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It was a miracle, this vision of a united and integrated region with a shared future,
but the first steps didn’t happen by chance, it took vision and courage, and the support of
the continent and the diaspora, with international solidarity, to succeed -- and the loss of
too many of the continent’s people, mainly youth. That should never be forgotten....
These leaders took risks, with their lives and with their economies, delaying national
development by investing their resources in the future. Some had regained independence
and others were still fighting colonial rule and racism and apartheid, but their shared ex-
perience told them that their independence would not be complete without the indepen-
dence of their neighbours.
Apartheid South Africa proved this by pounding neighbouring countries with its
economic and military power in defence of white privilege and prosperity. Too many
people died or suffered torture and wished they would die, to allow it to ever happen again.
There can be no doubt of the commitment of southern Africans to human rights, they
have been there, they know what it is, they fought for it together, and they won. They used
weapons and sabotage, and took defensive action, but mostly they used strategy, diplomacy,
determination, and solidarity.
Southern Africa: Toward Economic Liberation. You have no idea how cou-
rageous and radical that statement was, unless you were there. ...But you can imagine, if
you know the facts and the situation at the time. And now we are here, in 2020, with an
integrating region and a shared future, with all of its achievements and challenges.
The venue was Zambia in early 1980 when the people of that country were just feel-
ing relieved that the Rhodesian bombing and destruction would stop now that Zimbabwe
10 was re-emerging as an independent state, when both countries were struck again and con-
tinued to be hit by the economic and military power of apartheid South Africa, which
sabotaged transportation routes by road and rail, as well as fuel and electricity, infrastruc-
ture, and people.
The Zambian President, Dr Kenneth David Kaunda, after hosting the launch of
SADCC in Lusaka, went on to Zimbabwe’s independence celebration just over two weeks
later, in a city then called Salisbury. He told the ululating crowd that, “the impossible has
happened.” President Samora Moises Machel said that Mozambique was now indepen-
dent due to the independence of Zimbabwe.
There was another impossibility yet to happen a decade later, with the end of the
apartheid system in Namibia and South Africa, as these leaders made many impossible
things happen in their lifetime. The founding President of Botswana, Sir Seretse Khama,
and the founding President of the United Republic of Tanzania, Mwalimu Julius Kambar-
age Nyerere, have passed on, but the founding President of Zambia, Dr Kenneth David
Kaunda remains an elder statesman at 96 years.
Until the mid-1970s, Pretoria’s regional policy concerned itself with attempts to
thwart activities by liberation movements which were growing in strength in neighbouring
countries as well as at home. It was shielded in this by “buffer” states that included the
Portuguese colonies of Mozambique and Angola and the British rebel colony of Southern
Rhodesia, and by its own occupation of Namibia. Regional policy was directed toward
reinforcing this barrier of states through various alliances, both economic and military.
Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland (Eswatini) were not considered a threat, although all
of them in fact provided essential transit and refuge to the liberation movements.
Mozambique was then an “overseas territory” of Portugal called Portuguese East
Africa and a strong ally of apartheid South Africa. Portugal was the poorest country in
Europe, controlled by a long- term dictatorship under Marcello Caetano. After 13 years
of war in these far-off territories in Africa including Angola and Guinea Bissau, the Por-
tuguese people and particularly their armed forces, had grown war-weary, and on 25 April
1974 the Movement of the Armed Forces overthrew Caetano in a non-violent coup d’etat
in Lisbon, so popular that it became known as the “carnation revolution”.