FORMER apartheid army general and politician Constand Viljoen has revealed how close South Africa came to civil war in 1994 shortly before the country’s first all-race elections, when he had 50_000 armed men ready to fight the African National Congress (ANC).
In an interview published in Johannesburg’s Sunday Independent, Viljoen said the mobilisation of right-wing Afrikaners – who opposed the ruling National Party’s talks with the ANC – had started in March 1993.
“We had computers in all centres with the details of all the men we knew we could really rely on,” Viljoen said.
Using his intimate knowledge of the apartheid state’s South African Defence Force (SADF), Viljoen said that during 1993 he mobilised “between 50_000 to 60_000 men” countrywide.
At the same time, discussions were under way with the ANC for self-rule for the white Afrikaner minority during South Africa’s often fragile peace negotiations.
Viljoen reached an informal agreement with the ANC leadership in January 1994, but Nelson Mandela made a public statement that the ANC would never allow the creation of an Afrikaner homeland, although he later acknowleged it had been a mistake.
Following the statement, Viljoen was shouted down at a right-wing meeting in Pretoria, where his supporters chanted: “We want war!”
Viljoen said that although his men were mobilised, he was opposed to fighting.
“I am a militarist. I have experience of war. I knew that if we went over to military action, it would lead to an enormous bloodbath in South Africa.
But Viljoen said he would have never contemplated a military coup or maintaining the old South Africa.
Viljoen decided to pursue a political solution for the Afrikaners and register for the elections. He pursued a political career until mid-March, when he announced he was leaving politics in frustration at the way the ruling party dominated politics.
The Freedom Front has continued to pursue self-determination for Afrikaners, but with little success.
In the general elections of 1999, Viljoen’s party’s share of the national vote slipped to 0.8 percent (three MPs) from the 2.2 percent (and nine MPs) it had won five years earlier. – AFP