Unveiling the Third Force: Toward Transitional Justice in the USA and South Africa, 1973–1994

Abstract

This study compares the American and South African security responses to perceived communist-inspired insurgencies—the American Indian Movement in the USA and the United Democratic Front/African National Congress in South Africa. In each instance, the governments employed third force techniques by utilizing surrogates, informants, provocateurs, and hit squads. As a result, these official entities became complicit in the criminal political violence that ravaged the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, KwaZulu-Natal, and the Rand townships between 1973 and 1994. This study also examines how investigative commissions in each country endeavored to expose official misconduct and hold these agencies accountable for their actions. Despite the differences in the scale of each insurgency as well as the overall purpose of each counterinsurgency campaign, this article finds common ground in the rationale, implementation, and effects of the security responses in each country.