James O. Gump

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James O. Gump | Civil Wars in South Dakota and South Africa: The Role of the "Third Force" | The Western Historical Quarterly, 34.4 | The History Cooperative

CIVIL WARS IN SOUTH DAKOTA AND SOUTH AFRICA: THE ROLE OF THE "THIRD FORCE"

In the latter third of the twentieth century, the "homeland" reserves of two reputed "warrior" societies—the Oglala Lakota of Pine Ridge and the Zulu of KwaZulu-Natal—erupted in civil violence. This paper compares the role of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the South African Police as intervening forces in these civil conflicts.

IN THE IMMEDIATE AFTERMATH of the deadly violence that ravaged Pine Ridge Reservation, the South Dakota "homeland" of the Oglala Lakota, Rapid City Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agent Norman Zigrossi defended the role that federal law enforcement played in the conflict: "The [Lakota] are a conquered nation, and when you are conquered, the people you are conquered by dictate your future."¹ In another context, Zigrossi might have been rationalizing the army's massacre of several hundred Lakota Ghost Dancers at Wounded Knee Creek in December 1890. Instead, he was reflecting on the second occupation of Wounded Knee between February and May 1973, and the ensuing civil war that raged in Pine Ridge until 1976. During the course of the Pine Ridge turmoil, the FBI initiated a paramilitary endeavor that was unique to the organization and launched the largest manhunt in FBI history following the shooting deaths of two of its agents on 26 June 1975.² In similar fashion, South African state security inserted itself into the conflict raging in the remote "homeland" of a conquered foe in the late twentieth century. Between 1984 and 1994, the South African Police trained Zulu vigilante forces in KwaZulu-Natal, supplied them with vast caches of AK-47 rifles, hand grenades, land mines, Rocket Propelled Grenade (RPG) launchers, and mortars, and directly supervised death squads as well.³

The factional struggles in which the United States and South Africa intervened as a "third force" bear a number of historical similarities. For example, each civil conflict erupted in the reserve of a reputed warrior society that had been subjugated in the twilight of the nineteenth-century frontier era.⁴ The inhabitants of these reserves also shared the experience of political subordination, economic marginality, and structural dependency in the post-conquest era. As a means of coping with these various constraints, both the Lakota and Zulu mobilized their ethnic traditions in the twentieth century, a cultural endeavor that exaggerated factionalism and fanned civil conflict. In South Dakota, the contestants were the Oglala Tribal Government and American Indian Movement (AIM); in South Africa, members of the Zulu nationalist movement, Inkatha, warred against the United Democratic Front/African National Congress (UDF/ANC). As these conflicts ensued, the security establishments of two major governments defined each struggle as a matter affecting national security, thus justifying the expense of monitoring and infiltrating these civil wars. Why did the United States and South Africa choose to act in such a way in these seemingly marginal reserves? More importantly, do the reasons for these interventions share common ground?

To investigate these questions, this study employs what historian George Fredrickson characterizes as "cross-national comparative history." According to Fredrickson, such an approach "can undermine two contrary but equally damaging presuppositions—the illusion of total regularity and that of absolute uniqueness. Cross-national history, by acquainting one with what goes on elsewhere, may inspire a critical awareness of what is taken for granted in one's own country."⁵ While fully attentive to the nuances of American Indian history, this paper issues another important challenge to American exceptionalism. Specifically, it connects the legacy of colonialism in South Africa—factionalism, structural dependency, and racial domination—with the historical experience of the Pine Ridge Lakota.

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