In 1987 General Magnus Malan admitted for the first time that South African troops were in Angola to support Unita.
General Magnus Malan, who has died aged 81, was one of the Afrikaner generals who guarded the apartheid state. "I must emphasise," he once said, "that the overriding consideration is survival. Survival concerns every citizen in South Africa, directly and indirectly." Yet he saw apartheid as the guarantor of values that transcended colour lines. This was the dilemma of other Afrikaner generals and political leaders. As their regime moved towards an end in the late 1980s, they swung uncertainly between fighting to the end and striking a deal with the millions demanding equality.
The historian Hermann Giliomee tells of a discussion in 1993, the year before the elections that brought the African National Congress (ANC) to power, between General George Meiring, chief of the defence force, and a former defence chief, General Constand Viljoen. When he held the post in the 1980s, Viljoen had said of the black South Africans in his army: "If they can fight for South Africa, then they can vote for South Africa." But in 1993, Viljoen wanted to disrupt the elections, remove President FW de Klerk and restart negotiations with the ANC.
Meiring had several meetings with Viljoen to dissuade him and at one Viljoen said: "You and I and our men can take this country in an afternoon." To which Meiring replied: "Yes, that is so, but what do we the morning after the coup"?
Malan was Viljoen's predecessor as chief of the defence force, a post he assumed in 1976. As a strategist, he believed that internal and external forces were mobilising for a "total onslaught" against South Africa, which required a counter-acting "total national strategy". Yet, like other colleagues, he believed the answer to South Africa's problems ultimately were political, not military. Later, after his appointment as defence minister in 1980, Malan used his troops to quell unrest in the black townships. In 1986, he contended that political rights were not a relevant concern among black people.
The following year, Malan admitted for the first time that South African troops were in Angola to support Unita (the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola), as well as to counter Swapo (the South-West African People's Organisation) and the ANC.
In 1988, with the foreign minister Pik Botha, Malan took part in talks on South-West Africa and neighbouring Angola on the Cape Verde islands, and also in Brazzaville and Cairo, where they met Angolan representatives. These talks led to a settlement in both countries: in 1990, SWA became an independent Namibia under a Swapo government.
Malan spent 11 years as defence minister, starting under PW Botha; he was also a member of parliament, a member of the Transvaal provincial executive committee in 1981, then one of the National party's vice-chairmen in the Transvaal, and, in 1991, chairman of the ministers' council in the House of Assembly, the white element of the country's three-section parliament of 1984-94.
During 1990, Malan's position as minister of defence came under threat following public revelations about South African Defence Force paramilitary death squads operating against civilians in the eastern province of KwaZulu-Natal. The following year it emerged that the apartheid regime had financed the mainly Zulu Inkatha Freedom party, and Malan was shifted to the water affairs and forestry ministry, retiring from politics in February 1993.
He was born in Pretoria, the son of Avril Ire de Merindol, a professor of biochemistry, later an MP, and speaker of the House of Assembly and Elizabeth Frederika Malan. He went to the Afrikaans high school in Pretoria, and matriculated at Dr Danie Craven's Physical Education Brigade, Kimberley, in 1948. Malan took the opportunity of following the first military degree course for officers, completing his BSc Mil at Pretoria University in 1953. After a period in the navy as a marine, he returned to the army as a lieutenant. He later underwent training in the US, and in 1973 became chief of the South African army.
After the end of apartheid, with the ANC in government, Malan and 19 other top military brass were charged in 1995 with murder and for creating hit squads to destabilise the country, and specifically with the 1987 massacre of 13 people in KwaZulu's Kwamakutha township. Malan vehemently denied the charges, which were among the highest-profile attempts to prosecute apartheid-era atrocities. After a seven-month trial, all 20 were cleared of the charges in a verdict that found the apartheid government had paid Inkatha vigilantes for the killings, but ruled the prosecution had not proved the link to Malan.
He is survived by his wife, Magrietha, two sons and a daughter, and nine grandchildren.
• Magnus André de Merindol Malan, soldier and politician, born 30 January 1930; died 18 July 2011
The historian Hermann Giliomee tells of a discussion in 1993, the year before the elections that brought the African National Congress (ANC) to power, between General George Meiring, chief of the defence force, and a former defence chief, General Constand Viljoen. When he held the post in the 1980s, Viljoen had said of the black South Africans in his army: "If they can fight for South Africa, then they can vote for South Africa." But in 1993, Viljoen wanted to disrupt the elections, remove President FW de Klerk and restart negotiations with the ANC.
Meiring had several meetings with Viljoen to dissuade him and at one Viljoen said: "You and I and our men can take this country in an afternoon." To which Meiring replied: "Yes, that is so, but what do we the morning after the coup"?
Malan was Viljoen's predecessor as chief of the defence force, a post he assumed in 1976. As a strategist, he believed that internal and external forces were mobilising for a "total onslaught" against South Africa, which required a counter-acting "total national strategy". Yet, like other colleagues, he believed the answer to South Africa's problems ultimately were political, not military. Later, after his appointment as defence minister in 1980, Malan used his troops to quell unrest in the black townships. In 1986, he contended that political rights were not a relevant concern among black people.
The following year, Malan admitted for the first time that South African troops were in Angola to support Unita (the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola), as well as to counter Swapo (the South-West African People's Organisation) and the ANC.
In 1988, with the foreign minister Pik Botha, Malan took part in talks on South-West Africa and neighbouring Angola on the Cape Verde islands, and also in Brazzaville and Cairo, where they met Angolan representatives. These talks led to a settlement in both countries: in 1990, SWA became an independent Namibia under a Swapo government.
Malan spent 11 years as defence minister, starting under PW Botha; he was also a member of parliament, a member of the Transvaal provincial executive committee in 1981, then one of the National party's vice-chairmen in the Transvaal, and, in 1991, chairman of the ministers' council in the House of Assembly, the white element of the country's three-section parliament of 1984-94.
During 1990, Malan's position as minister of defence came under threat following public revelations about South African Defence Force paramilitary death squads operating against civilians in the eastern province of KwaZulu-Natal. The following year it emerged that the apartheid regime had financed the mainly Zulu Inkatha Freedom party, and Malan was shifted to the water affairs and forestry ministry, retiring from politics in February 1993.
He was born in Pretoria, the son of Avril Ire de Merindol, a professor of biochemistry, later an MP, and speaker of the House of Assembly and Elizabeth Frederika Malan. He went to the Afrikaans high school in Pretoria, and matriculated at Dr Danie Craven's Physical Education Brigade, Kimberley, in 1948. Malan took the opportunity of following the first military degree course for officers, completing his BSc Mil at Pretoria University in 1953. After a period in the navy as a marine, he returned to the army as a lieutenant. He later underwent training in the US, and in 1973 became chief of the South African army.
After the end of apartheid, with the ANC in government, Malan and 19 other top military brass were charged in 1995 with murder and for creating hit squads to destabilise the country, and specifically with the 1987 massacre of 13 people in KwaZulu's Kwamakutha township. Malan vehemently denied the charges, which were among the highest-profile attempts to prosecute apartheid-era atrocities. After a seven-month trial, all 20 were cleared of the charges in a verdict that found the apartheid government had paid Inkatha vigilantes for the killings, but ruled the prosecution had not proved the link to Malan.
He is survived by his wife, Magrietha, two sons and a daughter, and nine grandchildren.
• Magnus André de Merindol Malan, soldier and politician, born 30 January 1930; died 18 July 2011
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