| General
Magnus Malan, the chief architect of the total onslaught
of the apartheid military, passed away on 18 July 2011.
This total onslaught strategy was the idea that South Africa
was threatened by a communist conspiracy and that the South
African apartheid state must respond with economic, political,
ideological, psychological and military tools to defend
capitalism and white supremacy. Malan was minister of defense
for 11 years (1980�1991), and it was under his tenure that
the apartheid war machine spread death and destruction across
Africa. Under his tenure as minister of defense this illegal
state decided to weaponise biology. The results are still
being felt across Africa today with the ramifications of
the biological warfare project that was called Project Coast.
Malan�s life and death should remind young people that the
fight for freedom must be sustained in as much as the economic,
military and political vestiges of apartheid still threaten
total emancipation. Africans may occupy positions of political
power in South Africa but the economic legacies of apartheid
are very much flourishing.
 Internationally,
the crimes of the Nazis are condemned. German society no
longer celebrates Hitler and the Nazis as great leaders,
but in South Africa the publishing houses and think-tanks
that were nourished and financed by Magnus Malan thrive
and distort history. Many of these think-tanks have changed
their names, but not their basic philosophy. Yet the people
of South Africa have tried to transcend the ideation system
of revenge and bitterness. The people have attempted to
draw on the principles of Ubuntu in practice. Hiding behind
the new philosophy of Ubuntu, the war criminals of South
Africa have sought to rehabilitate themselves as servants
of the South African state and as fighters against communism.
The central place of the military in the processes of accumulation
and enrichment has been taken over by sections of the African
National Congress (ANC). Younger South Africans must work
harder to completely understand the real consequences of
apartheid and to remember that one cannot dismantle the
system with the same ideas that built it.
APARTHEID AS A CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY
Magnus Malan was born into white privilege in South Africa
in 1930 when the ideas of Hitler and white supremacy had
not yet taken over the leadership of the organisation that
was to later become the National Party. By the end of the
Second World War, the National Party had completely absorbed
the ideas and principles of Nazism and codified them into
a series of laws and forms of organising society that still
cripple South Africa to this day. Operating through a secretive
organisation called the Afrikaner Broederbond, some of the
adherents of the National Party had been interned during
Second World War because of their overt support for Adolf
Hitler and the ideas of the Nazis. This National Party came
to power in 1948 and through the period 1948 to 1990 this
party articulated a set of principles that entrenched white
minority rule. Apartheid as a doctrine codified and structured
life in society with brutal force and super-exploitation.
Malan was born in the period when the administrative system
had relegated blacks to �reserves�, but the demand for labour
brought Africans into the urban areas where they were dumped
into marginal and police-controlled areas called townships.
Malan matured within the secret order of the Afrikaner Broederbond
and became one of the principal thinkers for the military
plans for the next three decades.
This system of apartheid controlled every aspect of the
lives of Africans and other oppressed peoples called �Coloured�
and �Indians�. Masters and servants ordinances and the pass
laws defined the position of Africans and regulated their
freedom of movement. The Group Areas Act, the Native Land
Act, the Population Registration Act, the Reservation and
Separate Amenities Act and the Suppression of Communism
Act were all part of the legal basis for the consolidation
of the South African form of Nazism that was called apartheid.
When Africans opposed these draconian measures they were
shot down in the streets, with the Sharpeville Massacre
of 1961 standing as one of the most notorious actions of
this militarized society.
Malan joined the military after graduating from the University
of Pretoria and was sent to the United States to train over
the period 1962�1963. It was during this time that Magnus
Malan strengthened ties with conservative and racist military
forces within the US military establishment. After rising
through the ranks of the apartheid military, Malan was promoted
to become chief of the army (1973�1976), and chief of the
defense forces (1976�1980). He was appointed minister of
defense in 1980 and served in this position until 1991.Those
US military personnel who want to establish relations with
Africa would do well to research and expose the linkages
of Malan to the US military establishment so that the present
generation would be aware of the collaboration between the
US military and apartheid.
MALAN AND TOTAL STRATEGY
Despite the efforts to crush the resistance of the people,
the organised and spontaneous opposition to apartheid galvanised
an international movement. Malan fancied himself as a military
intellectual who had studied the campaigns of France in
Algeria and the British in Kenya and Malaysia. After the
independence of Angola and Mozambique in 1975 and the massive
uprisings of Soweto in 1976, Malan and the thinkers of the
apartheid state came up with the military doctrine of 'total
strategy'. This strategy was supposed to be the apartheid
regime's response to what it perceived as a multi-dimensional
'total onslaught' against the South African state.
To carry forward this strategy the military became central
to the reproduction of state power. This was reflected not
only in the links between the military and industry, epitomised
in the Armaments Corporation of South Africa (ARMSCOR),
but also in the militarisation of the state and society.
Under Magnus Malan and Prime Minister P.W. Botha, the management
techniques of the South African Defense Forces were harnessed
to militarise every aspect of life. Total Strategy meant
that the apartheid state mobilised economic, military, political,
medical, information, cultural and psychological tools to
preserve capitalism and white supremacy. Malan was at the
top of an aggressive state organised under a National Security
Management System (NSMS). An inner war cabinet called the
State Security Council linked the military to local administrative
structures through joint management committees and a decentralised
system of 'security management' at all levels.
This Total Strategy received a boost after the election
of Margaret Thatcher in Britain in 1979 and Ronald Reagan
in the United States in 1980. Through a series of meetings
with William Casey of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
of the USA, there was a decision to intensify the wars against
the peoples of South Africa and the region as a whole. The
long-term plans of the South African State Security Council
merged well with the anti-communist policies of the Reagan
administration. The United States supported apartheid and
acted as a buffer for apartheid when the United Nations
wanted to impose stricter sanctions. It was in this period
when intellectuals such as Chester Crocker (who was by then
the US�s assistant secretary of state for African affairs)
became international spokespersons for the defense of apartheid
on the grounds that the South African state was in the frontline
struggle against communism. The liberation movements of
South Africa were labelled as terrorist organisations and
Nelson Mandela was kept in jail as the number-one terrorist.
MAGNUS MALAN AS A WAR CRIMINAL UNDER THE UN CONVENTION
The local struggles against apartheid inspired an international
movement, and in this struggle the South African apartheid
state became isolated in the court of international public
opinion. In 1973 the General Assembly of the United Nations
had under the Apartheid Convention declared that apartheid
was a crime against humanity and that �inhuman acts resulting
from the policies and practices of apartheid and similar
policies and practices of racial segregation and discrimination�
were international crimes.
Article 2 of the Apartheid Convention defined the crime
of apartheid, stating that it �shall include similar policies
and practices of racial segregation and discrimination as
practiced in southern Africa.� This extended to �inhuman
acts committed for the purpose of establishing and maintaining
domination by one racial group of persons over any other
racial group of persons and systematically oppressing them�.
It then listed the acts that fell within the ambit of the
crime. These included murder, torture, inhuman treatment
and arbitrary arrest of members of a racial group; deliberate
imposition on a racial group of living conditions calculated
to cause its physical destruction; legislative measures
that discriminate in the political, social, economic and
cultural fields; measures that divide the population along
racial lines by the creation of separate residential areas
for racial groups; the prohibition of interracial marriages;
and the persecution of persons opposed to apartheid.
International criminal responsibility was to apply to individuals,
members of organisations and representatives of the state
who commit, incited or conspired to commit the crime of
apartheid.
This position was again stated explicitly at the Second
World Conference against Racism in Geneva in 1983.
Under this UN convention Malan qualified as a war criminal
for the systematic oppression that had been meted out against
the peoples of South Africa and the region as a whole. While
South Africa faced diplomatic isolation with the support
of the US military and intelligence, the South African military
created proxy armies such as the MNR (Mozambique National
Resistance) in Mozambique and supported �leaders� such as
Jonas Savimbi in Angola.
 It
was during the tenure of Magnus Malan that the South African
armed forces, like swarms of locusts, left death and destruction
in their wake. It was estimated by UN sources that by the
end of apartheid over $80 billion dollars� worth of destruction
and economic damage had been wreaked across the region of
Southern Africa. Over two million persons were killed, maimed,
displaced or made refugees as the SADF (South African Defense
Force) fought across the breadth of southern Africa. In
Angola, SADF fought both a conventional and irregular war
(justified in the West as a fight against a Soviet/Cuban
threat to Western strategic resources), and in Namibia apartheid
South Africa deployed over 100,000 troops to fight a counter-insurgency
war against the South West African Peoples' Organisation
(SWAPO of Namibia). In Mozambique the apartheid regime organised
a war to destabilise Frelimo, and in the other front-line
states the South African regime carried out economic sabotage.
Despite this 'total strategy' the military failed to crush
the rebellion of the South African masses at their places
of work, in the townships and in schools. The resistance
of the people took numerous forms. This resistance inspired
a large international movement. Magnus Malan deployed troops
in the urban townships and unleashed permanent terror against
the poor.
The South African armed forces, in collaboration with some
elements in the US government, attempted to impose Jonas
Savimbi on Angola. They launched a three-phase operation
called �Modular, Hooper and Packer� to destroy Angola. This
military invasion was stopped at Cuito Cuanavale and the
South Africans were decisively defeated. Despite this defeat
the propaganda and psychological warfare of the apartheid
state had been so entrenched that it was difficult to sell
to the white supremacists the idea that the whites were
defeated in battle. After the overthrow of overt apartheid,
Malan wrote his own memoirs of this battle, claiming that
the South African state won at Cuito Cuanavale. This was
published in his memoirs, �Magnus Malan: My Life with the
South African Defense Forces�.
WEAPONISING BIOLOGY
Before the independence of Zimbabwe, the South Africans
and the Rhodesian military developed a weaponised form of
anthrax that it deployed against the African people. It
was under the leadership of Magnus Malan as minister of
defense where the dreaded Project Coast was initiated. We
now know some of the criminal actions that were carried
out from the testimonies at the Truth and Reconciliation
Commission (TRC). Malan and P.W. Botha recruited Dr Wouter
Basson to coordinate an offensive chemical and biological
warfare (CBW) programme. Basson under Malan ran the CBW
program during the 1980s and early 1990s in a desperate
effort to save this system of oppression. Testimonies before
the TRC highlighted the fact that this Project Coast,
�� developed lethal chemical and biological weapons that
targeted ANC political leaders and their supporters as well
as populations living in the black townships. These weapons
included an infertility toxin to secretly sterilize the
black population; skin-absorbing poisons that could be applied
to the clothing of targets; and poison concealed in products
such as chocolates and cigarettes.
�� released cholera strains into water sources of certain
South African villages and provided anthrax and cholera
to the government troops of Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) during
the late 1970s to use against the rebel soldiers in the
guerrilla war.�
In the book �Medical Apartheid�, Harriet Washington summed
up the extent of this grand plan to weaponise biology. She
wrote that in response to the massive anti-apartheid struggles:
�apartheid politicians and scientists funded research and
development of exotic biological and chemical weapons for
use against the black majority so that the power of weaponized
biological might help the white minority to destroy its
opponents without firing a shot.�
Project Coast researched the development of deadly bacteria
that would only affect blacks.
With many of the books and articles on these bizarre criminal
acts focusing on Wouter Basson � who was the lead scientist
of Project Coast � not enough attention has been placed
on Magnus Malan, who was the minister of defense and responsible
for the massive funds that were disbursed for these biological
warfare programmes. The manufacture of illicit drugs, money
laundering and the establishment of front companies offshore
were all perfected under Magnus Malan. At the international
level, the relationships between the work of Magnus Malan,
Wouter Basson and biological warfare experts in the USA
needs to be placed in the public domain. It is known that
William Casey enjoyed a very close and cosy relationship
with Magnus Malan, and that through their networks Wouter
Basson worked closely with US scientists.
MANDELA AND THE PRINCIPLES OF UBUNTU
It was an ironic historical twist that Magnus Malan passed
away on the 93rd birthday of Nelson Mandela on
18 July 2011. It was under Malan that the biological warfare
experts had contemplated how to infect Mandela and other
incarcerated leaders with toxins so that they would die
shortly after being released from prison and it would appear
that they died from cancer.
Even after the release of Mandela when it was clear that
apartheid was on its last legs, Malan was still organising
death squads and fomenting violence to make the wars seem
as black-on-black violence. As minister of defense, Malan
was responsible for paramilitary death squads (called the
Civil Cooperation Bureau) that operated against civilians
in the East Rand townships. Malan organised the financing
of the Inkatha thugs who were the instruments of state terror.
Malan was finally removed from his position as minister
of defense in 1991 and moved to the Department of Water
Affairs. On 2 November 1995 Malan was charged together with
other former senior military officers for murdering 13 people
(including seven children) in the KwaMakhutha massacre of
1987. After a trial lasting seven months he was acquitted.
His acquittal and that of Wouter Basson were striking examples
of how the current political leaders were compromised and
failed to do the kind of political and information work
that would establish the criminal past of these white supremacists.
Ubuntu and the ideas of forgiveness are important principles,
but while embracing the principles of Ubuntu, Africans cannot
forget the past because the legacies and consequences of
the weaponisation of biology are still being felt across
Africa. More important is the reality that the ANC has refused
to do the kind of educational work that would teach the
younger generation about the realities of apartheid. I was
pained when I was in South Africa recently when in discussions
with very young students there was the view that neoliberal
capitalism is what South Africa needs.
The government of the African National Congress integrated
itself into the institutions of the apartheid state. One
component of this integration is the continued use of the
military and weapons procurement as a field for enrichment
by political and military leaders. DENEL, the successor
to ARMSCOR, has been at the centre of allegations of massive
bribery, kickbacks and corruption.
DISMANTLING THE STRUCTURES THAT MAGNUS MALAN BUILT
Currently, the history of apartheid is being contested at
every level and the passing of Malan has afforded one other
opportunity for conservative forces to represent Malan as
a �military strategist� who was a technocrat. Throughout
the Western world in the obituaries about his passing there
was no mention of the criminal actions, especially the weaponisation
of biology. It was very painful to interact with younger
South Africans who do not know the history of the crimes
of white supremacy and capitalism in South Africa. These
youths are in institutions of higher learning where the
ideas of free-market capitalism and white supremacy are
taught as gospel.
Some
of the leaders of the liberation movement have forgotten
the sacrifices of the people and now send their children
to the schools where the ideas of Magnus Malan are celebrated.
These same leaders live in gated communities and for them
apartheid is over because they have inherited the structures
that were built by Hendrik Verwoerd, John Vorster, Magnus
Malan and P.W. Botha. The social questions of apartheid
are evident in every sphere of life in contemporary South
Africa. Whether in the context of the health services, the
educational system, housing, transportation or access to
water and electricity, the poor and oppressed in South Africa
are still struggling to dismantle apartheid. These struggles
now manifest in massive confrontations over �service delivery�.
To blunt these struggles some leaders support xenophobia
and hostility towards other Africans in order to maintain
the black empowerment clique in the business of making money
from tenders. The passing of Magnus Malan offers one other
occasion for a summing-up of the crimes against humanity
that were committed so that the society can heal itself
from these crimes. On the day Magnus Malan met his maker
the people of South Africa were called upon to exhibit kindness
by committing 67 minutes' worth of service in honour of
the 67 years that Mandela worked for freedom in South Africa
(from 1942 until his retirement from public life in 2009).
We join in the celebration of the 93rd birthday of Nelson
Mandela while calling on the next generation to grasp the
need to transform the society beyond the traditions of Magnus
Malan.
BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board Member, Dr. Horace Campbell,
PhD, is Professor of African American Studies and Political
Science at Syracuse University in Syracuse New York. He is the author of Barack Obama and Twenty-first Century Politics: A Revolutionary
Moment in the USA. Click here to contact Dr. Campbell.
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