ABSTRACT
The period of world history that begins with the end of the Second World War has been for Africa not a period of relative peace and calm, but rather a period of accelerated war and political turmoil.1 To be sure, these conflicts have not been futile. By the end of the 1960s most of Africa had achieved the status of political independence and the early 1970s witnessed the end of Portugese-NATO colonialism-the oldest European colonial empire in Africa. 2 The independence of Namibia in March 1990, the military-political victory of the Eritrean resistance in May 1991, and the independence referendum held in April 1993, along with the dynamic developments in
South Ahica, all point to the possibility that the 1990s will be the decade in which not only European colonialism but differing forms of African colonialism and external domination will be totally eradicated.3
