By Charlie van Gelderen THE doubts over the political role of South Africa's security forces have been redoubled by their handling of the invasion by right-wing thugs of the building where the negotiations for constitutional changes in South Africa have been dragging on for 18 months.
This is the most serious problem which will confront a future post-apartheid government resulting from the recently announced elections The military. the police and the network of secret services. have been operating since 1948 as an integral part of the ruling National Party, enforcing the brutal apartheid laws. today are the same generals and police chiefs who have been in control for four decades.
That there has been no fundamental change was demonstrated when the police, supposedly guarding the building, stood idly by and made not the slightest effort to deter the the spurious grounds that they could not apprehend the perpetrators as they had all given false names and addresses.
Among those taking a lead. ing part in the assault were Eugene Terre-Rlanche leader of the openly fascist AWB, the former chief of the South African Defence Force, General Constant Viljoen, and the leader of the Conservative Party Ferdi Hartzenberg. They could hardly have concealed their identities.
There are eye-witness accounts of the police openly fraternising with the armed invaders, making no attempt to conceal their support.
What a contrast this has been to the arrest on June 9 of seven members of the Azanian People's Liberation Army, the military wing of the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC).
African National Congress leader Nelson Mandela has demanded "joint control of the security forces. But will this be enough? Will even a majority ANC government be able to control these forces without drastic restructuring of the whole security edifice?
The provisional government of national unity, which is the basis of agreement between the ANC and the National Party in the current negotiatons, may result in shared political office, enjoying the shadow of power. But if the security forces are left more-or-less intact, with only a tinkering of bringes di tre top, wiere will be no way in which a South African military coup can be halted.
The demand should be, not for shared control of the existing forces - even if an element of the
SOCIALIST OUTLOOK No.46, July 10 1993. Page 8 KWAME M.A. SOMBURU is a member of Socialist Action, an American organisation associated with the Fourth International. During his recent speaking tour of Europe, Kwame spoke to more than two hundred people at Socialist Outlook meetings in Birmingham and London. DAVE PACKER asked him to spell out his opinions on the theme of black liberation and socialism - Issues which have been discussed in previous issues of Socialist Kwame M.A. Somburu speaking in London There is much documentation over the past few hundred years of the many ways that black males have been ex-