LOOKING BACK

FROM THE SUNDAY TIMES 50 YEARS AGO

The refusal of the Government’s Afrikaans-speaking supporters to make “sacrifices” for apartheid — like giving up domestic servants — has come as a shock to Nationalist policyplanners. The refusal to make “sacrifices” was evidenced recently at Randburg, where there was an audible sigh of mainly Afrikaner relief over the reprieve for domestic servants, and at Pretoria, where flat-dwelling servants and boarding-house keepers protested at the rounding up of domestic servants. The flaw in the “separate the races” policy is that it conflicts directly with the “South African way of life” — which practically no White (or Black) South Africans would be prepared to give up. — December 8 1968

FROM THE SUNDAY TIMES 25 YEARS AGO

THE ANC Intelligence wing has drawn up a secret five-year plan for a Broederbond-style bid to take control of key organs of the state after the April elections. The police, the public service, intelligence and security forces are all targeted for infiltration by intelligence operatives . The media and rival political groups are also to be infiltrated. The plan also entails screening of all ANC members, including its very top officials, and the “handling” of disloyal ones. The purpose of the plan, said the ANC this week, is to protect the organisation and its allies from sabotage by anti-reform groups after the ANC’s expected electoral victory. — December 12 1993