Barring a last-minute summit between President José Eduardo dos Santos and rebel leader Jonas Savimbi, both sides are moving towards another major military confrontation. Despite a hopeful telephone...

A wave of repression has followed the drunken coup attempt on 28 October, starting with a purge in the army. The army commander, Lieutenant General Nobby Simbeye, whose...

The timing could hardly have been worse. As the currency came under attack (falling against the United States' dollar from Z$14 to Z$25 in mid-November) and with even...

A team of South African defence experts is due in Bulgaria next year to look more closely at its military plants, 22 of which are being prepared for...

War veterans are proving the most potent political and financial force in Zimbabwe this year. Their success, after one of the most strident political campaigns since Independence, in...

The irresistible rise of the Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans' Association's leader, Chenjerai 'Hitler' Hunzvi, to political stardom this year was achieved by his intelligent use of one...

A failed coup attempt by a group of drunken soldiers, on 28 October, made Zambians worry and pitched their political leaders into a familiar shouting match of accusation...

The President's ex-wife scares the African National Congress establishment. Their nightmare is that Winnie Madikizela- Mandela will be elected deputy president of the ANC at its national conference...

Luanda's regional strategy to isolate and encircle Jonas Savimbi and his União Nacional para a Independência Total de Angola forces took further shape with President J José...

p>President Nelson Mandela's 50-vehicle motorcade on its long journey from southern Tunisia to Tripoli (to avoid United Nations' flight sanctions) had Colonel Moammar el Gadaffi beaming. So did...

The trades union movement has tried and failed to bring down the government of King Mswati III. Jan Sithole, Secretary General of the Swaziland Federation of Trade Unions,...

The political structures of post-Independence South Africa are shaking, as the African National Congress adapts itself to the uncomfortable realities of power. Formally, the ANC works in 'Tripartite...

In the run-up to the annual International Monetary Fund and World Bank meeting in Hong Kong, China, on 23-25 September, two issues have dominated the South African economy....

Defence Minister Joe Modise wants to buy new equipment for the South African National Defence Force, which he says is in decline. Finance Minister Trevor Manuel counters that...

Nothing can stop the carefully orchestrated ascendancy of Deputy President Thabo Mbeki, first to the African National Congress leadership and then to the South African presidency. The shadow...

'We are close to the end of our tether with UNITA', says a senior official with the United Nations Observer Mission to Angola (MONUA). The United Nations Security...

President Nelson Mandela's extraordinary peacemaking bid in Sudan, which appears to have pleased only the National Islamic Front, came without South African Foreign Ministry support, Africa Confidential understands....

Zimbabweans have plenty to be discontented about. Strikes have brought workers onto the streets from banks, hotels, municipalities and the transport, clothing, textile, cement, railway and construction industries...

Deputy President Thabo Mbeki speaks animatedly of an 'African Renaissance' – an updated version of Kwame Nkrumah's Pan-Africanism but with South Africa rather than Ghana steering the way....

The country remains a favoured African democracy – but only after international protests and a dignified climb-down by government. With elections due in 1999, the government proposed a...

Namibia's constitution, widely regarded as a model for countries emerging from despotism, limits a president to two terms. President Sam Shafiishuna Nujoma has served two five-year terms –...

In the heaviest fighting since November 1994's ceasefire, the Forças Armadas de Angola have pounded positions of Jonas Savimbi's União Nacional para a Independência Total de Angola in...

Colonel Moammar el Gadaffi may plan to fly to South Africa in breach of United Nations Security Council (Lockerbie) sanctions on Libya flights. Britain and the United States...

Jonas Savimbi must feel that the earth has moved but not because he is any closer to quenching his passion to become president of Angola. The tremors running...

By the grace of the courts, and for a few weeks only, Prime Minister Ntsu Mokhehle (78) is hanging on as leader of the Basutoland Congress Party, a...

One hundred and sixty years after the 'Great Trek' of Afrikaners from the Western Cape into the interior, a smaller, more bizarre trek is under way. Under government...

The once-socialist government of Mozambique has made what may be the world's most extreme privatisation agreement. It is handing over the development of a region as large as...

Zaïre's slow-burning revolution has made a quick impact on Angola. President José Eduardo dos Santos is cheering on Laurent-Désiré Kabila's forces and has helped by facilitating the airlift...

On 10 March, all the senior leaders of Frente de Libertação do Enclave de Cabinda-Renovada, Antonio Bento Bembe, Artur Tchibassa and Mirracio Armando N'zoulou, were thrown into gaol...

A forced landing by a Ugandan chartered Boeing 707 at Harare International Airport on 14 March is arousing interest among diplomats and business people tracking the huge increase...

In a revolutionary mix of ideology and pragmatism, black trade unionists are invading the fringes of white capitalist power. Once the unions led the way to black empowerment...

Providentially, nobody died when the army unleashed its strength against rebel policemen in their barracks in Maseru. Eight officers of the Royal Lesotho Mounted Police had demanded indemnity...

A cloud of misunderstandings surrounds the unfinished negotiations between South Africa and the European Union on the rules for trade between them. In the days before South Africa...

Dislodging King Mswati III and his followers from their present monopoly of power is proving to be long and difficult. The Constitutional Review Commission, appointed in August 1996...

After just over a thousand days in office, President Nelson Mandela and his ministers have a spring in their step. The rand is strengthening; the economic management is...

It was an impressive, if slightly bizarre, demonstration of open government. On 10 February, 30 or so journalists found themselves in the hospitality suite of the National Intelligence...

Along with other East Asian 'tiger economies', Malaysia is being assiduously courted by the ruling South West Africa People's Organisation. Trade and Industry Minister Hidipo Hamutenya (AC Vol...

The doubters have been proved wrong, says the ever optimistic Alioune Blondin Beye, the United Nations Secretary General's Special Representative in Angola. A government of national unity is...

Spectacular oil finds in the Congo basin off Angola's coastline are bringing in foreign investors and boosting the government's bargaining position. Industry sources reckon that within six years,...

The Zulu nationalist Inkatha Freedom Party is poised to extract far reaching concessions from its main opponents, the African National Congress. The ANC wants a peace agreement, having...

Having sauntered back into State House after bitter and flawed elections (AC Vol 37 No 24), President Frederick Chiluba must now live with his unenviable inheritance: a tottering...

A sense of uncertainty about the future is growing as the time to resolve the succession issue draws near (AC Vol 37 No 19). Will Sam Nujoma try...

A month after the presidential election (AC Vol 37 No 25), the victory of Didier Ratsiraka has at last been announced. Returning to power on just over half...

The trial of former Bophuthatswana President Lucas Mangope will raise more questions about his associates in South Africa and Europe (AC Vol 35 No 13). He faces 200...

The apartheid government hated the press and the African National Congress distrusts it. Some things have changed, though. Black groups now control a few newspapers – and foreign...

Some compromise on South Africa's mooted arms sales to Syria may emerge from United States' Vice-President Al Gore's meeting with Deputy President Thabo Mbeki next month in Pretoria....

Another battle between reformers and traditionalists looms (AC Vol 37 No 13), with trades unions threatening a general strike for 3 February. They are pushing 27 demands, mostimportantly...