Apartheid Essay ⋆ Criminal Justice Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

Apartheid was a formal policy of segregation in the Republic of South Africa. The focus was to deprive non-Europeans of political and economic opportunities and benefits. Racial discrimination began long before apartheid was officially implemented as state policy in 1948. In 1913, the Land Act was passed. It created a separation between the native Africans and the European descendants. The Land Act prohibited black Africans from working as sharecroppers and required that they live separate from the European Africans in areas known as “reserves.”

Immediately there was controversy relating to the passing of the Land Act. Those who formally opposed its passage were referred to as the South African National Native Congress, whose name later became the African National Congress (ANC). The ANC was outlawed by South Africa’s first prime minister, Daniel Francois Malan, an ordained minister of the Dutch Reformed Church. In 1950 the government of South Africa went further by classifying all residents in one of four racial categories: white, black, colored (representing those of mixed race), and Asian (as a reference to those of Indian or Pakistani descent). After classification was implemented, the government sought to ensure that the races would have as little contact as possible by preserving more than 80 percent of the land to be owned by the whites and requiring that the native Africans carry paperwork that authorized them to be in “restricted” areas that were reserved for whites. By procuring a majority of the land for the European inhabitants, the effect of government policy was to substantially increase the rate of poverty among the native population. To ensure segregation, the government established dual entrances to facilities, one for whites, one for nonwhites, and also sought to prevent the natives

from participating in government or having political rights as full citizens.

In several ways, the government policies of South Africa were not unlike the policy in the United States against the native population whose land and rights often were denied. Many Native American populations to this day live on reservations that were created in the 18th and 19th centuries. Both South Africa and the United States were nascent nations when they undertook policies that benefitted a European-descendant ruling class. The Republic of South Africa gained its independence from its status as a British colony in 1910. Its Land Act was passed only three years later. South Africa did not obtain the status of republic until after it left the British Commonwealth in 1961. As it developed as a nation and as it suffered from economic depression along with much of the world in the 1930s, the government pursued a consolidation of its power by exaggerating the racial divide. This had historical context in Europe as well, as the colonial countries and new leaders of South Africa carried this lamentable tradition with its ill effects in isolation from the European and much of the world’s scrutiny. One notable divergence was the use of security forces within the police departments of South Africa to implement torture and killings on the government’s behalf. In Europe, it was the military, not the police departments, which enacted acts of violence and repression against its own citizens.

Security Police

Under the National Party, various factions within the government sought to enforce apartheid policies in as many facets of cultural and political life as it could. The police developed a security force and an intelligence branch, which it used to gather information about antiapartheid activists and ANC members. The ANC was a threat as they were politically organized and represented those the National Party sought to oppress. The security police acted with impunity to orchestrate responses to any threat or perceived threat to the ruling elite. On June 16, 1976, African students protested a newly established decree that ordered all education to take place in the languages of Afrikaans and English as opposed to native Bantu languages. Students from various schools in Soweto were walking to the soccer stadium to attend a rally when police attempted to turn them back with tear gas.

The police were unsuccessful so they escalated their efforts by driving in tanks and firing live ammunition into the crowd of unarmed children. Two children died, and hundreds were injured, leading to a revolt that became known as the Soweto Uprising. This marked the initial active uprising by black students and ANC members. Both the students and the ANC leaders reasoned that by requiring education to be delivered in Afrikaans, the failure and diminished opportunities for the local student population would be ensured. They collectively understood that those students who would most likely present political resistance to the oppressive policies would be those in the higher grades. Afrikaans-imposed education ensured they would not pass and would be displaced from school to work in the local mines, where they could be subjugated to work in dangerous conditions for meager pay. It also marked a critical moment of distrust and animosity between the police and those who lived in the townships.

Dirk Coetzee, a captain for the South African security police at Vlakplaas, led a police squad that killed antiapartheid activists, which included members of the ANC. Additionally, Coetzee trained other police officers and former ANC members in counterinsurgency tactics to generate intelligence that would be used to defend white control in countries throughout the African continent. Coetzee admitted to his crimes after he fled South Africa and moved to Zimbabwe in 1990. Coetzee stated that he was ordered by government officials, including President F. W. de Klerk, to kill ANC members in order to “preserve white rule.” This sentiment was embraced and propagated by all leaders of the Afrikaner Nationalist Party as they believed the rule of whites over blacks was divinely ordained. Coetzee left Vlakplaas in the 1980s, but allegations of police death squads initiating murders of antiapartheid activists carried well into the 1990s.

Aside from direct killings, the security police were accused of fueling armed conflicts between groups within South Africa. Local people and foreign journalists reported witnessing police officers arming Zulus, a different ethnic group from the Bantus who primarily made up the ANC. The police transported the armed Zulus in armored police vehicles to areas where the Zulus fired upon ANC members. Sometimes the police painted their faces black and joined them. Aside from direct participation in political assassinations, the police often refused to respond to calls for assistance or delayed response. The security forces worked both indirectly and directly to instigate homicides while failing to reduce violence or secure neighborhoods from crime.

Sensing a shift in political leadership, various members of the security police came forward in the late 1990s and presented evidence of planned political murders, instigation of violence, training and arming of Zulu death squads, and the deliberate engagement of ANC members in crimes such as prostitution and drug dealing in order to compromise them. After receiving both physical and oral evidence that these crimes were orchestrated by the highest levels of the South African police, Police Commissioner Johan van der Merwe, under President de Klerk’s leadership, refused to step down and maintained his position. More disturbing than the recounting of illegal acts were the statements and evidence that revealed that the violence and murders occurred whenever negotiations toward peace between the Afrikaners and the ANC were progressing. The security police acted on its own, outside the orders of the political party’s leaders to dismantle any progress toward peaceful resolution. Statements made by former commanders indicated that their greatest fear was that white control of South Africa would not continue, and they believed they had to ensure that the whites remained in power. This led high-ranking members of the police to actively engage in directed homicides, mass killings, and provocation of instability.

Under international political pressure, President de Klerk initiated investigations in 1990 into the actions of the security police. Government prosecutors dismissed cases against Afrikaner officials. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission began to hear testimony about the murders of thousands of ANC members and antiapartheid activists by police members. Dirk Coetzee was one of the first to request amnesty. Coetzee was found guilty of murdering ANC members but was never sentenced. Even President de Klerk claimed he could not control or contain the police security forces. They had become their own political entity and sanctioned indiscriminate, abhorrent policies and actions they deemed appropriate to perpetuate apartheid.

Ethical Considerations in Post-Apartheid South Africa

While apartheid was taking place, the international community created and implemented ineffective embargoes. The embargoes were limited in scope, weak in enforcement, and inconsistently applied. Since the abolition of apartheid, policies that were set to correct the imbalance of power and basic human rights, such as equal opportunities for affordable housing, education, employment, and income, have been as ineffective as the embargoes had been. The elite whites who remained in South Africa claimed that the new policies were antithetical to global market forces and represented reverse discrimination. The white population concedes the immorality of apartheid policies, but the notion of entitlement remains embedded in their collective conscious. To this day, the housing market through property values, media representations, banking regulations, and educational resources continues to accelerate wealth for the white elites. The resources accumulated during the apartheid years are being leveraged to maintain status and wealth through the corruption of new black leaders. Transformation policies have not been implemented with ethical remuneration of equal distributions of resources and opportunities. If those who benefitted from racial disparity do not relinquish their monopoly of resources, commerce, and labor, the goal of restoring the capabilities of those harmed by apartheid cannot be achieved. The culture of institutions remains unchanged and unethical traditions remain.

Bibliography:

Cowell, A. “South Africa Losing a Grip on Its Promise.” International Herald Tribune. (December 28, 2012).
Goldstone, R. J. For Humanity: Reflections of a War Crimes Investigator. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2000.
Lapping, B. Apartheid: A History. New York: HarperCollins, 1987.
Meredith, M. Coming to Terms: South Africa’s Search for Truth. New York: Public Affairs, 1999.
Mermelstein, D., ed. The Anti-Apartheid Reader: South Africa and the Struggle Against White Racist Rule. New York: Grove Press, 1987.
Waldmeir, P. Anatomy of a Miracle: The End of Apartheid and the Birth of a New South Africa. New York: W. W. Norton, 1997.

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