The Geneva conference on Namibian independence did bear fruit. A ceasefire was declared, supervised and honoured. Elections took place early the following year — with not unexpected results. It was true that SWAPO commanded a majority in the constituent assembly, but it was a slender majority. The strength of the other parties, in particular the Democratic Turnhalle Alliance and the Namibia National Party, were such that the two-thirds majority necessary to pass the new constitution ensured inclusion in it of the guarantees about which South Africa, the Afrikaners of Namibia and the Western group had shown such concern. And so to the world's mild astonishment and relief, 1983 saw the success story of Zimbabwe repeated in Namibia. As we shall see later, this success story was not to go on for very long. None the less, in 1983 there were other grounds for encouragement.
Progress in South Africa itself may have been less striking, but was significant in that there was progress at all. Apart from Pretoria's long declared intention of introducing a programme of gradual reform, a further reason for making some political concessions was growing confidence in South Africa's military strength through measures taken to counteract the insecurity which many South African whites had previously felt. These feelings were understandable. There were after all some 300 Soviet tanks in Mozambique together with the most sophisticated air defence weapons. Soviet, East German and Cuban advisers assisted with both manning equipment and training, and although Mozambique's armed forces were no more than 30,000 strong, they were becoming efficient both in their own right and in supporting guerrillas of the African National Congress (ANC).
Zimbabwe, which had signed a secret defence pact with Mozambique, had finally, after early setbacks, successfully integrated its regular and guerrilla forces and now commanded a well-equipped and well-trained Defence Force of 50,000 men greatly experienced in the very sort of fighting that would be appropriate to any confrontation with South Africa. Botswana's army was very small, a mere few thousand, but they too had taken delivery of Soviet tanks and other vehicles, weapons and ammunition. Angola had regular armed forces of roughly the same size as Mozambique — some 30,000 — and were supported by 20,00 °Cuban, 3,000 East German and several hundred Soviet advisers. Between them they operated aircraft and heavy equipment, provided advice and training to the Angolan armed forces, and could if necessary be used in actual operations. Angola's Organization of Popular Defence backed this up with a paramilitary force of about half a million men.
Thus the conventional military strength on which the black frontline states could call was by no means insignificant. In the past, South Africa had attempted to safeguard both its internal and external security by punitive cross-border raids — notably from Namibia into Angola, to say nothing of raids on Maputo. While it was clear that South Africa's armed forces, with their superior numbers, equipment and training, could always produce local successes in cross-border raids, there was no question of their contemplating military operations to occupy a neighbouring country. Indeed these raids themselves were often conducted by non-South African black troops, led by white officers. The South African-led raids in Angola, for example, made use of former FNLA black Angolans who were opposed to the MPLA. They also supported UNITA forces to disrupt SWAPO guerrillas. Similarly, South Africa made use of members of the Mozambique National Resistance (MNR) for the raids on ANC guerrilla houses near Maputo. In Angola the raids disrupted the economy and served to demonstrate the penalties to be paid for harbouring anti-South African dissidents. In Mozambique they interfered with ANC guerrillas and made it plain to those who supported them that they could not do so with impunity. There had also been raids into Zambia and Zimbabwe before negotiations about Namibia's future began to be taken seriously. Even relatively harmless support given to refugees from South Africa in Botswana and Lesotho, neither of which countries had associated themselves with ANC military activities, did not go unpunished.
The South African Defence Force was substantial, mustering about half a million men, of which some 200,000 were actually under arms, and the remainder readily mobilizable. Apart from the regular forces and national servicemen, who made up between them about 100,000, there was a Citizen Force of 50,000 and local militia commandos of similar size. In addition, the South African police amounted to 40,000, with half that number again in reserve. It was essential that the loyalty of those under arms was beyond question, for the real threat to South Africa's security came from within.
The Marxist ANC was not the only black opposition group but it was certainly the most important. Much of its support came from Moscow. It had gained general international standing by both its discipline and its realism. Its military wing, Umklonto we Sizwe, could call on perhaps 10,000 trained guerrilla fighters, and although there were no ANC bases in South Africa itself, it did have within the country far-reaching political support from the black population and had established an underground network. Its guerrilla operations mainly involved industrial sabotage which was directed at targets such as the oil refineries and electrical power stations and grids in Cape Province, Natal and the Orange Free State. There were, however, those in the movement who favoured widening the range of targets to heighten feelings of insecurity among the whites and give pause to Western sources of either investment or participation in South Africa's economy.
Other opposition organizations-from which many defected to join the more powerful and effective ANC — included the South African Youth Revolutionary Council, which had a strong base in Botswana; the Black Consciousness Movement of Azania; and the Azania People's Organization, which had been particularly successful in controlling some of the new black trade unions and disrupting work at a number of international industrial concerns. The ANC were quick to applaud such activities. It regarded trade union action as a crucial force in the struggle for liberation, not least because it was able to engage in this struggle within the law.
Also within the law was the Inkhata, the largest black organization in South Africa, based in Zululand and headed by Chief Kwazulu. Kwazulu, a direct descendant of the great Zulu warrior King Cetewayo, had always been a controversial figure. Indeed to be denounced by Pretoria and the ANC yet remain on constructive speaking terms with both put him firmly in the centre of South African politics. However dangerous this ground might be, it did offer some hope of compromise in adjusting South Africa's constitution so that it corresponded more closely to the racial balance within the country.
Just as moderation and compromise had for the moment won the day in Namibia in the face of opposing extremes, so a comparable course was charted for non-violent change in South Africa itself. Kwazulu's proposals for power-sharing were in essence that the white-administered state of Natal and the neighbouring black homeland of the Zulus should be merged. Although the ANC had not hesitated in 1977 to condemn Kwazulu's acceptance of limited self-government, they found his new proposals more difficult to reject. Indeed they recognized that while urban black support for the ANC was still far greater than for Inkhata, an increasing number of ANC militants were joining Inkhata because, in their own words, 'It was the legitimate offspring of the ANC. Implementing Kwazulu's proposals for Natal, with their emphasis on black power-sharing, might well be a preferable course of action to a war of liberation. No matter how wide the support for military action might be within the ANC itself and among young blacks elsewhere, fighting a full-scale war against the whites at that time could only result in a very large number of black deaths, further repression and continued white supremacy and apartheid for another generation.