It also outlines a new kind of Third World warfare - neither classic guerrilla warfare nor straightforward external aggression; instead, one comprising elements of civil war, but dominated by the initiatives of external powers.
Of the many bloody chapters in Southern Africa's Thirty Years War since the 1961 uprising against the Portuguese, none have been more protracted, more complex or more deadly for civilians than the conflicts in Angola and Mozambique since their independence in 1975. This new study explores the difficult questions of the original causes of these wars and the reasons for their prolongation. Born of the author's intimate knowledge of the region, his understanding of the relevant literature on ethnicity, revolution and guerrilla warfare, and his entirely new evidence, Minter's study is an original and significant exploration of the roots of war in Southern Africa. He provides a nuanced analysis of the interconnected roles of: social structure; external interventions; the particular patterns of military recruitment, conditioning, logistics and strategy that characterize Unita and Renamo; and the vulnerability and mistakes of the new Angolan and Mozambican states. The analysis serves to apportion responsibility for the enormous suffering of these years. It also outlines a new kind of Third World warfare - neither classic guerrilla warfare nor straightforward external aggression; instead, one comprising elements of civil war, but dominated by the initiatives of external powers. Minter's courageous and subtle reassessment of the modern military-political history of Southern Africa sets new standards for historians and political scientists in avoiding over-simplification and easy generalization; it provides a framework for taking full account of the panorama of factors to be considered in understanding these new forms of violent political struggle.
Providing a much-needed antidote to recent revisionist attempts to 'rehabilitate' apartheid, this major new text by a leading authority offers a considered and substantive reassessment of the nature, endurance and significance of apartheid in South Africa as well as the reasons for its dramatic collapse. Paying particular attention to the international dimension as well as the domestic, the author assesses the impact of anti-apartheid protest, of changing attitudes of Western governments to the apartheid regime and the evolution of South African government policies to the outside world.
"The clerk of the court called all rise as judge Blignaut swept in dressed in his black gown. He sat down, and moments later we rose again as he swept out, having pronounced the verdict. 'The clerk handed [my lawyer] a copy of the judgment. I received my own copy by e-mail that afternoon. [My lawyer] commented that it was being awarded against me in an issue brought in the public interest.' The issue was the South African arms deal scandal. The costs were almost a million rand. The plaintiff was Terry Crawford-Browne. As the scandal around the arms deal gathered force during the late 1990s, Crawford-Browne launched a campaign against an armaments acquisition programme that has locked South Africa into twenty years of debt repayment. With no discernible foreign enemy, he asked, why did we need such sophisticated weaponry: The answer was simple: in any arms deal the commisions are huge. With considerable courage, the man who acted for Archbishop Desmond Tutu during the banking sanctions campaign of the 1980s has taken on the post-apartheid government for its betrayal of the struggle against apartheid. In a poignant, telling account he describes the ANC's slide from moral high ground of the sanctions campaign to the corrupted lowlands where weapons of war are traded.
This New Edition, features a detailed chronology of the significant events that have taken place throughout the centuries; an extensive list of acronyms and abbreviations, in both English and Portuguese; maps; and an introductory essay that explains the richness of the land; its early history; and the current political, social, and economic conditions of its people. The more than 500 dictionary entries profile the significant persons, places, and events, as well as the political institutions and the economic and social achievements that are important to understanding Angola's history. For additional information, three appendices provide the name changes of places in Angola, the portfolios of the government, and an overview of Angola's oil production. The comprehensive bibliography concludes and complements this work with a selection of older works, and an emphasis on newer works written after 1990, as well as a useful selection of Internet sources, private sources, newspapers, and journals.
The book describes how Botswana's leaders effectively employed the instruments of power at their disposal, portraying a state that works. It argues that Africans are contributing meaningfully to emerging global thinking on security and urges Africa's friends to take advantage of opportunities for productive partnerships over environmental issues.