The previous chapter described how SDUs – formally and informally aligned with the ANC – were the foot soldiers in the war against the IFP and clashes with state security forces. However, this was only one axis along which armed violence was conducted. This chapter identifies others: internecine violence within the ANC; battles which pitted the ANC against non-Charterist liberation movements; and forms of violence which wove together politics and crime in complex patterns.

ANC internecine violence

Violence within and between ANC-affiliated structures, such as SDUs, MK veterans, African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL) members and different civic associations, surfaced throughout the transition period. The ANC was acutely aware of the severity of these conflicts and was active in attempting to resolve many of them. A 1993 ANC Peace Desk report includes a section devoted to ‘Intra-Violence’ that lists nineteen areas on the Reef that were experiencing conflicts. The Peace Desk report noted that, ‘In the absence of hostile attacks in various areas … the observance in them is the increase on Intra- Violence.’ These conflicts took several forms and were often attributed to ‘power-mongering amongst comrades’. In Brits (north west of Johannesburg) rival factions of the ANCYL were at each other's throats as ‘one group had lost elections and started mobilising against those elected’. An ANCYL-MK conflict in Sharpeville led the Peace Desk to bemoan that, ‘MK and Youth League members … hunt and kill each other with weapons of destruction.’ Diepkloof in Soweto featured an ANCYL–COSAS rivalry and warring ANC-affiliated civics in Orlando caused the deaths of ‘key activists and promising leaders in the area’. In one of several clashes in which ‘tribalism’ was said to be a factor, hostilities in Daveyton between ‘Amabutho and members of the Youth League’ claimed many lives. Amid the ANC–IFP conflict in Alexandra, the ANC was called on to mediate fighting between rival SDUs. A generational struggle in Khutsong between ANC members led to ‘lots of conflict’. The ANC often claimed that problematic groups had been infiltrated by criminals, police informers and third force agents seeking to undermine the party. This may well have occurred on occasion, but most internecine violence was rooted in local power struggles. Three case studies illustrate the local dynamics at play.