South Africa

Laura Pollecutt

Terry Crawford-Browne

The Barclays Bank, HSBC and StanChart banking scandals well illustrate why the City of London is sometimes described as “the most corrupt square mile anywhere on the planet Earth!”
The British and the war business do corruption with panache. How apt that the villain in the Barclays saga is a man called “Diamond” -- for diamonds are symbolic of colonial conquest both in India and South Africa, as well as war and the passions of love.

Gathering Hosted by War Resisters' International and Ceasefire Campaign

Between the 26 – 30 July in Johannesburg, peacemakers from 12 countries in Africa met to share experiences, and birthed a new, continent-wide African Nonviolence and Peace-building Network. The delegates from over a dozen organizations pledged to intensify coordinated nonviolent resistance from the South to the North of Africa.

On 27 April the Defence Review Committee appointed by the Minister of Defence and Military Veterans published its draft report. That report is available at www.sadefencereview2012.org. On 14 May the Ceasefire Campaign made a submission to the Committee, criticising the draft report. That submission is available at www.ceasefire.org.za.

On 27 April the Defence Review Committee appointed by the Minister of Defence and Military Veterans published its Defence Review draft report. The last time South Africa undertook a Defence Review was in the late 1990s and it was in the context of a new democratic dispensation. However, those civil society organizations who participated in the 1996-98 review were disappointed and felt compromised by the final outcome.

Press statement issued by the Ceasefire Campaign

• Laura Pollecut

Conscription propped up the apartheid government. Without its regular intake of white youth, the apartheid regime could not have stayed in power as long as it did. The movement against conscription gained ground in the 1980s and was one of the contributing factors to the then government’s decision to enter negotiations. Finally after the first democratic elections in 1994, conscription became a thing of the past when South Africa introduced a voluntary professional army.

During apartheid, the South African regime desperately needed arms to suppress resistance within the country and to destabilise neighbouring countries opposed to its rule. To curb the Pretoria desperados, the United Nations imposed an arms embargo in 1963. Pretoria’s response was the development of its own arms production industry (now Denel) coupled with a cloak-and-dagger sanctions-busting procurement agency (now Armscor).

The apartheid government relied heavily on conscription to perpetuate its power in the region as well as to suppress the majority of South Africans.

Conscientious objection increased in the 1980s and found popular support in the End Conscription Campaign. The ever-increasing number of young white men refusing to serve in the apartheid army or just not turning up for duty, was a contributing factor to demise of the apartheid state. In 1993, with the first democratic election in sight, the ECC disbanded.

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Conscientious objection as it is "generally" understood today was first legally recognised in Europe and Australia in the early 20th century. However, legal and political concepts of conscientious objection are varied, and movements for conscientious objection respond to militarism differently, based on political circumstances and systems of recruitment.

Based on three case studies, the authors explain important issues/challenges for CO movements.

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In the 1980s international support for anti-apartheid activism in South Africa was growing, and pressure from grass-root organizations around the world led to sanctions against South Africa. An emphasis on nonviolence instead of violence within South Africa made it easier to generate widespread international resistance to Apartheid and isolate the Apartheid regime socially and economically.