Preventing the Vacuum: Determinants of the Namibia Settlement
This paper examines the political, military and economic factors behind the diplomatic agreements which led to the withdrawal of South Africa's colonial occupation of Namibia in 1989–90, and it identifies some of the major constraints which Pretoria placed upon the independence of the new Namibian state. The view that the South African government withdrew from Namibia — but not Walvis Bay — because of military defeats in Angola during 1988 is rejected. It is argued that explanations for the settlement given by US diplomats, Chester Crocker and Charles Freeman, do not take into account key variables such as the underlying economic imperatives, South Africa's state and party building strategy in Namibia, and the political actions of the Namibian people themselves. Such determinants have also been ignored or obscured by most of the radical literature on South Africa's destabilisation of the sub‐region. It is argued here that Pretoria's attempts to consolidate stable conditions for a semi‐colonial state on it...
The Clinton administration's policy toward Angola: an assessment
This article assesses President Bill Clinton's foreign policy towards Angola within the context of United States’ post‐World War II foreign policy, Clinton's overall foreign policy, and his approach towards sub‐Saharan Africa. In September, 1992, multi‐party elections based on national reconciliation were held in Angola. After losing those elections to President Jose Eduardo dos Santos and the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) Jonas Savimbi and his National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) returned to warfare, quickly gaining control of over 70 per cent of the country. The Bush administration responded to Savimbi's actions by proposing a new round of negotiations based on ‘power sharing’, designed to give Savimbi and UNITA another chance to gain state power. President Clinton extended diplomatic relations to the Government of Angola, but also promoted the power sharing solution. In 1984 an agreement was made between the Government and UNITA, which led to a government of national unity in 1997. Savimbi, however, continued to terrorise the Angolan society. Two central questions raised in this assessment are: 1) Why was Savimbi able to sustain his military option? and 2) Was the Clinton administration actually committed to ‘national reconciliation’ in Angola? The current analysis shows that: 1) Savimbi sustained his military option because UNITA earned over $3 billion smuggling diamonds, enabling him to purchase ample supplies of weapons; and 2) as long as Western business interests made profits there, the instability wrought by Savimbi was acceptable to the hegemonic interests of the United States.
Insanity in Ancient and Modern Life, with Chapters on Its Prevention
be well received by the profession and the public The first eighty-four pages treat of the prevalence of the causes of insanity amongst the nations of antiquity. We know that madness has existed in all the times of which we have any record, and that it had much the same train of symptoms as at present. But it is impossible to find out whether insanity was more or less frequent amongst the Egyptians, Hebrews, Greeks, or liomans. In