighting for years. For instance, this would imply inter alia a willingness of the ANC to concede the need for extensive retraining of its guerrillas to render them suitable for a modern professional army. However, what an ANC-led government will doubtless need to note is that where strategies of incorporating guerrillas into standing armies have left their existing units intact (as in Burma, Indonesia and Algeria), hostilities have normally later broken out between the latter and units of the regular army. Accordingly, whilst demobilisation of ANC and PAC guerrillas would be unwise, especially when MK is known to have established arms caches around the country, the more prudent course would seem to be the integration of MK/APLA personnel directly into the established units of the SADF.
It follows similarly that the separate identities of the TBVC defence forces should similarly be dissolved, their soldiery being likewise relocated into fully integrated units of a new, non-racial defence force. Retention of separate military structures composed of exclusively white and black members of the former SADF, alongside ethnic units previously associated with particular homelands and formations composed exclusively of former guerrillas would almost inevitably adversely affect the coherence of the new defence force, whose loyalty should belong only to the 'new' South Africa. However, merely to mention the complexity of the integration process is to indicate the difficulty of excluding external political, racial and ethnic cleavages from the new army.
Meanwhile, a major objective of military integration will of necessity have to be the correction of racial imbalance within the combined Defence Force. At one level, this may well be accomplished with relative ease, for an almost inevitable outcome of any negotiated settlement will be the proportionately higher recruitment of blacks relative to whites. Indeed, with the likely abolition of conscription, and the fact that the legal basis of conscription of whites on racial grounds has now been successfully challenged in the courts, the number of whites being drawn into the army will undoubtedly decline.
So long as this blackening of the integrated Defence Force does not happen overnight, white fears need not be aroused. As noted by Grundy (1988: 25), the speed and ease with which whites came to accept the employment of blacks in combat assignments was remarkable. As late as 1970, the Minister of Defence was insisting that blacks would only be employed by his Department as labourers; but by the early 1980s white public opinion had been largely transformed from opposing the arming of blacks to encouraging a wide use of black units, albeit in segregated situations. Whites seemed satisfied so long as control was retained by white officers. Fears regarding black loyalty and efficiency no longer seemed to prevent whites from acknowledging the need for forces from all race groups. Black units in the SADF were accepted because the 'experiment' had worked and because black fighting effectiveness had been demonstrated. Indeed, not least of the reasons for whites' ready acceptance of black soldiers was doubtless their disproportionate deployment in dangerous situations: in 1988, for instance, some 65-70 per cent of South African soldiers in the operational area in Angola were black (SAIRR 1988/89: 521), whilst similarly some 90 per cent of the soldiers (drawn from Battalions 116 and 113) on the northern Transvaal/Zimbabwe border in mid-1988 were African (SAIRR 1987/88: 518). At this stage, however, few whites had any intention of supporting a military structure with blacks in proportionate or even significant positions of authority and command.
In contrast, construction of an integrated army would demand precisely that: a greatly expanded proportion of black troops would inevitably require and be accompanied by a rapid expansion of the number of black officers, and their relatively speedy absorption into senior positions. Indeed, the rapid absorption and promotion of the officers of the various homeland and of the commanders of the guerrilla armies might be one way in which their loyalty might be secured to the new Defence Force, even though this in turn might well set up its own tensions. However, even if the SADF is thoroughly and rapidly reconstructed, it is inevitable that initially there will remain strong generational differences in seniority, with white officers predominating in the field grades and black officers in the junior ranks. Such a racial cleavage could well prove conducive to a coup.
THE BOUNDARIES BETWEEN THE MILITARY AND CIVIL ARENAS IN POST-APARTHEID SOUTH AFRICA
The thrust of Luckham's argument is that the role of the army in politics will be largely determined by its ability to maintain the integrity of its boundaries; that is, the extent to which it can insulate itself from the divisions and cleavages which afflict civilian life. Where these boundaries remain sharply differentiated - as, for instance, in the USA, UK and Western Europe - the military remains outside the overtly political sphere. In contrast, where - as in numerous third world countries - civilian conflicts invade the structure and ethos of the military, the chances of the military being encouraged to enter the political arena are greatly increased.
There are three major likely inducements to military intervention in post-apartheid South Africa. These are, first, the failure of democracy and the capture of the state by a party or group which attempts to impose a political monopoly of control; second, the politicisation of racial and ethnic inequalities within the military; and third, the habitual employment of the military by the civilian regime in the maintenance of political order.
As noted above, the creation of enduring civilian (let alone, democratic) structures for the new South Africa poses enormous challenges to those presently involved in the negotiation process. As Horowitz has observed (1991: 88), the very first obstacle to establishing democracy may well be the assumption that it will be easy to attain, and that the hard part of the exercise will be the abolition of apartheid. In other words, the struggle for democracy will scarcely have begun when the actual liberation struggle is over!
The success of democracy - in terms of its accompaniment by civil peace, economic growth and acceptance by the participants in the political process of rules of the game including the obligation of governments to stand down if they lose an election - is the best guarantor of confining the military to barracks. However, if for reasons of major civil disruption, long term economic decline or abuse of power by an entrenched government, the military is encouraged to define itself as the guardian of the constitution and saviour of the nation, its displacement of civilian by military rule may not be long in coming.
Such a possibility will be greatly increased if the conflicts of civilian politics are imported into the army, especially if - as is likely - they amplify ethnic or racial cleavages. For instance, the attempted defence by a still predominantly white senior officer corps of a 'liberation settlement' viewed as unacceptably favourable to whites by a mainly black government could well set off a counter coup by junior black officers. Similarly, was a civilian government to be viewed as biased towards the interests of any particular ethnic black group, officers drawn from other ethnic groups might well seek redress by direct intervention, and so on. Whatever the particular racial or ethnic dynamics involved, the danger of intervention would in turn be greatly enhanced if civilian politicians were to come to view the army - or particular racial or ethnic segments of it - as a resource to be mobilised for political ends. All in all, the importance of a new Defence Force dissolving existing racial, ethnic or politically aligned units into a thoroughly integrated structure can scarcely be emphasised, just as extremely careful consideration will need to be given to how to maintain strict boundaries between political and military life without encroaching upon the legitimate authority of a majority rule government.
It is important to note in conclusion that this issue of boundary maintenance has in the South African situation been greatly complicated by the three distinct military traditions from which the new army will be formed. Historically, the SADF has been viewed as the ultimate guarantor of white racial power. Over the last two decades particularly, it has increasingly assumed an internal 'defence' role against the black majority, and as previously noted, its far greater involvement in decision-making at the topmost levels led in the 1980s to the extensive militarisation of white civilian life. For all that the senior echelons of the SADF liked to maintain a pretense of their subordination to civilian control, their identification with the apartheid state before February 1992 was virtually complete. From this perspective, a retreat to neutrality between the contending political forces of a democratic state may well be hard to achieve. Not least of the difficulties may well be that the present black members of the SADF, who have hitherto remained apolitical (Grundy 1983) or been prepared to overlook the excesses of the apartheid regime in exchange for the modest material benefits of a military career, could well become politicised in the new political environment, especially with the influx of ethnic contingents drawn from the TBVC states. Nor will it help if the battle-hardened majority of blacks from the SADF choose not to respect officers drawn from the bantustan armies, who have had no similar experience in combat. Similarly, long contained resentments against the white military hierarchy could well erupt with the passing of white political control.
Meanwhile, if the SADF component may like to continue to think of itself as guardians of the state, the guerrilla components could come to view themselves as guardians of the revolution. Seeking to wrest control of the army from right wing elements in order to protect the interests of the black majority government in power, they could in turn provoke a reactionary clamp down which could well spill over into the civilian arena. Meanwhile, the new army will have its work cut out secure the respect of the black civilian population, and it will need to make both drastic and dramatic moves to do so: a necessary starting point will have to be the dissolution of 32 battalion, not only because a new government's legitimacy could not withstand its continued employment of foreign mercenaries, but also because of the widespread loathing with which the unit is viewed following such notorious incidents as the recent Phola Park scandal (when Angolan soldiers went on a rampage of looting and rape in that area of the East Rand). (Daily Dispatch, 11/04/1992)
Finally, the risks of military intervention may well be increased by the absorption into the new Defence Force of the homeland armies already experienced in the displacement of civilian rulers, the drama of coup and counter-coup and all the hurly-burly of involvement in daily political life. However, much the personnel of these units are dispersed throughout the Defence Force, the history of past political involvement they carry with them could prove contagious in a new military environment fraught with potential divisions.
CONCLUSION
The integration of South Africa's diverse armies into a single defence force is bound to be contentious and complex. If good fortune and good sense attend the creation of balanced and reasonably democratic and effective political structures, the formation of a combined force could prove the support to the new state that the latter's founders will presumably intend it to be, especially if particular attention is made to the issue of maintaining the integrity of civil-military boundaries. None the less, the restructuring of the South African armed forces carries unavoidable risk of continued misuse of armed might and serious threat of unconstructive intervention.
Precisely because any such involvements could severely threaten the coherence of the military and a descent of South Africa into civil war, it is as much in the interests of military themselves as of the civilian population to devote serious thought to the business of coup prevention.
REFERENCES
Doro, M. and Legum, C. (Eds) 1989. Africa Contemporary Record. Volume XV, 1987/88. Africana Publishing House: New York and London.
Grundy, K. 1983. Soldiers without Politics, in Blacks in the South Armed Forces. University of California Press: Berkeley; Los Angeles; London.
Grundy, K. 1988. The Militarisation of South African Politics. Oxford University Press; Oxford.
Horowitz, D. 1991. A Democratic South Africa? in Constitutional Engineering in a Divided Society. University of California Press: Berkeley; Los Angeles; London.
Luckham, R. 1971. A Comparative Typology of Civil Military Relations, in Government and Opposition, 6, 1.
South African Institute of Race Relations (SAIRR). Race Relations Survey. 1987/88; and 1988/89. SAIRR: Johannesburg.
Southall, R. 1990. Negotiations and Social Democracy in South Africa, in The Journal of Modern African Studies, Vol. 28, No. 3.
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