Vol 38 No 9 | SOUTH AFRICA Keep trekking 25th April 1997 Afrikaner farmers move north, funded by the EU and some mysterious benefactors One hundred and sixty years after the 'Great Trek' of Afrikaners from the Western Cape into the interior, a smaller, more bizarre trek is under way. Under government...
Vol 38 No 6 | SOUTH AFRICA Comrade shareholders 14th March 1997 Union leaders are following the capitalist road to black empowerment In a revolutionary mix of ideology and pragmatism, black trade unionists are invading the fringes of white capitalist power. Once the unions led the way to black empowerment...
Vol 38 No 6 | SOUTH AFRICAEUROPE Trading places 14th March 1997 European politicians sound friendly but do not match post-apartheid expectations A cloud of misunderstandings surrounds the unfinished negotiations between South Africa and the European Union on the rules for trade between them. In the days before South Africa...
Vol 38 No 5 | SOUTH AFRICA First, the good news 28th February 1997 Having weathered political and economic storms in the past year, the ANC-led government is showing results After just over a thousand days in office, President Nelson Mandela and his ministers have a spring in their step. The rand is strengthening; the economic management is...
Vol 38 No 5 | SOUTH AFRICA Deep foreground 28th February 1997 It was an impressive, if slightly bizarre, demonstration of open government. On 10 February, 30 or so journalists found themselves in the hospitality suite of the National Intelligence...
Vol 38 No 4 | SOUTH AFRICA Hard bargains 14th February 1997 Buthelezi raises the stakes at a time when his ANC opponents need successful peace talks The Zulu nationalist Inkatha Freedom Party is poised to extract far reaching concessions from its main opponents, the African National Congress. The ANC wants a peace agreement, having...
Vol 38 No 4 | SOUTH AFRICA Mangope on trial 14th February 1997 The trial of former Bophuthatswana President Lucas Mangope will raise more questions about his associates in South Africa and Europe (AC Vol 35 No 13). He faces 200...
Vol 38 No 3 | SOUTH AFRICA Press harder 31st January 1997 Global economics – and local politics – are transforming the country's media The apartheid government hated the press and the African National Congress distrusts it. Some things have changed, though. Black groups now control a few newspapers – and foreign...
Vol 38 No 3 | SOUTH AFRICASYRIA Spiking Syria 31st January 1997 Some compromise on South Africa's mooted arms sales to Syria may emerge from United States' Vice-President Al Gore's meeting with Deputy President Thabo Mbeki next month in Pretoria....
Vol 37 No 25 | SOUTH AFRICA What's left of the left? 13th December 1996 An important battle looms over policy and tactics After two and half years of African National Congress rule, the political forces of the left are in disarray. In the face of the government' s determination to...