YaATW2KT: What about South Africa?

[sglancy12]

Tell us more Dog 6..

Is it a post Apartheid state or a South Africa that still practices Apartheid How widespread are South Africa's forces Are they agents of stability or are they just fighting it out with the local Soviet proxies

Anyone else have a preference here A barely functioning post Apartheid South Africa, probably lead by Nelson Mandela... the one guy the blacks would support and who wouldn't indulge in bloody revenge on the whites... This state would be besieged by armies of refugees and marauders pouring into the relative stability of South Africa, overrunning farms and looting communities.

...or a besieged apartheid South Africa, probably led by F.W. de Klerk, or a more reactionary Afrikaner President elected during the 1994 presidential race. This state would be besieged from within and without, fighting a very ugly race war. This war would turn much of South Africa into a war zone, and it would therefore be less attractive to refugees seeking safety. But perhaps foreign marauders would enter the country claiming to be there to liberate the place from "White Colonialism," only to loot and pillage any ethnic group that has something they want. This "race-war" South Africa is going to be a place of bloody absolutes and total war against civilians and soldiers.

Which one would make for a more likely scenario

And which one would make for a more interesting role-playing environment for your players

A. Scott Glancy, President TCCorp, dba Pagan Publishing

[Dog 6]

Tell us more Dog 6..

Is it a post Apartheid state or a South Africa that still practices Apartheid How widespread are South Africa's forces Are they agents of stability or are they just fighting it out with the local Soviet proxies

Anyone else have a preference here A barely functioning post Apartheid South Africa, probably lead by Nelson Mandela... the one guy the blacks would support and who wouldn't indulge in bloody revenge on the whites... This state would be besieged by armies of refugees and marauders pouring into the relative stability of South Africa, overrunning farms and looting communities.

...or a besieged apartheid South Africa, probably led by F.W. de Klerk, or a more reactionary Afrikaner President elected during the 1994 presidential race. This state would be besieged from within and without, fighting a very ugly race war. This war would turn much of South Africa into a war zone, and it would therefore be less attractive to refugees seeking safety. But perhaps foreign marauders would enter the country claiming to be there to liberate the place from "White Colonialism," only to loot and pillage any ethnic group that has something they want. This "race-war" South Africa is going to be a place of bloody absolutes and total war against civilians and soldiers.

Which one would make for a more likely scenario

And which one would make for a more interesting role-playing environment for your players

A. Scott Glancy, President TCCorp, dba Pagan Publishing

I have no Apartheid in South Africa, they are the main suppler of DU tank ammo in 2001. They have divisions all over from cape town to central Africa along with a US army group. They even took part in operations in the med and the war with france. "armies of refugees" LOL a few 20kt bombs fixed that problem.

BTW we play Battalions and up, mostly division's.

[Rainbow Six]

Anyone else have a preference here A barely functioning post Apartheid South Africa, probably lead by Nelson Mandela... the one guy the blacks would support and who wouldn't indulge in bloody revenge on the whites... This state would be besieged by armies of refugees and marauders pouring into the relative stability of South Africa, overrunning farms and looting communities.

...or a besieged apartheid South Africa, probably led by F.W. de Klerk, or a more reactionary Afrikaner President elected during the 1994 presidential race. This state would be besieged from within and without, fighting a very ugly race war. This war would turn much of South Africa into a war zone, and it would therefore be less attractive to refugees seeking safety. But perhaps foreign marauders would enter the country claiming to be there to liberate the place from "White Colonialism," only to loot and pillage any ethnic group that has something they want. This "race-war" South Africa is going to be a place of bloody absolutes and total war against civilians and soldiers.

Which one would make for a more likely scenario

And which one would make for a more interesting role-playing environment for your players

A. Scott Glancy, President TCCorp, dba Pagan Publishing

Just a few very quick thoughts on this....

Personally I think the most likely scenario would probably be the first one, with Mandela elected in 1994 as he was in real life.

I do wonder, though, whether even if you go with option one South Africa would have remained intact and stable as a country following the world wide chaos of a Twilight War or whether it would have fragmented into a number of different mini States, probably based along tribal lines This might give the opportunity for a role play environment similar to that outlined in option two (which does strike me as the more interetsing of the two)

Cheers

[Mohoender]

I think that you are all right but I chose the exact opposite with South Africa remaining under a revived Apartheid.

In 1993, Chris Hani (an anti-apartheid activist) is assassinated (that failed in real life) by a Polish immigrant. The murderer is found dead and the investigation is slow.

As a result, riots are taking place in various districts. Mandela and the ANC fail to take control of the uprising and several white people are killed in the following weaks. As a result, the white/coloured minority starts to worry and de Klerk is forced to resign from the party. He is, then, replaced by Ferdinand Hartzenberg, a conservative. Later, the ANC is banned again, Mandela is send back to jail and dies, while the parliament change the law again and call for the 1994 election to be cancelled.

Of course, the result is growing chaos but basically, South Africa is left alone. The Western world is more concern about the Russian coup and the soviets don't get involved except for a renewed support to several of South Africa's neighbours. In addition, South Africa retain control of Walvis Bay.

When tensions start to really grow and war is on sight, NATO declares that it has no reason to get involved in South African's internal affairs. In return, it gets a fair access to the South African ressource market. Surprisingly, despite this, the country is never targeted by the Warsaw Pact.

Of course, internal tensions goes from riots to unrest to local uprising to full civil war but the various ethnic groups fail to unite and the government is able to play on these tensions. At last, while everyone else is engaged in the Twilight War, Hartzenberg's government meet the revolt with full military force, eventually dropping a few nukes on the few neighbour state providing what little support they can to the insurgents.

[Targan]

A previous thread related to this topic.

South Africa http://forum.juhlin.com/showthread.phpt=944

[Rainbow Six]

I think that you are all right but I chose the exact opposite with South Africa remaining under a revived Apartheid.

In 1993, Chris Hani (an anti-apartheid activist) is assassinated (that failed in real life) by a Polish immigrant. The murderer is found dead and the investigation is slow.

Mo, I'm not sure if I'm misunderstanding here and you're using the Chris Hani assassination as a suggested point of divergence from the real life timeline, but in real life the assasination didn't fail - Chris Hani was indeed murdered in April 1993.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Hani

As a result, riots are taking place in various districts. Mandela and the ANC fail to take control of the uprising and several white people are killed in the following weaks. As a result, the white/coloured minority starts to worry and de Klerk is forced to resign from the party. He is, then, replaced by Ferdinand Hartzenberg, a conservative. Later, the ANC is banned again, Mandela is send back to jail and dies, while the parliament change the law again and call for the 1994 election to be cancelled.

Of course, the result is growing chaos but basically, South Africa is left alone. The Western world is more concern about the Russian coup and the soviets don't get involved except for a renewed support to several of South Africa's neighbours. In addition, South Africa retain control of Walvis Bay.

When tensions start to really grow and war is on sight, NATO declares that it has no reason to get involved in South African's internal affairs. In return, it gets a fair access to the South African ressource market. Surprisingly, despite this, the country is never targeted by the Warsaw Pact.

Of course, internal tensions goes from riots to unrest to local uprising to full civil war but the various ethnic groups fail to unite and the government is able to play on these tensions. At last, while everyone else is engaged in the Twilight War, Hartzenberg's government meet the revolt with full military force, eventually dropping a few nukes on the few neighbour state providing what little support they can to the insurgents.

The above all sounds plausible if you want to keep an apartheid Government in place. I'd suggest it's probably also worth looking at the Afrikaner Volksfront as a means of resurrecting Apartheid. The Volsfront was led by General Constand Viljoen, a former head of the South African Defence Force and a hero to many Boers. In real life Mandela met with Viljoen in August 1993 and was able to persuade the General and the rest of the Volksfront leadership to take part in the 1994 elections. More on Viljoen here, including the fact that he apparently had 50,000 to 60,000 trained military personnel under his command and could have taken over large parts of South Africa had he chosen. I've also read that had he chosen to launch a takeover large parts of the SADF would have supported him.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constand_Viljoen

As a point of divergence I'd suggest the possibility of white extremists assasinating Viljoen, but successfully managing to put the blame on the ANC in the process. In my opinion that could well have blown apart the 1994 elections and led to a very, very nasty racially motivated Civil War. A white victory in that War would probably have taken South Africa back to the worst days of apartheid.

I totally agree that with War on the horizon, NATO would not have interfered in South African internal politics, particularly if given preferential access to South Africa's natural resources.

Cheers

Dave

[Mohoender]

Mo, I'm not sure if I'm misunderstanding here and you're using the Chris Hani assassination as a suggested point of divergence from the real life timeline, but in real life the assasination didn't fail - Chris Hani was indeed murdered in April 1993.

Right, thank you for correcting me. I just got confused. what changed in real life is the fact that the murderer wasn't found assassinated. As a result, the deputy behind the assassination was identified.

Sorry, I must have got tired.

I didn't know of the Volksfront, however. Thanks for the information on that. My purpose, then, is to keep South Africa out of the war and bring more chaos to it.