End Conscription Campaign

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The End Conscription Campaign (ECC) was a South African organization against conscription in the South African Defense Force (SADF) during the apartheid period . It was close to the United Democratic Front (UDF) and disbanded in 1994 after conscription was abolished.

history

prehistory

In 1957, the Defense Act stipulated that "white" South African men could be conscripted. In 1967 conscription was introduced after the Namibian War of Independence began. It began at the age of 16 or when they finished school. The National Service lasted two years from 1977, plus a further year of service with the Citizen Forces or another additional service. At times, however, conscription was not taken seriously. In the late 1970s, tens of thousands of conscripts did not take up their service. 1977 saw the first trial of a conscientious objector. The Conscientious Objectors Support Group (COSG, German for example: “Support group for conscientious objectors for conscientious objection”) stood at the side of the first objectors. At the same time, South Africans in exile in London and Amsterdam founded the Committee on South African War Resistance (COSAWR, German roughly: "Committee for South African War Resistance ").

In 1982 the student Mike Evans of the University of Cape Town and the conscientious objector Brett Myrdal, who performed at various universities, started a campaign for the South African conscientious objectors. The initiative to found the ECC came from the annual meeting of the opposition women's movement Black Sash , which was directed against the occupation of Namibia by South African troops during the Namibian War of Independence, at which numerous South African conscripts were deployed. At the COSG Conference 1983, the founding of the ECC was decided and prepared by setting up branches. The establishment was supported by well-known opposition figures such as Beyers Naudé , Helen Joseph and David Webster ; Webster was also a founding member. Black Sash's Allan Boesak and Sheena Duncan gave speeches. From then on, the ECC and the COSG existed in parallel, with the COSG being more active in individual consultation.

Foundation and first successes

The Claremont Civic Center in Cape Town, where the ECC was founded

The ECC was officially founded in October 1984 in Cape Town's Claremont Civic Center by over 1400 participants. Initially, it was only an umbrella organization of around 50 organizations, including from the church sector, but quickly developed its own structure with 13 branches within the country. It was led by “white” South Africans, especially those from the English-speaking universities. In contrast, it was banned at Afrikaans- speaking universities such as Stellenbosch University . The ECC turned against conscription. Conscientious objection for religious reasons was rarely accepted, other reasons of conscience were generally not recognized. The ECC took advantage of a loophole in the Defense Act, which forbade preventing people from doing military service, but did not forbid calling for the end of conscription. As a result, objectors were no longer sentenced to two, but up to six years' imprisonment if they did not go “underground” within the country or fled abroad.

The ECC proposed alternative services, supported men who refused to do military service for reasons of conscience, and formed a forum for discussing compulsory military service. The ECC clarified the situation in the townships of the black majority of the population, where military service workers were also used to suppress unrest. In 1985, the ECC demonstrated nationwide under the motto Troops out of the Townships ("Soldiers out of the Townships"). Previously, three conscientious objectors went on a three-week hunger strike . In the same year the ECC organized an international "Peace Festival" in Johannesburg . In parliament, the government put the number of men who had not started their military service as 7589 in the first half of 1985, compared with 1596 in all of 1984. After that, no official figures were published. In 1985 the ECC had over 4000 members. More than half of the members were women. The chairman of the liberal Progressive Federal Party , Frederik van Zyl Slabbert , described the ECC in the same year as "dangerously naive, romantic, simplistic and counterproductive".

In 1986, the ECC carried out the action Cadets is not compulsory at South African state-run schools (for example: “ Being a cadet is not a duty”). It was about the military education that the SADF carried out in all “white” schools. The ECC advised legal guardians that, according to the law, they could have their child exempt from this class. Also in 1986 the record label Shifty Records released an album with South African protest songs against the war in support of the ECC. It bore the ironic title Forces Favorites ("Soldiers' Favorite Songs") and contained pieces by South African, mostly "white" musicians such as Jennifer Ferguson . In the same year, numerous ECC members were arrested or systematically intimidated. There were death threats against ECC members, break-ins into offices of the ECC, bomb attacks, arrests, attempted murder and assault, and anonymous counter-propaganda. The government perceived the ECC as a threat to the "total strategy" of the time, which required a politically united "white" population who - especially the men - should be "proud, stoic and steadfast". Refusers were often referred to as "effeminate". In 1988 it became known that the SADF secret service was using disinformation to act against the ECC. The magazine Veterans for Victory , which appeared under a false editorial, was published and agents and paid troublemakers were recruited specifically to combat the ECC . Nevertheless, in 1987 in Cape Town, 23 men confessed to conscientious objection at a public appearance, compared to 143 in 1988.

The then Defense Minister Magnus Malan said of the ECC:

"The EEC is a direct enemy of the SADF. It's disgraceful that the SADF but especially the country's young people, the pride of the nation, should be subjected to the EEC's propaganda, suspicion-sowing and misinformation. - The EEC is a direct enemy of the SADF. It is shameful that the SADF, but especially the young people of the country, the pride of the nation, are exposed to this propaganda, the sowing of suspicion and the disinformation. "

- Magnus Malan

However, on June 15, 1988, Malan met with representatives of the ECC to discuss a possible alternative service. The conversation was broken off without result.

Ban and return

In August 1988, the ECC was under the laws of the state of emergency by the South African government banned . It was the first “whites” organization to be banned in over two decades. In the same month, an issue of the Weekly Mail was confiscated in which the newspaper reported on the resistance to conscription. As a result of the two events, there were protests by “white” students against the government. Despite the ban of the ECC, the number of conscientious objectors increased. In July 1989, the ECC took part in the Five Freedoms Forum of the forbidden, the opposition African National Congress (ANC) in Zambia's Lusaka part. On September 21, 1989, 771 men publicly denied military service; the number of objectors soon rose to over 1,000. The ECC operated in secret until the restrictions were relaxed from February 1990 in the course of the abolition of apartheid. In May 1990 the ECC acted as mediator in the first negotiations between SADF and representatives of the ANC. In 1993, conscription was abolished in South Africa. In 1994, therefore, the ECC dissolved.

In 2009, the then South African Vice President Kgalema Motlanthe gave a speech at the celebrations for the 25th anniversary of the founding of the ECC, in which he praised the ECC.

Appreciations

"The ECC put pressure on the conscription system and in the end made it impossible for the state to enforce. In addition it helped foment divisions in the broader White community. Its mere existence so exasperated the state that millions of rands were diverted in a bid to snuff it out. In the end it contributed to bringing down apartheid. - The ECC put pressure on the conscription system and in the end made it impossible for the state to enforce it. It also helped to further divide the white community. Their very existence so desperate the state that millions of rand were diverted for the purpose of wiping them out. In the end, she helped to abolish apartheid. "

- www.sahistory.org.za, author anonymous

"Every objector, every war resister, every ECC member and supporter were true heroes and heroines of our struggle. Not only did you stand up and risk physical, social and emotional isolation from the majority of white South Africans who were not prepared to oppose injustice, but through your actions, you inspired hope amongst the black majority. - Every refuser, resister in war, every ECC member and every ECC supporter was a hero or a heroine for our struggle. Not only did you show backbone and risk physical, social and emotional isolation from the majority of white South Africans who were unwilling to tackle injustice, but you also created hope in the black majority with your actions. "

- Kgalema Motlanthe 2009, on the 25th anniversary of the founding of ECC

literature

  • Daniel Conway: The masculine State in Crisis. State Response to War Resistance in Apartheid South Africa. Loughborough University, Loughborough 2008, digitized
  • Merran Willis Phillips: The End Conscription Campaign 1983–1988: a Study of white extra-parliamentary opposition to apartheid. Masters thesis at UNISA , Pretoria 2002, digitized

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e ECC in O'Malley's Archives at nelsonmandela.org (English), accessed September 7, 2012
  2. ↑ a b ECC at South African History Archive: Background (English), accessed on September 9, 2012
  3. ↑ a b c d e f ECC at sahistory.org.za (English), accessed on September 7, 2012
  4. ^ A b c d e f Daniel Conway: The masculine State in Crisis. State Response to War Resistance in Apartheid South Africa. Loughborough University, Loughborough 2008, digitized
  5. ↑ Description at discogs.com , accessed September 7, 2012
  6. ↑ a b c ECC at South African History Archive (SAHA): Success and End of the ECC (English), accessed on September 6, 2012
  7. ↑ Report from the meeting at sahistory.org.za (English), accessed on September 9, 2012
  8. ↑ Wording of the speech at timeslive.co.za ( Memento from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) (English)