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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | South Africa and the SADCC: regional economic co-operation after apartheid |
Author: | Davies, Robert |
Year: | 1992 |
Periodical: | South African Review - SARS |
Issue: | 6 |
Pages: | 436-444 |
Language: | English |
Geographic terms: | Southern Africa South Africa |
Subject: | SADC |
Abstract: | Pretoria's acceptance of negotiations leading to Namibia's independence, followed by President De Klerk's 2 February 1990 speech, have changed the future pattern of economic interaction in southern Africa. Two broad approaches to future southern African economic cooperation have emerged. The first emphasizes a quantitative expansion of existing relations rather than a qualitative transformation. This approach dismisses as irrelevant the concerns of regional organizations like the SADCC or the PTA (Preferential Trade Area for Eastern and Southern African States) about imbalances, dependency and the effects of South African hegemony. The second approach emphasizes cooperation on the principle of equity, interdependence and mutual benefit. The SADCC, founded partly to redress the existing inequitable economic domination of the region by South Africa, expects this country to join the organization on the basis of the same principles as the other countries did. A dispassionate examination of the balance of forces in southern Africa must acknowledge that many existing trends favour South Africa's immediate and untrammeled expansion into the subcontinent. Cooperation based on a qualitative transformation of existing imbalances requires organizations such as the SADCC and the PTA and the liberation forces inside South Africa to take more initiative in setting the terms of debate about postapartheid regional cooperation. Notes, ref. |