Insurgency,Terrorism and the Apartheid System in South Africa

Abstract

This article discusses the development of guerrilla insurgency in South Africa and the government response centred around the concept of ‘total strategy’. After distinguishing analytically between the notions of ‘terrorism’ and ‘guerrilla warfare’, the insurgent campaign is seen to have a threefold impact in terms of loss of economic confidence, sapping of white morale and a mobilization of black political consciousness. The resulting response of ‘total strategy’ effectively represents an escalation of previous efforts to entrench a black middle class as a factor to enhance political stability, though political isolation of South Africa from close western support makes it problematical that the South African state can avoid a strategy of full-scale counter-terror to the increased insurgency threat.