[Mohoender]

This vast region of Africa has been plagued for years by guerillas and ethnic conflicts before everything starts settling down. However, tensions appear again with the Twilight War and even before that with the revival of the various guerillas. Then, with global chaos and the end of international relations, the entire regions enter a new conflict with every country in the area involved to some points.

First and most of important of all is the role played by the most powerful country on the continent: South Africa. Under the presidency of F.W. de Klerk the country had initiated a move toward democracy and the end of discrimination, legalizing the ANC and releasing Nelson Mandela from prison. Obviously, this was intended to put an end to the Apartheid system that had been in placed for nearly fifty years. In addition, the government officially dismantles its nuclear weapon programs, announcing that the army destroyed its nuclear arsenal while the government accesses the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The process seems to be well underway when in a referendum held in 1992, 68% of the white electorate voted in favor of dismantling Apartheid through negotiation.

Things turn sour, however, on the next year when Chris Hani, an anti-apartheid, activist is assassinated. The murderer escapes and is found dead on the next day. Investigation progress slowly and ANC leaders, following Winnie Mandela’s renewed attack on the white minority, accuses the government of duplicity. These allegations are almost immediately followed by the most violent riots in the country since the release of Nelson Mandela. First, located to a few Ghettos, these unrests soon spread to most of eastern South Africa and F.W. De Klerk is increasingly criticized within his own majority. The widespread violence and the government incapacity to put an end to it worry the white minority and most of the electorate switches its support. F.W. de Klerk is forced out of office and new elections are organized under the Apartheid rules, resulting in the election of Ferdinand Hartzenberg, leader of the Konserwatiewe Party van Suid-Afrika. During the following months the new government turns away from de Klerk’s policies and the Apartheid is again fully implemented (Also Coloured and Indians people retain their voting rights). In addition, the multi-racial elections that were already planned are cancelled while the ANC is banned again and Nelson Mandela placed under house arrest before year’s end. The new president goes two steps further when Winnie Mandela is also arrested and when he declares that South Africa will resume its nuclear program (The Army, then reveals that the existing bombs had not been destroyed).

The year that follows is marked by a gradual increase in violence throughout the country, among Blacks but also directed toward the White and Coloured communities. At last, many among the Blacks are expelled from the western region and sent to east as the army is expending, launching an increasing number of COIN operations in hope of stopping violence. In the meantime, the South African government reasserts its control over the city of Walvis Bay in Namibia despite widespread opposition by Namibian authorities and western democracies. Fully aware of its weaknesses and unwilling to bring the country back to war, the Namibian government (former SWAPO) finally accepts the situation and renounces its claims on the town.

From then, South Africa faces growing civil unrest with the western regions under almost full control by the white minority and the east increasingly under the threat of a better organized but divided Black community. Indeed the native populations of South Africa fail to unite and their various movements (ANC, Inkhata, PAC and SAPC for the most important ones) fight as much among themselves as against the White community. Nevertheless, the new government is facing its own difficulties as it is widely condemned by the West and by the Warsaw Pact. However, several countries in the West, more aware of the increasingly tense global situation secretly back Hatzenberg’s administration.

As the world accelerates its course toward the Twilight War, the internal conflict in South Africa becomes increasingly brutal. Casualties are constantly increasing while repression becomes bloodier but, except for some verbal condemnation, the world doesn’t do anything and this doesn’t change even when what was widespread civil unrest finally turns to full fledge civil war. At last, the situation changes again when most western countries, facing difficulties in the Twilight War, put an end to international sanctions on South Africa in exchange for access to South African raw materials. Things go one last step ahead as the nukes are falling all over the planet. At that time, South Africa is well aware of the military backing received by the black insurgency from several of its neighbors and it finally takes the decision to use nuclear devices to put an end to the civil war. As a result, six nuclear attacks are decided with the first one being dropped on Harare in Zimbabwe. Almost simultaneously, three attacks are launched toward Mozambique where the main cities are destroyed: Inhambane, Maputo and Pemba. Finally, the last two are used on the South African soil, ravaging the capital cities of Lesotho and Swaziland.

These attacks didn’t put an end to the conflict and the South African civil war is still going on. However, the native movements have lost most of their foreign support and far too much combatant while the Hatzenberg’s government gets full control over the Cap province, the Gauteng province and the white enclave of Durban in Natal.

Among South Africa’s neighbors two escape the war and most chaos, finally siding with the government of Pretoria in exchange for military supplies and direct support by the South African army. These are the two lightly populated countries of Botswana and Namibia which, despite ethnic stability, are increasingly plagued by guerilla groups crossing the borders and bringing destruction with them. In a desperate need to expend their military forces to meet this threat, the two governments finally turn to South Africa. Of course, several marauding bands continue to bring destructions to these two countries but their military forces, now well supplied and trained, are increasingly capable of meeting that threat. The other countries, however, are all plagued with widespread instability but to very different levels.

Before the war, Angola took a path to a peaceful resolution of its civil war but this changed with the successful 1991 coup in Moscow. Then, UNITA which has been increasingly isolated and lost support from the West in favor of the MPLA turns to the Warsaw Pact. Indeed Jonas Sawimbi, leader of the UNITA, true to his word ( "I am not communist because it serves no purpose. Nor am I a capitalist. Socialism in this country is the only answer.”), turns to Russia for supplies. Soon, the UNITA is joined by the FNLA which turns to China and the three groups that had been fighting each other for years resume full military action. For a time the MPLA which is still the legal government of the country, backed by the West, gets on top but that doesn’t last as South Africa and Namibia allow military supplies from Moscow and Beijing to transit through their territory, slowly shifting the military balance. Finally, when supplies from abroad dry up and the conflict loses in intensity, it is already too late and much of the population had been killed, victim of the civil war. The situation gets even worse when Cabinda is nuked reducing national income to almost nothing.

Malawi and Zambia both falls to an entirely different matter as their respective governments simply fail to maintain the economy. Then, with the war, their stagnant economies simply go bankrupt and most people find themselves out of work and unable to buy food anymore. The population starts to protest and both governments are quickly facing large food riots. The two countries respective security forces are unable to manage the situation and civil unrest last for months, putting even more strain on the fledging governments. Finally, as food riots turn to ethnic conflict, with both countries ravaged, legal authorities simply disappear.

In Zimbawe, the decline starts when Mugabe’s government takes the decision to expel the white farmers to give the land back to native people. Those white farmers mostly leave for South Africa and when it is established that Mugabe’s regime supplies weapon to insurgent movements in South Africa, they weight heavily in the decision of using nuclear weapons. Only one bomb is dropped on Zimbabwe, however, but it destroys the capital city of Harare, decapitating the state. Left with no guidance above the village level the survivors turn on each other for food.

Mozambique is hard hit by the nukes, however, and that event instead of ending the ongoing civil war, fuels it. All the sudden, surviving governmental troops and rebel forces fight with some kind of desperate energy. In addition, with the ensuing chaos, the various ethnic groups in the country attack each other, adding an ethnic dimension to the already brutal fight.