Jeugkrag

Jeugkrag (meaning "Youth Power"), also known as Youth for South Africa, was a short-lived South African youth group in the late 1980s. It was surreptitiously funded by the apartheid government's Department of Military Intelligence in an operation known as Project Essay. Led by Marthinus van Schalkwyk (later a member of the African National Congress) it operated exclusively on Afrikaans university campuses and sought to influence the political views of Afrikaans-speaking students.^[1][2][3]

Van Schalkwyk was the national chairman. He was supported between 1987 and July 1988 by Cedric de Coning, who was both director of fund raising and publicity secretary.^{[citation needed]}

Putatively aimed at bringing together youth from different ethnic and ideological backgrounds,^[4] Jeugkrag was a transparent effort to supplant the process of youth dialogue originally started by the Institute for Democracy in South Africa (IDASA), an NGO founded at the end of 1986 by the liberal ex-parliamentarians Frederik van Zyl Slabbert and Alex Boraine^[5] with funding from donors such as the Open Society Foundation^[6] and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC).^[7] Slabbert and Boraine, who had decamped in frustration from the tricameral parliament,^[8] were part of the white group that held groundbreaking discussions with ANC delegates at the historic Dakar meeting in 1987.^[9]

The group was vilified by PW Botha, who called them "political terrorists".^[10] Peter Mokaba, an ANC leader that Jeugkrag had engaged, would later comment: "At the time although we knew that Jeugkrag was not an independent organization, but part of the heart and soul of the National Party, it was our policy to discuss matters with both progressive and reactionary organizations."^[11]

In 1990 en route to a meeting in Botswana, a 12-person Jeugkrag delegation was detained by police at the Monomotapa Hotel in Harare, Zimbabwe. They were questioned about a meeting that they had attended with members of the Zimbabwe Unity Movement (ZUM), a marginal political group opposed to Robert Mugabe's government.^[12] The delegation consisted exclusively of representatives from Afrikaans-language universities including the Rand Afrikaans University, Stellenbosch University, and the University of Pretoria.

The University of Pretoria office was headed by Louis du Plooy until the organisation was disbanded in 1991.^{[citation needed]} The liaison officer was Cleoné Bakker.^{[citation needed]}

References

1. Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa Report, Volume 2, 2003, p. 256
2. "FW's heir was MI agent", Mail & Guardian, 29 August 1997, archived from the original on 1 October 2007
3. "NP 'moet Van Schalkwyk se Jeugkrag-dae ondersoek", Beeld, p. 12, 19 September 1997, archived from the original on 27 September 2007
4. "Jeugkrag ontbind oor 'n paar maande", Beeld, p. 11, 23 July 1991, archived from the original on 27 September 2007
5. "How did Idasa start". Retrieved 29 May 2007.
6. "Donors". Retrieved 29 May 2007.
7. "Institute for Democracy in South Africa (IDASA)". Archived from the original on 29 September 2007. Retrieved 29 May 2007.
8. Walker, Julie (1998), "Slabbert gets down to some real business", Sunday Times
9. Uys, Gerhard (15 December 2005), "Waansin in woestyn", Beeld, p. 17, archived from the original on 27 September 2007
10. Morris, Michael (2004), Every step of the way: The journey to freedom in South Africa (PDF), Pretoria: HSRC PRESS
11. Kruger, Peet (13 September 1997), "Van Schalkwyk 'te jonk', maar dalk juis 'n bate, glo hy", Beeld, archived from the original on 27 September 2007
12. "Jeugkrag se 12 nóg in duister", Beeld, 10 July 1990, archived from the original on 27 September 2007