‘The Involvement of the State Had to Be a Secret’: The Impact of Vrye Weekblad and Weekly Mail Exposés on the Apartheid Government and its Conservative Apologists in the United States

ABSTRACT In its final stages, the apartheid government in South Africa sought to promote an image that it was committed to reform and that it represented the only entity in the country capable of containing ‘black-on-black’ violence. At the same time, it created death squads and supported black counter-revolutionary forces to weaken the African National Congress. For the government’s strategy to work, it was essential that the violence it was using and fomenting remain hidden. Conservatives in the United States served as a willing accomplice of the apartheid government throughout its existence and particularly during this time period. This article examines two exposés published in South Africa: the Vrye Weekblad revelations about the death squads in 1989 and the Weekly Mail articles about the apartheid government’s support for Inkatha in 1991. These exposés, often viewed as separate, distinct stories, are connected in two meaningful ways. First, these newspapers, which reached small readerships in South Africa, published stories that would subsequently be featured in major newspapers in the United States. Secondly, by revealing the apartheid government’s use of covert violence, these exposés undermined the image it was cultivating and the policies it was pursuing to remain in power and, in the process, refuted every claim made by conservatives in the US.