Federal Independent Democratic Alliance

It was established in July 1987 by an East Rand businessman, John Gogotya.^[1] It had its origins as a cultural organisation called Operation Advance and Upgrade.^[1] Gogotya would later claim his organisation had 600,000 members.^[1] Gogotya made statements that the organisation was opposed to Apartheid but willing to talk to the government.^[2] Some of the statements made by the organisation included supporting the state of emergency declared by the government in the mid-80's and opposed Western disinvestment imposed on the country.^[1] Other policies included supporting the homeland system, a federal system that would replace the provincial system and included the existing homelands at the time and opposed a "one man, one vote" as a political solution.^[1]

During the mid-eighties, the SADF Military Intelligence (MI) organisation created Project Capital.^[3] The object of the project was to create front organisations consisting of a moderate alliance of Black South African organisations to combat violence occurring in their communities.^[3] One of these groups was FIDA.^[4] SADF ended the project with FIDA in September 1991, when the MI projects were closed and FIDA received a final payment of R1.47 million.^[3] At its height, it had an annual budget of R3 million in 1991, was based in Johannesburg, with offices in thirteen regions in South Africa and employed sixty-eight employees.^[3] Supplied information to the MI on the protest movement in the townships through the Joint Management Centres.^[1][3] There, it also distributed anti-protest and anti-boycott pamphlets.^[1]