Page 170 - Conflitti Militari e Popolazioni Civili - Tomo II

672 XXXIV Congresso della CommIssIone InternazIonale dI storIa mIlItare • CIHm

the end
The beginning of the end came in February 1990, when, faced with the total collapse of
the apartheid state, then president FW de Klerk surprised the world by unbanning the ANC,
the Communist Party and all other prohibited organisations, and began the process of amnes-
tying activists and exiles, freeing political prisoners and negotiating an end to apartheid with
the ANC. The remaining imprisoned resisters were set at liberty, and a de facto moratorium
was placed on objector trials from the middle of 1991. With its raison d’etre gone, the eCC
fizzled away and conscripts widely ignored their call-ups.
Although it had had only a brief existence, the ECC’s flame had burnt brightly. Interestin-
gly, the only mostly-white anti-apartheid movements of similar size inside South Africa also
arose from war and conflict. In the early 1940s, at the height of World War II, the Springbok
Legion had been formed by soldiers fighting against fascism, who concluded that a similar
struggle needed to take place against racism in South Africa. It combined welfare work for
servicemen with pro-democracy politics and by the end of the war had a membership of
over 50 000. It promoted non-racial politics and took a stand against the National Party but
eventually faded away, although many of its leaders went on to play important roles in the
liberation struggle, especially in the Congress of Democrats which was allied with the ANC
(Bunting 1986). Then in the early 1950s, the Torch Commando arose, mainly with an ex-ser-
vice membership, spurred by the National Party’s efforts remove Coloured voters from the
Cape Voters’ Role. It mobilised demonstrations of tens of thousands, but its politics gradually
became more paternalistic and in the end was unable to withstand the Nationalists (Resister
No 63, August-October 1989: 5-9).
During 1990 both ECC and COSAWR increasingly turned their attentions to the challen-
ges faced in transforming the SADF, integrating the SADF with the homeland forces and the
liberation armies to create a new national defence force, demilitarising society, establishing
democratic control over the security services and creating a region of peace in Southern Afri-
ca. Both organisations attended a seminal conference in Lusaka, Zambia, in May 1990, in
4
which SADF personnel, MK leadership, church leaders, academics and others – from both
exile and inside South Africa – met together for the first time and set out a framework for the
issues listed above (Joint Press Statement on the ANC-IDASA Conference on the Future of
Security and Defence in South Africa, May 23-27, Lusaka, Zambia).
In December 1990 COSAWR took the decision to close down and for exiled resisters to
return home, its job done. The last issue of Resister carried the epitaph:
In the early years it seemed as we were struggling against impossible odds … we were
virtually the only group specifically campaigning against the SADF, an organised force of
hundreds of thousands.
…the [South African] regime greatly over-estimated the threat of COSAWR. By the early
1980s government spokesmen … had elevated COSAWR to a ‘white wing of the ANC’ and
even talked of ‘the South African Communist Party/ANC/COSAWR alliance’.
We would not make such extravagant claims! Nevertheless, struggles are often about
taking terrain, opening up political space … Exile gave us a secure base. Protected from

4 Although the COSAWR members attended as part of the ANC delegation.