WEEKLY SUMMARY SPECIAL REPORT SEPARATE DEVELOPMENTS IN SOUTH AFRICA: THE BANTSTANS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP85T00875R001500030009-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 12
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 5, 2011
• Sequence Number: 9
• Publication Date: March 5, 1971
• Content Type: REPORT

Sanitized Copy Approved for
Release 2011 /01 /07 : ~,
CIA-RDP85T00875R0015000 Sanitized Copy Approved for
Release 2011 /01 /07
CIA-RDP85T00875R0015000
 Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/01/07 :CIA-RDP85T00875R001500030009-0
Secret
DIRECTORATE OF
INTELLIGENCE
WEEKLY SUMMARY
Special Report
Separate Development iri Sotcth Africa: The Ba~~turta~u
DOCI9M:P~T S''lCo~~S BCtE~~CN REtU N~ OCEP61
fIL~ CiJ~'7
DO NOT DESTROY , ~~~e~
N4 662
5 March 1971
NQ. 0360/71A
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/01/07 :CIA-RDP85T00875R001500030009-0
 2~ Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/01/07 :CIA-RDP85T00875R001500030009-0
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/01/07 :CIA-RDP85T00875R001500030009-0
 Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/01/07 :CIA-RDP85T00875R001500030009-0
SECRET
SEPARATE DEVELOPMENT IN SOUTH AFRICA: THE BANTUSTANS
We can only safeguard the white man's control over our country If we move in the
d/rectio-i ofseparation-separation in the polltlcal sphere at any rate.
The late Prlmo Minister Hendrilc Verwocrd, 1959
Since coming to power in 1948 the Afrikaner-dominated National Party has
had as its primary goal the implementation of its policy of separation of the
races (apartheidl. In the last decade, the keystone of that policy has become the
bantustans, the African tribal homelands. In theory, these territories will even-
tually become self-governing, independent states, and Prime Minister Vorster has
said that his government hopes to grant "independence" to one or two bantu-
stans in the next few years. The chances, however, that any of the homelands
will ever become self-supporting and really free of dependence on white ruled
South Africa are almost nonexistent.
Granting nominal independence soon, however, could have certain advan-
tages for Pretoria. It would probably reassure Afrikaner supporters of the
government that it is moving ahead-albeit slowly-with separate development. It
could also further the Vorster government's efforts to improve relations with a
select number of black ruled states and thus sow dissension among African
leaders who are already at odds with each other over how best to deal with
South l~frica.
The government hopes the bantustans will Pventually become the homeland
of most of South Africa's blacks, and it is attempting to remove the Africans
from white?designated areas by converting the black urban labor force, on which
the economy is dependent, into a migratory one. The problems conironting the
government in accomplishing this, however, are monumental, and whether the
Nationalists will succeed in turning present planning into practice is clouded
with uncertainty.
Special Report - 1 -
SECRET
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/01/07 :CIA-RDP85T00875R001500030009-0
 Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/01/07 :CIA-RDP85T00875R001500030009-0
SECRET
SOUTH-WEST AFRICA
(Infernatlonol Trerritory)
\'JALVIS BAY
(Rep, of S.Af,)
SO11%'!1
:1 '1'lf1 N77C
OCIsA~V
A N G O L A
I POIt.)
~r: u; i~rn
r.?ir,~r
~ SALISUURY
Y,
RHODESIA
IU.K.)
MASERU
LESOTHp
O MBA
ILAND
150
~1
STATUTE MILES
Caper)
Townti( ?.,
Special Report - 2
SECRET
(~CEA,V
MOZ.
(Port.)
' Easl London
Port Elizabeth
Zulu Territorial Authority
Olhcr eantustans
Transkei Legislative Authority
i^~ Tswana Territorial Authority
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/01/07 :CIA-RDP85T00875R001500030009-0
 Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/01/07 :CIA-RDP85T00875R001500030009-0
SECRET
There must be a white South Africa and a black
South Africa politically divided but peacefully
and cooperatively coexistent.
S. Pienaar, prominent Afrikaner journalist
Apartheid, titnuglt Intel itt practice, is idealistic
i? theory.
Alan Paton, author of Cry, the Beloved Country
It is impossible to travel in South Africa
today without noticing the distinctions that are
made between the races. Separate facilities for
whites and "non-whites" are almost everywhere:
at airports, post offices, beaches, graveyards, even
in those areas set aside for the African. In
Umtata, the capital of the Transkei, for e:cample,
there are hotels where the chief minister or the
territorial government, an African, cannot stay.
South African law excludes the African from na-
tional political affairs and also dictates where he
may live and what kind of job he may hold.
Although most of South Africa's 3.8 million
English- and Afrikaans-speaking whites consider
white minority rule essential and social segrega-
tion desirable, only the ruling National Party, the
political voice of most Afrikaners, espouses the
apartheid ideology of complete racial separation.
Afrikaners' racial fears and sense of superiority
are deeply rooted in their history as a frontier
pecple among hostile African tribes and in their
17th century Calvinist religion with its doctrine
of the elect. For them, regimentation of blacks
has always been a matter of survival, and since
coming to power in 1948 the Nationalist govern-
ment has done its utmost to shore up, formalize,
and e>:tend the country's traditional system of
racial discrimination.
In the last ten years or so the focus of the
government's racial policies has become the ban-
tustan, the Africa~~s' tribal homeland. Afrikaner
Special Report
political leaders and intellectuals contend, with
some justification, that South Africa is not one
but several different "nations" as incapable of
forming a single political and social unit as, say,
India and Pakistan. In order for the white man las
well as the non-white) to maintain his own iden-
tity and keep what he believes is rightfully his, it
is argued that each "nation" should be allowed to
develop in its own way with its "own institutions,
attitudes, and values." Until such time as this can
be brought about, however, discrimination, or
what has come to be known as "petty apartheid,"
will remain in force.
By definition tribes are considered nations,
and the government has gone to some lengths to
bolster the authority of traditional tribal chiefs in
African-designated reserves (bantustans) and to
revive tribal ties among Africans in urban areas.
Tribal dialects have become the language of in-
struction, in African schools, and the government
has established separate universities for Borne
tribal groups. The government-owned South Afri-
can Broadcasting Corporation also has regular
programing in the tribal languages. In urban area,
officials have begun to divide Africans residen-
tially along tribal lines. Above all, the government
has promoted its bantustan program as the answer
to South Africa's troubling racial problerris.
Although the idea of separate homelands for
blacks is a logical Outgrowth of apartheid, it is
also a response to foreign critics who have
branded South Africa's racial policies as harsh and
totally. oppressive. If current government plans
are carried out, all Africans eventt~ally will be-
come citizens of these home:an~.is, which will be
given the formal trappings of independent states.
In theory, Africans would then be free of white
political control, and whites would retain exclu-
sive rights in their part of the country where
blacks would be treated as foreign migrant work-
ers. What the relationship between these "inde-
pendent" bantustans and white South Africa
would be is unclear, although government leaders
sometimes speak of a "commonwealth" of South
Africa.
SECRET
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/01/07 :CIA-RDP85T00875R001500030009-0
 Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/01/07 :CIA-RDP85T00875R001500030009-0
To those, therefore, who criticize the South
African Government for withholding political
rights from the Africans, Pretoria holds up the
panacea of a future multiracial, but racially sepa-
rated, union of South Africa. To the opponents
of apartheid, however, separate development is at
best a utopian, self-deluding policy, and at worst
(and more likely) an attempt to pull the wool
over the eyes of the outside world and to provide
a moral basis at home for continued white su-
premacy rule. They are deeply skeptical of the
government's claim that "petty apartheid" is only
transitory and that the bantustans will ever
achieve real independence.
Some Afrikaner intellectuals are also highly
critical of the bantustan program, not because
they disagree with it but because they want the
government to do more to make it a reality. In
fact, the government's efforts have often been
compared unfavorably to the plans to industrial-
ize the reserves proposed in the mid-50s by one of
its own special study groups-the Tomlinson
Commission. But the late Prime Minister Ver-
woerd, whom many Afrikaners look upon as the
prophet of apartheid, rejected this course. As a
result, the government has concentrated largely
on the more dramatic and less expensive effort of
political development.
They are valleys of old meet and old women, of
mothers and children. The men a,~e away, the
young teen and the girls are away. The soil can-
not keep them any more.
Cry, the Beloved Country
Nearly half of South Africa's 15 million
blacks now li~ie in the eight reserves set aside for
them. These homelands make up less than 12
percent of the land area of South Africa, and by
one recent official count consist of 276 bits and
pieces of territory s~~attered mostly over the east-
Special Report
SECRET
Typical scenes in the Bantustans
e; n half of the country. Although the government
is committed to buying over 5,00(1 more square
miles of land consigned to the reserves under the
1936 Bantu Trust and Land Act, it does not plan
to consolidate many, if any, of the bantustans
completely. This would entail the removal of too
many white farmers, not to mention some white
towns and major cities.
Over the last decade Pretoria has pumped
roughly $400 million into the homelands for land
SECRET
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/01/07 :CIA-RDP85T00875R001500030009-0
 Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/01/07 :CIA-RDP85T00875R001500030009-0
SECRET
purchases, township planning, housing, and ether
social services, as well as for agriculture. Annually
that amounts to less than two percent of the
government's expenditures. Although agricultural
development has been given priority, officials
have had to combat not only chronic drought
conditions that afflict r~iuch of the country but
the African peasant's traditional indifference to
farming and his strong resistance to change as
well. Because of African neglect as well as over-
population, soil erosion and cattle overstocking
are still widespread, and food shortages are fre-
quent.
Many young blacks in the reserves, more-
over, prefer to seek industrial jobs rather than
farm because as wage earners they have at least
some opportunity to ease their harsh living con-
ditions. Industrial development in the reserves,
however, is practically nonexistent. Since 1961
only 35 government-backed factories have been
built, employing a total of 945 Africans. In con-
trast, over a million and a half blacks now work as
migrant laborers in the white-controlled econ-
omy, and an estimated 35,000 additional Africans
from the reserves join the labor market each year.
Officials cla~~n that there are just not enough
experienced Afr;::an businessmen and skilled la-
borers in the bantustans yet to make industrial
development feasible. Although true, this is at
least partly the result of the government's own
apartheid labor laws that exclude Africans from
holding managerial and most skilled jobs. Until
recently, moreover, white corporate business in-
terests were not allowed to operate in the reserves
under any conditions. Now this restriction has
been modified, but because of the 'ack of ade-
quate water, electrical power, housing, roads, and
rail facilities, few companies have shown any in-
terest in investing in these remote areas.
In sharp contrast with its economic program,
Pretoria has put enormous effort, particularly in
the last three years, into erecting administrative
structures in the homelands ranging from local
tribal to territorial authorities. Since 1968, seven
Special Report
of the reserves have acquired territorial status-
theoretically the penultimate step before full
independence-and two of them, Tswanaland and
Northern Sotho, are expected to gain limited par-
liamentary self-government within the next year
or so. The South African parliament will probably
also bestow homeland citizenship on blacks this
year.
All of this is in preparation for at least some
form of eventual political autonomy for the
homelands. Prime Minister Vorster stated late last
year that his government hopes to grant "inde-
pendenc~ to one or two bantustans in the next
few years. If so, the Transkei will probably be the
first. Unlike the other homelands it consists virtu-
ally of one large solid block of land. The territory
also has a long history of local self-government
dating back to the 1890s, and as the oldest ban-
tustan it has had most of the trappings of a
modern state since 1963. It boasts a constitution,
a cabinet, a partially elected legislative assembly,
and a civil service (largely black), as well as a flag,
an anthem, and an official language. The Traris-
kei's economy, however, is still based primarily
on subsistence agriculture and migrant labor, and
its government is almost entirely dependent on
Pretoria for regular financial support and develop-
ment funds. Consequently, the development of
the Transkei into aself-supporting independent
state is at best a very distant goal.
Granting nominal independence soon, how-
ever, could have certain advantages for Pretoria. It
would probably reassure most Afrikaners that the
government is moving ahead with separate devel-
opment. Moreover, for some time Prime Minister
Vorster has been trying to improve his govern-
ment's relations with a select number of black-
ruled African states, particularl~~ Malawi, (the
only African state with which it has diplomatic
relations) the Ivory Coast, Gabon, and the Mala-
gasy Republic.
Last year Pretoria made some progress in
this direction. In November, President Hou-
phouet-Boigny of the Ivory Coast made a public
SECRET
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/01/07 :CIA-RDP85T00875R001500030009-0
 Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/01/07 :CIA-RDP85T00875R001500030009-0
SECRET
Literally built atop some of the richest gold mines iin the world, Johannesburg
is South Africa's largest city. Today, its population is almost 60 percent black.
appeal for a "dialogue" between black- and
white-ruled African states, thus breaking the sur-
face unity of black African opposition to South
Africa. That same month, Tananarive accepted
$6.5 million in economic aid from Pretoria. A
gesture toward his own blacks, some observers
believe, would help further Vorster's "outward
looking policy and drive the opening wedge even
deeper between the moderate and more militant
African states.
South Africa could, of course, be creating
troublesome neighbors within. its' awn borders.
Not all of the bantustan leaders are subservient to
Pretoria's will. Chief Buthelezi of Zululand, an
outspoken critic of apartheid, recently took the
government to task for not living up to its obliga-
tion to provide new land to Zulus ejected from
farm land allotted to whites. ~llany of the other
tribal chiefs, however, have a vested interest in
the present system and are almost completely
submissive to the wishes of Pretoria. Even
Special Report
Buthelezi is keenly aware of the limit to which he
can go in challenging the government.
T7te J1ow of Bantu (African) labor must be .re-
duced,then it mush ve stopped, irnd then it must
be turned back.
The Deputy Minis?er of.Bantu Administration
to a group of South. African businessmen
Sixteen years ago the ~Tom~+nson Commis-
sion recommended that the government industri-
alize the reserves so that they could support the
bulk of South Africa's black population by the
end of this century. This approach, intended to
attract blacks back to the homelands from white
areas, was rejected as politically and economically
impractica{. The white taxpayer would never have
willingly paid the costs; many in fact are unhappy
SECRET
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/01/07 :CIA-RDP85T00875R001500030009-0
 Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/01/07 :CIA-RDP85T00875R001500030009-0
SECRET
even about the relatively small amount the gov-
ernment presently spends on the bantustans. To
stem the influx of blacks into the white areas,
therefore, Pretoria began to apply tighter restric-
tions, but the black migration continued. Today
most of South Africa's major cities have black
majorities; in all, Africans outnumber whites in
white areas by better than two to one.
Although the government would like to re-
move all blacks from white areas, it has recog-
nized that it cannot. The .white-run economy is
too dependent on black labor. Moreover, for
some time South Africa's economy has been suf-
fering from an acute shortage of skilled labor.
Last September the government's manpower sur-
vey indicated there was a total shortage of nearly
70,000 workers in all sectors, although industrial
spokesmen claimed that there were 63,000 vacan-
cies in industry alone. In any case, the govern-
ment and white-controlled labor unions have
agreed in some cases to "regrade" semiskilled and
skilled jobs to permit Africans to hold them,
although at a reduced wage. The government has
also granted widespread exemptions to employers
so that they can "temporarily" employ blacks in
positions still legally relegated to whites.
Pretoria, however, considers only about half
of the almost eight million blacks who live in
white areas as "economically productive units."
The others include workers' dependents, widows,
and the aged, as well as black businessmen acid
professionals. The government plans to uproot
thc;se people and move them to the homelands,
while converting the rest of the African urban
population into a migratory labor force.
To accomplish its goal, the government has
adopted a variety of tactics. One has been to
impose even more stringent restrictions on the
movement of blacks from the homelands to
~Nhite, particularly urban, areas. Since 1967, every
African male in the reserves has been required by
law to register at a government labor bureau if he
wishes outside work. Under the terms of his labor
contract, he can spend in most cases no more
An African township near Johannesburg
than 11 months of the year in a white area. Then
he must return frome and re-register if he wants to
work in a white area again.
The government has also by tax concessions
and other incentives encouraged about 200 South
African companies to move their factories closer
to the bantustans or to expand their operations in
border areas. Africans working in these plants are
expected to leave their dependents in the reserves.
This so-called "border industry program," how-
ever, has been only modestly successful because
private industry has been unenthusiastic about
moving to these areas except where there are
already well-established industrial complexes and
a developed infrastructure, such as in Rosslyn and
Pietermaritzburg.
Special Report
SEC~2ET
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/01/07 :CIA-RDP85T00875R001500030009-0
 Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/01/07 :CIA-RDP85T00875R001500030009-0
SECRET
To speed up this "decentralization" of in-
dustry, therefore, the government has apparently
decided to apply the stick as well as the r_arrot.
Under the 1967 Physical Planning Act, it now has
the power to prevent industries from building
new factories or expanding old ones in urban
areas if they require more black labor. Although
Pretoria has not yet borne down heavily on white
corporate businesses, it has put them on notice
that more and more of their plants will have to go
to border areas in the future.
At the same time the government has also
begun to bear down more heavily on the black
urban population. It has closed down some old-
age homes for Africans, as well as clinics and
hospitals, trade schools, juvenile reformatories,
and other social services, and has moved these
institutions to the reserves. It has also deliberately
allowed urban African schools to run down and
has encouraged parents to send their children to
schools in the homelands. In already overcrowded
African townships, the government has stopped
building new family accommodations in favor of
so-called "bachelors' quarters" for migrant work-
ers, and it has ruled that Africans can no longer
build their own homes in urban areas. As for
those who already have homes, they will no
longer be allowed to will them to their hairs or
sell them to anyone but the government.
...there comes to the visitor a sudden vision of
the government, like Sisyphus, striving forever to
push uphill a stone that is forever toppling back
upon it.
There is no end to such a process, and no perma-
nent solution save surrender-and that is some-
thing the whites will never do. So the heart is
sac:dened and the mind, ultimately, retreats: the
problem is too big.
Allen Drury, A Very, Strange Society
Special Report
That the government is determined to pur-
sue its bantustan policy is clear. Thus, one or
perhaps two homelands will probably gain inde-
pendence of a sort in the next few years instead
of in decades, as has long been presumed by many
political observers and Afrikaners as well. As long
as these areas remain economically dependent on
white South Africa, however, independence will
mean little more than ~i paper transfer of sover-
eignty. No matter how sincerely many govern-
ment officials believe that the bantustans are the
answer to South Africa's racial problems, and
many do, the homelands will remain no more
than large labor pools for the white economy to
draw on for the foreseeable future.
What is uncertain is whether the government
can really succeed in turning its present plans into
reality. Unless the present trend is radically al-
tered, there will be almost 20 million blacks in
white areas by the end of this century. By the
government's own calculations, it must provide
44,000 jobs a year inside and near the bantustans
in order to take care of all newcomers into the
labor market from the homelands. To provide for
this number, however, and to reduce the African
urban population by five percent a year, one
prominent South African economist estimated iri
1968 that Pretoria would have to create approxi-
mately 181,000 new jobs annually in agriculture,
commerce, and industry. During the last decade,
the government and industry provided only about
160,000 jobs in total.
In the years ahead the South African econ-
omy will also suffer from a growing shortage of
skilled labor. Although the government is en-
couraging white immigration to fill the gap, more
Africans will probably have to be trained for
skilled positions, particularly in border industries.
Most of the African work force now is made up
of illiterate and unskilled peasants. What will
happen as more Africans become literate and
more highly skilled is difficult to predict. They
almost certainly will begin over time to expect
SECRET
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/01/07 :CIA-RDP85T00875R001500030009-0
 Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/01/07 :CIA-RDP85T00875R001500030009-0
SECRET
their own governments inside the bantustans to many other whites as well. Nevertheless, the Vor-
do more to improve their lot in South Africa. ster government is determined to follow this
These are aspects of the separate development course because it sees no alternative
policy that haunt many government leaders and ~ ~
Special Report - 9
SECRET
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/01/07 :CIA-RDP85T00875R001500030009-0