[John Loeffler and I did a show about the newsletter and the CIA’s activities in South Africa. His site is: www.Steel-on-Steel.com. He got this interesting letter from a 19-year old girl in the USA. I smiled. I’ll send her an answer. Jan]

> June 19, 2006
>
> Dear Mr. Loeffler,
>
> I listened to your broadcast of the 18th and was fascinated by it.
> Unfortunately however, I was born in 1987 and did not take much
> interest in the news at that time.
>
> 1. What is apartheid? I looked it up in the world year book 1989-90
> and all I came up with was racial segregation and racial rights. It
> was rather vague.
>
> 2.I also came across the names of Fredrick Willem de Klerk and
> Pieter Willem Botha. What do they have to do with it, and why all
> these german/dutch sounding names? (apartheid, de Klerk).
>
> Thank you for your time.
>
> Yours Truly,
> Beth Anne
>
> P.S. I enjoy your show very much. You have a good producer

Hi Bethanne,
I was the person John interviewed and he passed your request on to me.

I also have a website called: WWW.AfricanCrisis.org – have a browse through the photo gallery (some of it will shock you a lot, so be careful). In there I also have a document called “Did Apartheid kill millions?” – because that is a major myth about Apartheid.

> 1. What is apartheid? I looked it up in the world year book 1989-90
> and all I came up with was racial segregation and racial rights. It
> was rather vague.
Everybody these days defines Apartheid as racial segretation. But Apartheid was much deeper than that. It was also referred to by those who created it as “Separate Development”. The basic theme behind Apartheid was a recognition that Africa is composed of 300(43)+ tribes. If you truly wish to understand Africa, then you must compare it to Europe and not America. In Europe you have the white race, split by various languages and cultures. Europe is basically Tribal. Now Africa is the same. You have the black race, split by languages and cultures. You have friendships and hatreds which ran for centuries. In Africa, blacks tend to defend their own language and culture and this brings them into conflict with other blacks. (This situation would be completely alien to White and Black Americans who both have been de-tribalised by moving to a new continent).

Apartheid was conceived of as a system to rule South Africa which has 11 different tribes, many of whom are hostile to each other. South Africa, in its current form was a British creation. South Africa used to be very split and divided… but the British conquered it all and forced everyone to live together under one Govt.

The Boers (you should search for the Anglo-Boer war on the Internet), were mainly of Dutch (but also French and German) descent. They, like the Americans in 1776, wanted independence from the British. They formed two countries of their own, the Transvaal and Orange Free State.

They and the British went to war in 1900, and the British defeated them. The British created South Africa as it is today. But the Boers soon got control of the Government, and in 1948, the National Party took control. The National Party created what is now known as Apartheid.

The theory behind it was to allow the Blacks limited and even full amounts of self-rule, while the whites controlled the central Govt. The theory was that each group could follow its own path and have its own values and Govt.

So they created “Homelands” or Bantustans – some of which were 100% independent black countries with their own constitutions, Govt, army, Police, etc. The idea was that this type of “federation”, cut along racial/tribal lines would allow different peoples a certain amount of freedom within a broad, united structure.

Nelson Mandela claims that he was against Apartheid, and so he formed the armed wing of the ANC in 1961, and the war started. But not all blacks were of that mindset. Many co-operated with the whites until the 1980s. You will find an interesting discrepancy when you study Apartheid, and what people say about it these days. They will claim it was an inhumane system, and yet, all the atrocities they will point to occurred AFTER 1961, after the war between blacks and whites had begun. So the system which Nelson Mandela claims he rebelled against, is really that which existed between 1948-1961.

> 2.I also came across the names of Fredrick Willem de Klerk and
> Pieter Willem Botha. What do they have to do with it, and why all
> these german/dutch sounding names? (apartheid, de Klerk).
These were Boers/Afrikaners who were the rulers of South Africa at the time, and yes, the Boers are mainly descended from the Dutch. Those are the people who presided over the final days of Apartheid when there was much war going on in Southern Africa.

The period, 1960-1990, saw much warfare all across Southern Africa, supposedly to “Liberate” the black people here. People like Robert Mugabe, Nelson Mandela and Sam Nujoma are among the leaders of the time. As you can see, the people in Zimbabwe are not having a “fun time” being “liberated” since they are busy starving to death and their economy is collapsing with 2000% inflation per annum.

Apartheid was a different type of Colonialism. It was basically thought up by a number of Afrikaners. It was actually written up as a thesis, and it was based on the recognition that among blacks, Tribalism is a strong force.

In my view, tribalism will NOT go away. Black leaders like Mandela et al, pretend it does not exist, but it does. It is a deep thing. There can be some powerful hatreds among the black tribes. Many times, black tribes hated each other more than they hated whites, and this is part of the reason why Africa was so easily colonised.

You should search the internet a bit. Also read up about countries like “South West Africa” and “Rhodesia” and “Northern Rhodesia” as well as Angola and Mozambique. These are countries and colonies which were also affected and overrun by the so-called “Liberation movements”. The problem in Africa is that so-called Liberation leads so easily to Dictatorship, one-party states and… also to mass murder on a scale not matched since World War II.

I hope that helps.

Best wishes,
Jan