South Africa

[StoneFrog]

Well i was born there, but left when i was 9; so my knowledge of its history isn't great. What country was south Africa involved in where they were fighting "communists", i have extended family which where in the army (mandatory). I know nothing of what exactly happened. Obviously it was during the apartheid. I kinda feel uncomfortable asking my family, since those who were in the army don't talk about anything related.

[Tommy4ever]

Angola.

Communists were also one of the main anti-apartheid forces so you could say they were fighting those damn reds at home as well.

[StoneFrog]

cheers =]

[maskerade]

They had extensive military operations in Angola, as well as sponsoring an atrocious terrorist group in Mozambique called Renamo (a group which even the US state department declined to supply aid to). Renamo are responsible for the massive minefields in Mozambique which have claimed thousands of lives.

South Africa was a client state of the US, and was used in Africa much the same way Israel is used today in US foreign policy. Angola was the main proxy-war battlefront between the USSR and the US during the cold war, with each sponsoring opposing sides. The national liberation movements in Zimbabwe, Angola (well the MPLA) and Mozambique were all united in their struggle against colonialism as well as capitalism - FRELIMO in Mozambique sponsored the ANC and thus had to face the wrath of Boer Nationalists.

[rednordman]

They had extensive military operations in Angola, as well as sponsoring an atrocious terrorist group in Mozambique called Renamo (a group which even the US state department declined to supply aid to). Renamo are responsible for the massive minefields in Mozambique which have claimed thousands of lives.

South Africa was a client state of the US, and was used in Africa much the same way Israel is used today in US foreign policy. Angola was the main proxy-war battlefront between the USSR and the US during the cold war, with each sponsoring opposing sides. The national liberation movements in Zimbabwe, Angola (well the MPLA) and Mozambique were all united in their struggle against colonialism as well as capitalism - FRELIMO in Mozambique sponsored the ANC and thus had to face the wrath of Boer Nationalists.You know the big irony of that Remano group you mention is that a lot of people blame the communists for the minefields left over from the wars. I remember someone having a dig at Che Guevara (not in angola, but still) quoting something like this. As if it was him alone who placed all the land mines there.

Its funny how people simply pre-assume that if there is something terrible done, it was the communists that did it. I bet alot of people in the west (including the US obviously) actually thought the Remano where communist, otherwise they probably would have sponsored them. They have sponsored worse.

[maskerade]

another interesting thing about apartheid South Africa is that they developed extensive ties with Israel - they even developed a nuclear weapons program based upon Israeli advice.

Israel is the only state that can make Apartheid South Africa look like a liveable country

[Rooster]

I was watching a documentary which I believe was about prisons. The south african episode featured some guy who was involved in that war and he was saying how he had a necklace of ears and stuff like that.

[CitizenSmith]

The ANC with its armed division the Umkhonto we Sizwe (spear of the nation) was much more leftist in its earlier days (unsuprising, considering its roots in as a Trade Union), becoming increasingly right wing as it has begun to work within the confines of capitalism rather than against it.

[Ismail]

The ANC with its armed division the Umkhonto we Sizwe (spear of the nation) was much more leftist in its earlier days (unsuprising, considering its roots in as a Trade Union), becoming increasingly right wing as it has begun to work within the confines of capitalism rather than against it.Actually I don't recall it having its roots as a trade union. IIRC it was originally, long ago, a petty-bourgeois black organization. Progressive, but not leftist. It moved to the left after the 1940's as apartheid was introduced and as members of the South African Communist Party began actively collaborating with it. Its armed struggle, although inspiring, had very little in the way of concrete successes and the apartheid government would constantly claim that the ANC was a "puppet" of the SACP.

After 1983 the ANC conducted most public activities through the United Democratic Front, and from this began the move from a publicly pro-Soviet, socialist position to a reformist, "mixed economy" one. As apartheid began to unravel after 1989 the ANC leadership took the line that any continued militancy would sabotage its ending and therefore appealed for calm, reconciliation, etc.

Today it's little more than a social-democratic party with an influential right-wing. It loves to document its early history and it does have some militant and left-wing members, but it exploits its legacy much in the same way Daniel Ortega and the modern-day FSLN exploit the 1970's and 80's in order to keep up their "heroic," "indispensable," "independent," etc. image for the electorate. It also has some leftover "democratic centralist" views and mentalities from when it used to be an underground group well versed in Soviet theories on governance, but this has just attuned it towards political favoritism and cronyism under the cover of the ANC being the party of "the masses" and extending the gains of the "revolution" and such.