South African Defence Force

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The South African Defence Force (SADF) were the South African armed forces from 1957 until 1994. The former Union Defence Force was renamed to the South African Defence Force in the Defence Act (No. 44) of 1957. The SADF was superseded by the South African National Defence Force in 1994.

The SADF was involved in South African Border War and in the Angolan Civil War on the side of UNITA and Angola rebel leader Jonas Savimbi.

Within South Africa, the SADF was also widely used in the suppression of opposition to apartheid.

The SADF implemented conscription of white men, opposed by organisations such as the End Conscription Campaign.

[edit] Nuclear weapons

Main article: South Africa and weapons of mass destruction

South Africa at one time possessed weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons, but its stockpile was dismantled during the political transition of the early 1990s. There have been no attempts to build more nuclear weapons.

[edit] Integration

At the end of apartheid in 1994, the SADF was amalgamated with the defence forces of a number of formerly "independent" homelands as well as personnel from the former anti-apartheid guerrilla forces such as the African National Congress's Umkhonto we Sizwe, the Pan Africanist Congress's APLA and the Self-Protection Units of the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP). The new integrated force became known as the South African National Defence Force.