Southern Africa: Descent into Chaos?

Abstract

The major cause of the sharp deterioration of the situation in South Africa was Pretoria's continuing failure to address the underlying political demands of the country's black majority. Between the fall of 1984 and the end of 1986, the security situation in southern Africa was transformed. South Africa signed separate security agreements with Angola in February 1984 and Mozambique in March 1984 that appeared to stabilize a deteriorating security situation in the region and to affirm Pretoria's claims to regional superpower status. Developments in South Africa now largely determine the prospects for political stability and economic development in five countries-Botswana, Lesotho, Mozambique, Swaziland, and Zimbabwe-and one territory-Namibia; and they significantly influence those prospects in four other countries-Angola, Malawi, Zaire, and Zambia. The increasingly asymmetrical pattern of regional interdependence in southern Africa is a product of economics, geography, internal conflicts in Angola and Mozambique, and the regional policies of the South African government.