PERSISTENT COLLECTIVE VIOLENCE AND EARLY WARNING SYSTEMS - THE CASE OF KWAZULU-NATAL, SOUTH-AFRICA

One of the little known specifics of the democratic transition in Sout h Africa during 1990-1994 is its system of early warning about politic al violence. The strong role that grassroots organizations played in m onitoring affected communities and suspected perpetrators set it apart from systems that are driven primarily by academics, although academi cs were important for the analysis of the violence reports collected b y the popular movement and for formulating warnings on trends and hot zones that the transitional government as well as the media actively d emanded. This article describes the mechanisms of early warning and an alyzes data from the province of KwaZulu-Natal, where high levels of p olitical violence continued for much longer than in the rest of the co untry. Using regression techniques, we show that the violent behavior of the main political antagonists changed significantly after the Apri l 1994 national elections. Also, the violence followed different causa tive patterns in the various subregions. Profiles derived in 1994 and 1995 informed the government's decision to postpone regional elections in KwaZulu-Natal three times before they could be held in June 1996 i n a climate of relative tranquillity.