ABSTRACT
South Africa has made it clear that there can be peaceful coexistence between itself and its black-governed neighbors to the north if they do not allow the African National Congress (ANC) to stage guerrilla raids from bases within their countries. In an effort to reduce economic dependency, the nine black-governed regional states banded together in 1980 to form the Southern African Development Co-ordination Conference. The aggressiveness with which the South African government has pursued regional policy has greatly reduced the threat of sabotage from the military wing of the ANC and has, to a large degree, reconstituted a secure ring of buffer states along South Africa’s northern periphery. Although weapons and slogans may bring a guerrilla faction to power, only the successful dispersion of economic benefits to the people will keep it in power. The successful resistance leader, Samora Machel, who led the Mozambique Liberation Front Forces in victory against the Portuguese, was known as a zealous Marxist.
