WI: South African civil/race war?

Pikers3

South Africa's transition from Apartheid to a normal society was remarkable peaceful and quick. This surprised many at the time who had predicted something much worse.

So say that instead of the peaceful transition, it turns bloody. Maybe the assassination of Nelson Mandela at the wrong time removes the major supporter and driver of a peaceful transition. The blacks react by protests and armed revolts and the SA army/police respond with force creating a downward slope into civil war as we have seen in Syria.

So, what would have happened if civil war had broken out in the late 80's or early 90's? Would have the blacks been repressed? Would the blacks have won and forced normal relations between the two communities or even started expelling whites? or would we have seen SA partitioned between the White Cape and Black rest of South Africa?
 

clifton

Pikers3 said:
South Africa's transition from Apartheid to a normal society was remarkable peaceful and quick. This surprised many at the time who had predicted something much worse.

So say that instead of the peaceful transition, it turns bloody. Maybe the assassination of Nelson Mandela at the wrong time removes the major supporter and driver of a peaceful transition. The blacks react by protests and armed revolts and the SA army/police respond with force creating a downward slope into civil war as we have seen in Syria.

So, what would have happened if civil war had broken out in the late 80's or early 90's? Would have the blacks been repressed? Would the blacks have won and forced normal relations between the two communities or even started expelling whites? or would we have seen SA partitioned between the White Cape and Black rest of South Africa?
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Likely end with a UN intervention. South Africa has nukes at that time and valuable resources. The moment that the civil war starts it will end as fast as it begun. It will be a Bosnia. However the white population will drop more then otl. But I think it will remain a round 6% of the population. There will be of course other refugees(blacks, coloureds and Indians.) but the average population has less means to leave. South Africa will just be the African version of Bosnia.
 
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Marius

There are a number of PODs that could see a civil war break out in South Africa.

During the early 1990s there was a de facto civil war between Inkatha and the ANC in KwaZulu, and the townships of Durban and the Witwatersrand. This could have easily become a wider conflict, especially following the Shell House massacre.

Another trigger could have been a right-wing coup. Constand Viljoen believed that he could have overthrown the National Party government and installed a military government and halted the reforms. However, when he realised how backwards many of the right-wing were, he decided to join the negotiations for a new South Africa.
 

Andrew Hudson

The most likely civil war would have been in some of the townships not so much as between Xhose and Zulu but between the ANC and Inkatha. As it was there was a low key civil war but Inkatha lacked the support of much of the Zulu community and Inkatha sprang moere from a conflict between a largely Xhosa exile or imprisoned leadershop in the ANC and largely Zulu based group remaining in South Africa.

The more astute Afrikaaners knew the change was inevitable and it was in their intrests to relinquish power peacefully. The end of the cold war meant thatthe US didn't need SA as an ally, the banks threatened to withold a loan and the armed forces were loosing the war. Also the unions had the power to render the country ungovernable without firing a shot. In fact the power of the unions helped facilitate a peaceful transition. Myabe attacking the unions would ghave caused a civil war.
 
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