Chapter Four: A Tragic Comedy
Justinian
Banned
The Situation in South Africa:
By April to May 1993, Marthinus Van Schalkwyk and Thabo Mbeki, the co-leaders of the provisional administration of the self styled Free Republic of South Africa, which in reality was mostly centered in Cape Town and some affiliated areas. Had finally managed to get the radical ANC to come to a general cooperation and ceasefire agreement. The latter's lack of actual weapons, other than small arms, and only minor Soviet support reduced their momentum significantly. They maintained their separate organization, while stockpiling and smuggling as many weapons as possible. The Free Republic of South Africa announced that not only would multiparty elections be held on the earliest opportunity, that apartheid was now null and void, and that the National Front Led Government was no longer legitimate, as it had violated the South African constitution. The pretenders in the east of the country would immediately lay down their arms and submit to elections. The National Front 'Junta' Government, centered in Pretoria, denounced these claims immediately, calling the Cape Town government a United States and Soviet front, and a simple attempt to steal South Africa's natural resources. However the formation of a rival government began to cost them the limited political legitimacy that they already had, requiring a new strategy, lest they be at complete odds with the world.
They announced that instead they intended normalize the situation of the 'Africans' in the long term, but also stated that were unequivocally defending the right of self determination, especially in the Afrikaaner states of the east. However they still had the loyalty of many of the British settlers in the west of the country. In the previous weeks and months, nearly all of South Africa's heavy weapons, aircraft and WMDs had been moved by train, truck or airlift in anticipation of growing unrest, as well as the conspiring of enemy political forces in Capetown. When the Capetown garrison refused to enforce martial law, nor the police to extend the state of emergency, the National Front and Junta immediately realized what was happening. They focused on fortifying an 'Orange Line', as a fallback line, as well maintaining garrisons in their sympathic areas. While small detachments of military police, soldiers and paramilitaries "consolidated" behind the orange line. These 'consolidations' resulting in streams of thousands of Black South Africans being forced to leave their homes and flooding to the west. The Junta decided that if they couldn't hold the entire country, they could at least maintain strategic depth and the possibility of succession to leverage against the liberals.
It was becoming extremely clear what the National Front was trying to do, while the term "ethnic cleansing" had not come into modern or popular parlance yet, it seemed as if they were trying to create a white state to politically legitimize themselves. Both Marthinus Van Schalwyk and Thabo Mbeki agreed this couldn't be allowed to happen for several reasons, mainly that fracturing South Africa could lead to political and economic chaos that had been and was being currently seen in other places in Africa. It would weaken the image of their anti Apartheit stance and lead to unrest in their own population, who demanded that something be done about it, especially about the mass tides of refugees. The 'Free Army of South Africa' (FASA) was organized, due to the wide spread association of the the 'South African Self Defence Force' (SADF) with Apartheit and the national front, as well as the leaders of the Junta. The problem the FASA faced was that while several complete units had in fact defected to it, including white and many of the black senior or junior enlisted. However, many of these units didn't have heavy weapons, and if they did, were outdated. However, nearly a hundred thousand volunteers to the free army signed up. So most of the FASA's original SADF units were split up, and turned into training cadres. The Cape Government was recognized by many countries as the legitimate government, including the USSR and USA.
There was a media frenzy in the United States about the conflict, as reports about unrest in the Soviet Union were beginning to grow stale without the striking leaked footage that was featured in late March and Early April. Many in both the United States and Europe, created, in the spirit of the international brigades, a volunteer force. Many of them were idealistic, college students but there were a few soldiers and dedicated enough individuals that an international unit could be formed in Cape Town. It recieved ample donations, which allowed it to hire soldiers and mercenaries to train it. This was extremely positive looking optics wise, and the American President Perot announced that the US would support the efforts of South Africa to keep democracy, fight racism and maintain their territorial integrity. With this, Perot, allowed the CIA and US Special Forces to assist in the training of the FASA and to a lesser extent the international fighters. An outright arms sale was debated in the American house, but generally recieved public support.
With this, the Junta was growingly increasingly isolated. However, in the United States, one figure came to their defence. William Pierce, a noted White Supremacist who had led the 'National Alliance' in the US, the largest Neo-Nazi organization in America. The National Alliance of course did not purport themselves to be Neo-Nazis, but by really any sort of paradigm, were mostly definitely fascistic, hyper nationalist and racist. Pierce saw in the Junta, what many in the far right craved for, a white ethno-state. These were the same people who had mythologized Rhodesia. They argued that the US was promoting "anti white" politics, and trying to destroy the only state in Africa that tolerated whites. He famously on the radio said that if South Africa fell, it would be a "holocaust of whites in Africa".
What could possibly be gained by associating with these kinds of characters, other than universal animosity? But as it became increasingly clear to the National Front government that they couldn't even rely on Israel for support, they accepted (Among others) Pierce's volunteers. Almost 8250 Neo Fascists/Nazis (From both Europe and America) managed to make their way to South Africa, often through chartered ships. The NF Government essentially created a secret land for fighters arrangement and tried to keep this quiet, but also agreed to Pierce's demands, that for their service they be given land, a place to make a community. A lot of these neo-nazis were criminals, veterans or paramiltarists but did have some tangible valuable skills, some possessed American military training, one such was Timothy McVeigh, who after coming home alienated from the Gulf War, had found his home with right-wing radicals. The only reason why the NF would agree to such a likely controversial move was due to the manpower problems they had. They had massive amounts of arms, artillery, aircraft and etc; but they had no one to use them. They also made use of many former Rhodesian volunteers, and many of the whites who lived in what was now Zimbabwe fled to their territory at the promise of land and white rule. At least they could use these radicals for internal security, or train some of them into proper soldiers to use the massive amount of arms just waiting around in depots. The NF was conscripting as much of the population was possible too, but this had it's own problems, as their own economy grinded to a halt. Their territories had to operate on rationed food and smuggling. They still had a good amount of the SADF's navy, which used to work with regimes in China, North Korea, Pakistan or Iran. As they became increasingly desperate for hard currency and goods.
The First Moves:
The Free Army of South Africa did not have many combat ready formations, they had to hire many African mercenaries if they wanted to break through the 'orange line' before the NF had a chance to dig in further. It was believed that if it could be shown that their military circumstances were hopeless early on, they might give up hope on this suicidal struggle and surrender, before the situation escalated. It became clear fairly fast that the NF had no intentions on surrendering, after making agreements with Lesotho's dictator Justin Lekhanya, for mutual support. The FASA organized two nearly brigade sized combat formations, mostly made up of mercenaries, some volunteers, some of their SADF forces and Western advisors. Western intelligence and observation planes, allowed to fly in their airfields, confirmed that the units at Vryburg and Kimberly were at best regiment sized. It was agreed that they would launch Operation Bantu Fury at mid May, on the 12th. It was a complete disaster, the hardened, disciplined units of the Junta's SADF completely and totally routed the FASA's forces, causing severe causalities in what few experienced units they had, and having lost a lot (admittedly replaceable) equipment. This played into the NF's hands, allowing them to demonstrate to their own domestic population that they were the just defenders of their homeland, and only trying to protect themselves from genocide. This narrative was aided by ethnic unrest in the Republic, as the sudden ending of Apartheit resulted in the murder of white farmers, race riots and violence within the cities. The failure of their offensive ensured that the war would go on, and only hardened the resolve of their enemies.
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I genuinely love the personality you have created, although he doesn't look to be as astute as Putin or Xi which will make for an interesting few years ahead. The space race seems equally fascinating, soviet and american moonbases would be fun.