ABSTRACT
Southern African Development Community’s (SADC) central position in South Africa’s post-apartheid economic and political strategy precludes the country from acting in any way that would undermine the cohesion of the organisation. South African foreign policy towards the conflicts across the region has primarily sought to use multilateral instruments, including SADC, in pursuit of diplomatic solutions. In the wake of the resurgence of outright conflict in Angola and direct Angolan military intervention in the Congo and northern Namibia, the South African government adopted a more overtly critical position on the longstanding civil war. The South African government ensured that the Zimbabwean economy continued to function through, for example, extraordinary extensions of credit in key sectors such as power, where its parastatal company, Eskom supplied the bulk of Zimbabwe’s needs. The International Investors Fund, a gathering of leading business figures and politicians, spoke plainly of the damage that Zimbabwe was doing to South Africa’s investment prospects.
