What a bunch of crap.
They knew the consequences of just pulling the rug from out of the SA government....chaos and civil war....Constructive Engagement was the way to go.
I read a book around 20 years ago about the KGB.
One thing I recall was they were given 3 missions which were of great importance and which they placed most of their resources.
One of those was the takeover of South Africa. That included Angola, Mozambique, SW Africa as well as the country of South Africa.
Personally, I never gave a crap. Why should we support a bunch of communist murderers anyway?
Andrew Young was Pres.Carter's rep in the UN at that time: He was making a lot of noise about how the indigent populations should take control of their home countries (especially South Africa) and rule as democracies - complete with unicorns, fairy dust, and lots of sparkle! This was AFTER Rhodesia went down, too ....
Well look how well its all turned out. sarc
It was also prosperous, relatively safe and a 1st world nation. Now what you got?
Reagan met with Chief Buthelezi, and Buthelezi even warned Reagan that Sanctions would be disastrous.
Of course Mandela, who was a Xhosa, hated Zulus, especially Buthelezi.
Ahhhh, but they never tell you about how the two main black tribes in SA still hate each other, even more than they hate the Afrikaners.
The whites need to totally leave and let the tribes kill each other off. Period.
In 1993 Curry published a bold depiction of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas with an Aunt Jemima handkerchief on his head on the front cover.
I guess we were afraid it could turn into Detroit.
(((YAWN))) Another America-hating crybaby. So what else is new.
That said, South Africa was, and still is, no more ready for pure democracy than is the West Bank. The last two decades have proven that.
name me one country in Africa that has benefited more from black rule than white rule in the last 100 years .
Because what they got with majority rule has been so much more beneficial for everyone involved!
I’m not convinced apartheid was the way to go. I do know that what looks black and white to foreign nationals generally isn’t reality on the ground.
I see the whole thing something like this.
If the Palestinians were able to kick all Jews out of Israel, would there be peace? I’d give it about 24 months before the Palestinians would find someone else to be mad at, and it would start all over.
That’s what will take place in South Africa ultimately. When Whites have been kicked out, I pitty the African nationals that remain. There will be carnage of Biblical proportions IMO.
Honestly, I’m not sure how an industrialized society can enter a nation like South Africa, tap it’s resources and manage it so that the locals are compensated properly, and the economic success floats all boats.
I think it’s a lot easier said than done.
It seems like when it’s tried a few strong-men (more often than not ONE), becomes too big for his britches and the rest of the nationals are abused.
Those who oppose the West now, would have at some point have criticized the education of African nationals along the Western cultural lines. It would have been ugly no matter how it was tried.
As South Africa continues to melt down, those who hated the White governance in Africa may come to miss that governance.
What lies ahead is not bliss my friends.
The US did not support apartheid, it also did not support terrorism.
The blacks living under Apartheid were far better off than those in Nearby Angola being murdered by Soviet Hind Gunships flown by white pilots, tortured to death in Angolan prisons by white East German Stasi, or slaughtered in their villages by Cuban Mercenary troops of the Soviet Empire. Similar Soviet Wars of Colonial Conquest were also happening in Mozambique, Ethiopia, Eritrea,and Rhodesia. This perspective is glaringly absent in this propaganda piece.
It was the Regan Doctrine of supporting anti Communist guerrilla fighters in those countries in Africa,Central America, and Afghanistan that caused the collapse of the Soviet Empire that ultimately freed Nelson Mandela from prison.
After the ANC lost their Soviet benefactor which aided them to the tune of $200 million a year, the communist Mandela was not seen as the threat he was earlier, so the SA authorities released him. And Mandela realized that he could not turn SA into a communist police state overnight without Soviet backing moderated his stand on the future of SA.
The hero in this true history is not Nelson Mandela but Ronald Reagan.