The Use of Assassination as a Tool of State Policy: South Africa's Counter-Revolutionary Strategy 1979-92 (Part II)

This is the second part of an article discussing assassination as a tool of state policy in South Africa. The first part was published in TPV 10/2 (Summer 1998). In this part the author discusses the basis for the systemization of assassination, the development of, first, a counter-insurgency philosophy by the state, followed by the development of 'Total National Strategy' and the means to implement it. The rise of the security forces and the capability that they delivered is considered as an aspect of determining the implemention of the counter-revolutionary strategy. The paper concludes by examining a number of examples of assassinated opponents of the apartheid state.