Objections Against War and Participation in The Apartheid State
Objections to military service and the War in Angola were generally based on the role of the military and security forces in enforcing the policy of apartheid. Although South Africa's defence forces were active against various liberation movements in Southern Africa and the frontline states (countries bordering the republic including Angola, South West Africa (now Namibia) and Mozambique), suppressing a guerrilla war, they also waged war against SWAPO and Cuban forces in a conventional war at the battle of Cuito Cuanavale. The military had also became increasingly active in suppressing a civil war in South Africa's black townships.
Those who refused military service were subject to contempt from the minority white community, and left with the choice of either going underground (internal exile) fleeing the republic (external exile) or imprisonment of up to double the length of the allotted military service. Many conscripts simply went Absent Without Leave (AWOL), failed to arrive at BASICS (training) or got lost in the system.
The End Conscription Campaign, one of many anti-war movements alongside Congress of South African War Resistors (COSAWR) mobilised against the draft, promoted alternatives to military service, provided information about the situation in the townships and support to those brave enough to speak out against the war, as conscientious objectors.
Read more about this topic: End Conscription Campaign
Famous quotes containing the words objections, war and/or state:
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Sophie: A very solid objection, in my opinion. I hate him.
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—John Osborne (1929–1994)
“No spoon has yet destroyed a mouth, but the knife of war cuts portions that are hard to swallow. Perhaps the big mouths of the privileged are able to cope with them, but they dull the teeth of the little people and ruin their stomachs.”
—Franz Grillparzer (1791–1872)
“Some are petitioning the State to dissolve the Union, to disregard the requisitions of the President. Why do they not dissolve it themselves,—the union between themselves and the State,—and refuse to pay their quota into its treasury? Do not they stand in the same relation to the State that the State does to the Union? And have not the same reasons prevented the State from resisting the Union which have prevented them from resisting the State?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)