Zambia and the Liberation of South Africa

Abstract

The nine member-states of the Southern African Development Coordination Conference (S.A.D.C.C.) – Zimbabwe, Zambia, Angola, Mozambique, Botswana, Tanzania, Malawi, Lesotho, Swaziland – are notable for their collective weakness relative to South Africa, and their very wide economic and political heterogeneity.1Only four, or at most five, have economies whose annual G.D.P. exceeds $2,000 million: two of these, Angola and Mozambique, are under more or less constant attack from South Africa or its surrogate forces, while Tanzania is actually the most remote, physically and economically. At the same time, Malawi, Swaziland, and Lesotho – who are not in the so-called ‘Frontline’, unlike the other six – have rather close political relations with Pretoria, Malawi most substantively since as early as 1966 and Swaziland since 1982.2Botswana is more independent politically, with a modest G.D.P. and very small population.