African Update - South Africa and Rhodesia
"All the soul of man is resolution, which in valiant men falters never, until their last breath." - Ian Smith
South African election February 1993
Since the implementation of the Bewaring reform, South Africa grew to be a happier place: instead of black and white people being segregated away from each other, business opportunities in the big cities were now open to black people. Society became more egalitarian. It brought people of all races closer to each other. Crime rates fell drastically as increasing job opportunities that were available to once-impoverished people. Instead of being a tool of separating the native African communities, Bantustans instead served to empower tribal traditions and culture. They also helped to boost local economies. Literacy rates among blacks in these areas in particular rose dramatically. The anti-miscegenation law was cancelled by Treurnicht government in 1984, which led to a boost in a new generation of Coloureds born and growing up in the big cities. Racism was still common but many people, both black and white agreed it was better than before.
Because of their renewed pride of their nation, the youth of the Bantustans enthusiastically enlisted to the army before WW3 broke out, this time on mixed units, something that also made race relations improve. Under one of the new black commanders of the South African army in WW3, the hero of battle of Thessaloniki himself, Lt. General Themba Matanzima was extremely popular among blacks and whites alike. His opinion was highly considered by both as well. He had caught the political bug like many, and got elected as an MP in the next election.
The black roll kept growing, (thanks to the provision which gave suffrage to those who enlisted), and in the 1988 election, the black roll included 100 seats out of 400 seats. There was a perception among the general public that the black roll system wasn't needed anymore in the day and age. In a speech before the parliament, Treurnicht spoke to the 400 MPs about changing the system: “The Bewaring plan did the job and now, We're truly a one nation, united in spite of our differences. We should vote as one too!” to an applauding parliament. Treurnicht thought to the future, he knew that the moment was going to come anyways, at least he would ensure his party would change with the times. After a multi-partisan legislation and opposition from the Herstigte Nasionale Party, the parliament approved changing to universal suffrage. The HNP fought the bill to the last. The parliament, mostly by the support of the Nasionale and United parties, also voted to end the black homelands (nicknamed Bantustans) statuses for certain tribes, as they were no longer needed, and replaced them with cultural and some economic autonomy. Although the bill also had been fought hard by the HNP, ever-resisting to reforms that would end separation measures between whites and other races, and to some surprise, some Zulu members of the ANC that supported the idea as well. The bill still passed and the legal status of the Bantustans’ residents were equalized to the legal status of the rest of south africans, including the right to vote, but the impacts of 15 years of non-governance from Pretoria remains strong and present to this day with many having an independent streak.
The election campaign had started: Treurnicht found the support of Themba Matanzima, who joined the party after the declaration on universal suffrage. The ANC, still leaderless since foreign minister Mandela was murdered in cold blood, chose moderate Thabo Mbeki to lead them and expected to grab many black seats. The United Party, weaker because of their main ideology, anti-apartheid moderatism was taken, chose long-time MP Helen Suzman to lead them. Clive Derby-Lewis continued to lead the Herstigte Nasionale Party, as he did in the last two election cycles.
Treurnicht and his party held large, first time unsegregated rallies in Johannesburg, Pretoria, Durban, Windhoek and Bloemfontein. In the campaign's largest rally in Cape Town, Treurnicht, Matanzima and Malan went up stage to the applause of the mixed crowd as what the media later called, “the three men that won the war for us”. Although the large support that the Nasionale Party received, they had fierce competition by the ANC that received huge support, especially in the black-supermajority provinces of Natal and Southwest Africa, where they were predicted to win 80% of the seats and promised a national plan to resolve the still-present poverty problems of the tribal community. The United party and the HNP had run a rather dull campaign to their target audiences with their regular messages, whether reconciliation and unpopular affirmative action or return of the equally-unpopular apartheid. The HNP was projected to make gains only in Southwest Africa, losing points elsewhere.
Matanzima Speaking in a rally at Pietermaritzburg
The results didn't surprise anyone: the strong campaigning of the Nasionale Party paid off, and their support of universal suffrage was popular among most. It won them a whopping 213 seats, a decrease by number but considered a victory by the party because of the new election system. The ANC increased their share of seats, winning 116 seats in the urban black-majority neighborhoods and in already ANC-dominated provinces Natal. The United party and the HNP competed for the third place with 48 seats for the former and 23 for the latter. (wikibox needed)
Treurnicht had won, but his health kept worsening. the 72-years old president lived month and a half after the election and the passed away on 22 April, during a heart operation. His deputy leader, now-MP Lt. General Themba Matanzima had entered to the office of the president on the following day. In his eulogy to the deceased president, Matanzima spoke about Treurnicht’s life and long-time service for his nation and the chances that were given to him by the bewaring reform and there was nothing that symbolized the change that South Africa went through than the first black president appointed to the office after his predecessor’s funeral.
Rhodesian Election January 1993
After the war ended, the Rhodesian people were happy: Communism was finally defeated as a force in Africa (though it still had been present in some areas in democratically elected areas), and the country was also unified. Blacks and whites lived, worked and fought together in the last 10 years and now, they knew, for the first time in Rhodesia's history, they would vote together, as equals.
Thanks to immigration from white nations, whites made a quarter of the Rhodesian population, slightly higher. Thanks to a similar suffrage policy as South Africa, blacks also gained universal suffrage. Black and white rolls were also abolished and a system of universal suffrage in all of the 120 seats was implemented. The quota system on the cabinet and judiciary was amended to 50% to each group and that the president and PM can’t be from the same group.
On a televised speech, PM Ian Smith declared that he wouldn't participate in the next election as he was pleased with the results of his period as PM. After 28 years of governance, which saw the UDI, the Bush Wars, and then the Chequers court agreement that ended them, Rhodesia becoming a multicultural society where blacks and whites live together, and finally WW3 which forged and unified the nation, He felt that Rhodesia needs a younger, energetic leader to lead the nation into the new millennium.
In the ruling party, the Rhodesian Front, there was a fierce contest between 7 candidates. After the primaries, there was a surprise: the 53-years old businessman John Bredenkamp won the leadership against former Rhodesian air force commander Archibald Wilson and other minor candidates.
Bredenkamp was born in South Africa and moved with his parents to the country as a child. He was a rugby player and captained the national rugby team for three years. After that, He joined an international tobacco trading firm and became its director. In 1976, he founded his own tobacco company, the Casalee Group in Antwerp and helped to sell Rhodesian tobacco around the world, with some of the funds used to raise money for the Rhodesian army. After the end of the bush wars, he expanded his company to other fields in agriculture and it has become one of the biggest agricultural companies in Africa. In Rhodesia, he turned to be a popular man as his company created many jobs, for whites and blacks alike, and he had rather fair policies and high wages for workers as head. Under his management, the Casalee Group invested heavily in agricultural technology and used grants from the US government as part of the Green Revolution. When WW3 started, his company provided agricultural goods for the Rhodesian and South African forces in reduced price. They took great note of Australia’s policies, helping the nation to become a net exporter of foodstuffs.
Bredenkamp taking a break from an intense day of campigning
The opposition Unity party nominated Edgar “2-boy” Tekere to be their leader. Tekere, a former ZANU member that put down his weapon after the Chequers Court Agreement was signed, became a moderate black leader and helped with reconciliation. He personally invited reggae singer Bob Marley [A/N: ITTL, Marley agreed to receive medical treatment and lived until 1985, when the cancer killed him] to sing a pro-reconciliation rally on Salisbury. He was one of the founders of the moderate black-majority Unity Party that advocated for moderate communonationalist policies and national reconciliation.
The campaign was the first time in Rhodesia that the elections were competitive. This time, the Unity party had a serious chance to win many black-majority seats. Bredenkamp has campaigned with smith and popular retired commander of the army, Peter Walls and they portrayed the party as the natural governing party and as a party which is committed to the citizens of Rhodesia, both black and white. Although Tekere campaigned hard with the “party's only white guy”, Roy Bennett, he didn't succeed to win.
Migrants Crisis and Worsening Relationship with Entebbe Pact
What grew to become the worst problem faced by the Bredenkamp new government was unexpected: Immigrants tried to cross the Zambezi river into Rhodesia…The border had not seen much activity for a while after the end of the war, and Rhodesia never much dealt with an illegal immigration problem, with only a makeshift fence in place at the time....but these migrants weren't black. They weren’t even of the continent. They were Russian and Spanish.
Since the end of the war, many people from the ex-USSR, especially ethnic russians in the ethnic Turkic and Caucasus states found themselves with no future or family in their states. A trickle of ethnic Russians began to leave starting early in the year 1995, as many decided to start a new life somewhere else, where they could find better opportunities. Conditions in the rest of the former U.S.S.R. were yet to recover to pre-war conditions, so many decided to go South. Most of them didn’t even have favoured destinations, their main thought was to move southward to a warmer, richer, and more stable country, and use every opportunity that they could receive. A steady Russian diaspora developed.
Most of those who traveled by foot or car from the Caucasus reached the Middle East first, and found themselves unwelcome. Many moved home, but others ventured onwards. Most had desired to live in a Christian country, and kept moving southward. When they've entered Sudan, the Entebbe pact governments started to worry. The stream of migrants were headed their way. Luckily, Idi Amin had an idea: “If they've entered from one side, let them get out of the other one.” He told his fellow president Mobutu Sese Seko, who evidently agreed. Somalia was the only Entebbe Pact nation to let in any sizable amount of Russians, but did not allow the poorer, lower-skilled migrants that had by some way or another ended up in Sudan or their other neighbors. Somalia did become infamous however, for being the “Argentina of Africa”, a place where many ex-USSR government officials went into hiding or moved to after their country was dissolved. Word has it that Kryuchkov and Demichev, still hiding from the wrath of the Allies, are hiding in some rural village somewhere in the nation. The exile community in Mogadishu has From then on, new army battalions with buses and trucks of the Entebbe pact nations were deployed on the borders everyday, loaded with Immigrants that would be thrown in the other border of the Entebbe pact, near the Zambezi river. Or as Amin said: “it's their problem now”. It was part of a general attempt by the Entebbe Pact at provoking South Africa. And it evidently worked.
Immigrants coming to south Africa were fewer but with the same goals: to build a new life away from the disease-ridden, devastated continent but they had the vast ocean as an obstacle. Their solution was unexpected: the Caribbean nations, untouched by war and flooded with Immigrants, funded ships for them so they could make their way to Africa, evidently coming from the same “Move our problems far away” state of mind. Most of the ships docked in Entebbe Pact member, Angola, and their immigrants were brought by their government to the South African border. Rhodesia and South Africa let only limited number of migrants to enter and tried to stop the growing illegal immigration with some success. Migrants to both nations were hoping to reach these countries especially since there was already Hispanic and Russian communities in both countries as a result of immigration earlier in the 20th century.
From the diary of Rhodesian border patrol's private Nelson Chamisa:
June 19th, 1995.
It was a beautiful night on the banks of the mighty Zambezi. The moon was shining in the middle of the sky, the sound of the flowing river thundering through my ears…And those damn ruskies are trying to cross again. I've been enlisted to the border patrol two month ago, when the migrants started to arrive, but things were rather quiet until tonight. Tonight, it's the first time that I've actually been sent on the border. Since the world war broke out, I wanted to be here and protect my home, and here I am, of the proper age, and ready to protect this border. My parents back at home still don’t trust the government. And I know why to be honest. Chequers was passed when I was only 4, and I grew up used to a Rhodesia which was progressively becoming more and more equal, where blacks could have a say in political affairs, and where we had a seat on the table. My parents grew up in a time of a time of complete disenfranchisement and colonialism. Let’s hope that our country will remain united.
The border as seen from the congolese side of the Zambezi River
September 5th, 1995.
At 3:45 AM, I saw suspicious movement on a bush located on the Congolese side of the border. It’s still rather strange when I really think about the situation...Since the end of the war, Entebbe pact's relations have soured, and fast. Amin and Seko, with their...strange demands, made their whole pact look like damned fools. They are only trying to annoy us, but it’s really getting on the bad side of the men up in Pretoria. The commander in the base told us that the Entebbe pact government are sending the migrants that came to their nations here, like we're their trash can. People started to get out of the bush and brought some makeshift rafts with them. They started to prepare for their chance to cross. They didn’t see me yet. I shot a warning shot at them, but they ignored me. They finished the preparations and put it into the river. I admit, I was scared seeing them coming in my direction...I had a megaphone with me but I doubted they understood English or chiShona. I shouted into the megaphone for the illegals to cease their attempts to cross the river from behind the makeshift barbed wire fence erected to stop them. But they paid me no heed and continued to paddle across.
Without giving attention, I started to sing to myself, softly.
“We'll keep them north of the Zambezi till that river's running dry
And this mighty land will prosper for Rhodesians never die…”
Yes, quite ironic, knowing the context of the song, dripping with racism, about efforts to keep people that looked quite like myself from making it to this beautiful country. But it was true. It was true, here I was trying to keep hordes of people north of the Zambezi, and they were white, not too different from the white Rhodesians already here. Ironic indeed. I stopped my musings for a second to deal with the situation at hand. Then I thought, I had a megaphone, didn’t I? And so I started singing as loud as I could into it the song I knew by heart. The noise of my singing happened to alert my partner on patrol who called backup to deal with the some 60 Russians attempting to cross. I realized that in the end, it doesn’t matter, whether you’re black, white, or brown. We are all Rhodesians, and we share this country together.
Chamisa would enter politics nearly 10 years later, as an MP of a border district in Parliament, a moderate in the Rhodesian Front.
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The South African eventually stemmed the migrant crisis by the end of the year, with activity on the borders and the Skeleton Coast slowing down. They allowed 10,000 migrants from the former USSR and south america to settle in the north of Namibia and found a mixed russian-hispanic-native African community with a unique fusion culture.
Leonid Mikhelson was born on Kaspiysk, Dagestan (then russian SFSR) in 1955 to ethnic Russian parents, where he grew up. He graduated with a degree in industrial engineering and started to work on state-owned gas company. He quickly advance in his job and appointed to chief engineer on his company. When WW3 ended with the USSR’s surrender at the Battle of Moscow, he found, like many, his financial situation unsteady, with the company he worked in broken up, and without a steady job which paid the salary he had, near the point of ruin. He came back to his home to find he lived in the now-independent Dagestan.
Dagestan was one of the most ethnically heterogeneous states in the Caucasus, but despite that the groups were able to forge a national identity centered around their common experience under Russian and later Soviet oppression. By extension, the some 200,000 Russians who lived in the new nation found themselves discriminated against by employers, in public places, and in some cases in government settings. For people like Mikhelson whose economic standings had worsened nearly overnight, the 1993 Geneva Treaty did little on the ground to help their situation other than possibly lip service. Mikhelson understood that he had no future there, and so, without direction in his life, he joined the ever-growing trail of migrants to the south, something he even 5 years before never thought would happen to him. Like many, he didn’t know where he’d go, but he wanted to go somewhere better than where he was, preferably out of Russia. Before things stabilized in Ukraine and later on Samara, living standards for Russians were little better than in the Caucasus, and many feared discrimination by the ethnic Ukrainian government. He joined a caravan of Russian emigrants going south. Going through Georgia, he went through Turkey, oddly enough not meeting not much trouble from the (at the time) Entebbe allied government. Finally he found himself at Port Sudan, planning to end up at Mogadishu, looking for people like himself to bring expertise to the country. Instead he found himself bused all the way to South Africa. He, like many Russians, didn’t actually mind, knowing that he could join the already existing Eastern European community there. After evading border security in South Africa, he found a job working as engineer in the large mines of Southwest Africa. He eventually took a legal path to citizenship, and amassed money from his job to reach a standing back to that of his old life. He even received the financial support of young aerospace entrepreneur Elon Musk to found his own mining firm, NovaTeg group. He became one of the richest businessmen of Africa and an inspiration to others.
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After the start of the Immigrant crisis, the relations between the South Africa-Rhodesia bloc, supported by the Concordat nations in Europe were strengthened compared to that of the Entebbe pact, supported by China and India. Bundy’s administration, with it’s strict anti-interventionist policy, secretly supported the hawkish Clive Derby-Lewis in the elections, as well as hawkish voices in the ANC like Cyril Ramaphosa.
The undeclared leader of the Entebbe pact, Ugandan Pres. Idi Amin, decided to provoke his enemies in South Africa with a few incidents.
The new Lozi kingdom seemed to appear out of nowhere after the partition of Zambia: the new nation was a result of the Salisbury Treaty, headed by Litunga Ilute Yeta IV, a tribe leader and descendant of the lozi royal family that held the power in the former Zambian government. When independence was given, they were the most undeveloped nation in Africa. In 1994, the king unexpectedly hinted at revanchist aims at the East Caprivi of Namib. The area had a large lozi-speaking majority which the king said he wanted “back”. Matanzima’s government was shocked by even the suggestion of something like this. Mocking the attention the news media of South Africa made towards those rumors, Amin followed up with other claims on South African soil. “We gave ourselves in the world war and didn’t receive any territory in return while the spoiled South Africans sat behind the front lines. Besides if the germans could claim that territory as their own, why shouldn't we? The Ugandan government also demands the cities of Luanda from Portugal and of Kimberly in South Africa”. The unexpected announcement was universally seen to be in bad taste, and led to a great outrage in south Africa and even greater backlash in the rest of the world. All diplomats of Entebbe Pact nations in Pretoria and Salisbury were expelled from both of the countries. In solidarity with the South Africans, the Concordat did the same.
South African election June 1996
Matanzima had an eventful first three years because of the border incidents and worsening relations with the Entebbe Pact. As a move supported by all parties except HNP, Matanzima changed the flag to one that would truly represent the all the nationalities of the country and bring the country even closer.
the new flag: the orange represents the afrikaners, the white represents the English, and the black the native Africans. Each one of three the flags in the middle represents one of the three ethnic groups of the country as well.
Matanzima declared that new elections would be held at 1996 because he felt that the foreign situation won’t let him have them at the time. Thabo Mbeki, the moderate free-marketeer ANC leader faced a leadership spill (unique to the ANC) from the two edges of his party: left-winger reverend MP Desmond Tutu and Zulu leader Sibusiso Bengu.
Tutu, the former teacher and priest turned into anti-apartheid activist was, like Mandela, jailed, until president Treurnicht ordered to set him free. He was elected to the parliament in 1984 in the Black Roll and advocated for social-democracy and collaboration with Entebbe pact. He was against WW3 in the first place but decided to don’t vocally resist the war effort to remain popular. On the other side, Bengu was a pro-government Zulu leader even before the end of apartheid and joined the ANC to win in his district. He was the right-wing mark of the party, advocated for Zulu autonomy and interests, mainly agricultural deregulation that greatly helped improving the living conditions of his constituents.
After the centrist Mbeki won the leadership with a narrow plurality, Tutu, with 46 urban MPs, founded his own Xhosa-based party, the African Popular Democratic Party (APDP) and wrote a social-democratic, anti-concordat, and pro urban voters-oriented platform. The 16 MP members of the Zulu right-wing of the ANC splintered from the party too and founded the Inkatha Freedom Party, led by the Sibusiso Bengu with a pro-tribal, right-wing platform. The rest of the ANC members, still led by Mbeki, decided to unite with the Nasionale Party partly for the sake of national unity, a move that Matanzima supported. He even decided to rename the party to the more inclusive “National Congress” in order to distance the party away from it pro-apartheid past and portray themselves as the party of equality and bewaring for all the south africans.
Meanwhile, the afrikaner far right-wing of the Nasionale party had felt betrayed because the NC wasn’t their party anymore. For them, while they could handle total suffrage, the unification with the ANC, along with the flag change on top of the fact that a black man was leading the party was the last straw. They switched over to the Herstigte Nasionale Party. The United party nominated moderate Afrikaner and pro-reconciliation activist Wynand Malan in order to attract Afrikaners but it was too little, too late for their party. Their anti-apartheid moderatism was not unique anymore on the south african political field as the NC started running as moderate conservatives, even centrists at some constituencies. The United party was projected to lose points elsewhere along with approximately two-thirds of their seats.
On the campaign trail, Matanzima and Mbeki crossed the whole country back and forth, promising to “keep up with the good work” and stay strong against “the Entebbe menace”. Tutu and Bengu competed for the rural seats of northern Southwest Africa province while solidifying their respective parties control over their target audiences. The United Party ran with a dull campaign, and got battered extremely during the election. It would be the last time they will receive more than ten seats before the party was wracked with divisions.
Matanzima won with a supermajority of 259 seats because of the absorption of the ANC, the situation with Entebbe pact and weak campaigning by the United Party, led to many seats switching hands while losing some seats to the HNP. The APDP got second with extra 5 seats, bringing them to 56 seats. To the 3rd place, the HNP reached with 36 seats, winning extra constituencies populated by disappointed Afrikaner farmers. The IFP and United party finished with 23 and 18 seats respectively. The NC got a strong support from the people of south africa to rule the nation through another turbulent term. With a divided opposition and the support of his party, the unified National Congress had a full mandate by itself.
Thank you @Roberto El Rey for the wikiboxes