SUMMARY
South Africa has since the second half of the 1900s experienced multiple inter-state conflicts. Following the firm entrenchment of the Apartheid System in 1948, resentment started to grow among the country’s black majority population. This in turn led to the formation of multiple armed groups that engaged in armed conflict with the state, as well as with each other. Since 1946 South Africa has experienced the intrastate, non-state and one-sided categories of UCDP organized violence.
2025
In 2025, South Africa recorded seventeen non-state fatalites, the majority of which were deaths attributed to the conflict between CATA and Codeta. The incidents that occurred in the Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal provinces represents an increase in fatalities compared to the previous year.
Organized Violence in South Africa
The NP government in the early 1990s began to negotiate, primarily with the powerful ANC, for a transition to democratic majority rule. The transitional period from 1990–1994 saw large-scale political violence, as black political parties such as the ANC and the IFP (Inkatha Freedom Party) skirmished for power, while some white right-wing groups attempted to destabilize the transition. Police repression also continued to be harsh. These struggles for influence led to acts of one-sided violence. The transition ended in 1994, when the ANC took the government seat following the elections that ended minority rule. South Africa was also a secondary warring party in the 1998 government conflict in Lesotho, where it intervened to fight a military coup.
Although South Africa experienced low levels of lethal conflict violence between 2000 and 2019, the conflict between taxi associations, more specifically between CATA and Codeta, became active in 2020. The conflict reached its highest intensity the following year. In 2021, the conflict between Black and Indian also became active.
Pre-1989 Conflicts
The first European settlement in what was to become South Africa was established by the Dutch in 1652. However, the territories now comprising South Africa were already populated by the San, Xhosa and Zulu people. After centuries of colonial rivalry, the Cape colony was annexed by the British in 1806, with expansion continuing eastwards, in almost constant conflict with the indigenous population. The Dutch settlers also moved eastwards to avoid British colonial rule, establishing the Boer Republics in the north and east of the territory. These entities were conquered by the British in the late 1800s and early 1900s. In 1910 the Union of South Africa was created, changing its name in 1961 to the Republic of South Africa, as well as separating fully from the United Kingdom.
After World War II South Africa unilaterally annexed South-West Africa (present day Namibia), which it occupied during World War I, and also implemented apartheid in this territory. The annexation was challenged by SWAPO (South-West Africa Peoples Organisation), and an armed conflict ensued in 1966 over the status of the territory, lasting until 1988 and at times reaching the intensity of war. Namibia gained independence in 1990, after the South African government had agreed to a United Nations peace plan for the region.
South Africa, from 1910, made use of apartheid (racial separation) as its political system. The system became more firmly entrenched in 1948 by the NP (National Party) government, which passed several laws restricting the rights of the nonwhite population. Through this policy of racial separation whites and nonwhites experienced vast divides in most realms of socioeconomic development, and the government received widespread international condemnation. The South African government also supported armed conflicts that destabilized neighboring states whose communist/socialist or majority black governments threatened the country's minority rule policy.
In response to political disenfranchisement, opposition groups began to grow in the country, most notably within the black population. Campaigns of civil disobedience and demonstrations, led by the ANC (African National Congress), the PAC (Pan African Congress) and the SACP (South African Communist Party) became a hallmark of the 1970s and 1980s during the struggle for a change in government. Repression by the government followed, and the conflict escalated into an armed conflict which lasted from 1981 to 1988. In this armed conflict the government faced the armed wings of the ANC and the PAC, and also the Azapo (Azanian Peoples Organisation) group.
