The regime had an efficient army and a repressive police force. Insurgency was minimal, despite hostile frontline states across the borders in Angola, Zimbabwe and Mozambique. Trade sanctions had reinforced Pretoria in its self-righteous isolation, incidentally ridding the country of foreign profit-takers. South Africa’s economy was Africa’s strongest. The sports boycott was irritating, but not remotely such as to induce Afrikaners to capitulate to a black majority....I could see no reason why this should change any time soon. The whites were entrenched....Then suddenly in 1989-91 came a revolution.
What happened next was equally crucial. De Klerk had a Damascene conversion, boldly and emphatically turning to reform. He realised that apartheid was losing intellectual and moral sway over the white minority. He could see the game was up. So-called “separate development” was administrative chaos, with black immigrants pouring into the lucrative mining sector and spreading south into the Cape Province. Most whites sensed change had to come, but they were terrified of what it might mean.
It was the counter-insurgents who changed course
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