The National Peacekeeping Force (NPKF) was designed to meet a serious security challenge anticipated in the run-up to South Africa's first democratic elections in April 1994. Its establishment was an imaginative and constructive, but ultimately disastrous initiative. Its failure – however inevitable in retrospect – constituted a major tragedy, less as it proved for the free and fair conduct of the elections than for the longer-term prospects of forging a truly national army. This study seeks to explore: (i) the genesis and evolution of the concept of an integrated South African peacekeeping force; (ii) its character, composition, command structure, and cohesion; and (iii) the causes and consequences of its fateful deployment on the volatile East Rand.

Much has been written and said concerning the implications for Soviet policy towards Southern African of President Gorbachev's novoye myshlenie or ‘new thinking’, and its repercussions throughout Eastern Europe. On the other hand, comparatively little attention has been paid to the governmental and societal responses to these developments within Southern Africa. In part, this neglect reflects the fact that, until recently, the reaction has been rather muted, especially in comparison with the eruptionsin francophone Africa, notably in Algeria, Benin, and Gabon, but also Côte d'Ivoire, Madagascar, and even Zaïre. The reluctance to recognise the relevance for the region of the astonishing changes in Eastern Europe can largely be explained by an understandable preoccupation with more pressing domestic problems.

With the intensification of the Southern African crisis, its ramifications have spread ever more widely until now they pervade and corrode virtually every sector throughout the black states neighbouring South Africa. The prospects for peace and prosperity in the region, once heralded with such high hopes, have long since faded as energies have increasingly been absorbed in the daily challenge of sustaining a precarious human existence.

Two of the most significant regional organizations to emerge in Southern Africa in recent years are the Southern African Development Coordination Conference (SADCC), with nine members, and the Preferential Trade Area for Eastern and Southern Africa (PTA), comprised of fourteen states including five SADCC members. Although their purposes and programs are similar and steadily converging, SADCC and PTA exhibit distinct differences in their origins, memberships, institutional structures, financial patrons, ideologies, and strategies. Although national development remains the ultimate aim of both bodies, reducing external dependency, especially in the case of SADCC on South Africa, and regional cooperation are seen as essential to success. While obvious areas of conflict exist, the two organizations may be able to restrain their rivalry in the interests of their members and possibly of their own survival.

It is commonly claimed by critics both within Nigeria and outside that, while the present Government preaches political non-alignment, it does not practise it, and indeed cannot because of Nigeria's economic alignment with the west. The present article seeks to assess the validity of this thesis. Three separate propositions are involved: first, that Nigeria professes but does not pursue a policy of non-alignment; secondly, that Nigeria is economically tied to the west; and finally, and most important, that there is a causal connexion between the two.