Vol 38 No 24 | SOUTH AFRICA Sofia spree 5th December 1997 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...
Vol 38 No 22 | SOUTH AFRICA Winning against Winnie 7th November 1997 The former Mrs. Mandela may lose her bid for power but she still alarms ANC leaders 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...
Vol 38 No 22 | LIBYASOUTH AFRICA Desert caravan 7th November 1997 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...
Vol 38 No 19 | SOUTH AFRICA Manpower and muscle 26th September 1997 Trades unionists and communists challenge the power and policies of their ANC allies 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...
Vol 38 No 18 | SOUTH AFRICA Market forces 12th September 1997 Despite criticism from the IMF, Pretoria has defended its currency against speculators – unlike some of the Asian Tigers 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....
Vol 38 No 18 | SOUTH AFRICA Trading arms 12th September 1997 The defence industry wants politicians – even Nelson Mandela – to become arms salesmen 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...
Vol 38 No 17 | SOUTH AFRICA Fighting for top jobs 29th August 1997 Mandela's imminent retirement as ANC leader is the signal for a race for top jobs 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...
Vol 38 No 17 | SOUTH AFRICASUDAN NIF targets Mandela 29th August 1997 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....
Vol 38 No 15 | SOUTH AFRICA Heading south 18th July 1997 Chief Buthelezi is making common cause with the ANC's Modise to keep out illegals 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....
Vol 38 No 12 | LIBYASOUTH AFRICA Gesture politics 6th June 1997 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...
Vol 38 No 9 | SOUTH AFRICA Keep trekking 25th April 1997 Afrikaner farmers move north, funded by the EU and some mysterious benefactors 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...
Vol 38 No 6 | SOUTH AFRICA Comrade shareholders 14th March 1997 Union leaders are following the capitalist road to black empowerment 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...
Vol 38 No 6 | SOUTH AFRICAEUROPE Trading places 14th March 1997 European politicians sound friendly but do not match post-apartheid expectations 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...
Vol 38 No 5 | SOUTH AFRICA First, the good news 28th February 1997 Having weathered political and economic storms in the past year, the ANC-led government is showing results 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...
Vol 38 No 5 | SOUTH AFRICA Deep foreground 28th February 1997 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...
Vol 38 No 4 | SOUTH AFRICA Hard bargains 14th February 1997 Buthelezi raises the stakes at a time when his ANC opponents need successful peace talks 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...
Vol 38 No 4 | SOUTH AFRICA Mangope on trial 14th February 1997 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...
Vol 38 No 3 | SOUTH AFRICA Press harder 31st January 1997 Global economics – and local politics – are transforming the country's media 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...
Vol 38 No 3 | SOUTH AFRICASYRIA Spiking Syria 31st January 1997 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....