Lusaka and regional cooperation in Southern Africa: Part I, the Zimbabwe connection: Part II, the South African dilemma

For the foreseeable future, two polarised concepts of regional cooperation will co-exist in southern Africa despite the continuing interdependence of the sub-continent. The one expresses black-ruled southern Africa’s continuing struggle for genuine independence through ‘economic liberation’ from South Africa and development of an alternative regional bloc (Southern African Development Coordination Conference or SADCC, comprising Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe) that would isolate the Republic and indirectly contribure to its ultimate transformation. The other is a defensive strategy on the part of South Africa to secure the heartland of white supremacy by maintaining the regional dependency of the periphery (Prime Minister P.W. Botha’s plans for a ‘constellation of southern African states’) while erecting new buffers against internal change in the name of change. Notes.