High Noon in Southern Africa: Making Peace in a Rough Neighborhood - Hardcover

Crocker, Chester A.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0393034321 ISBN 13: 9780393034325

Publisher: W W Norton & Co Inc, 1993

Synopsis

A look at politics in Southern Africa discusses the white South Africans seeking support, African Marxists who still believe in the armed struggle, and other characters, including the Cuban leadership.

About this title

From Publishers Weekly:

As U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs from 1981 to 1989, Crocker waged a diplomatic struggle that led to the withdrawal of Cuban troops from Soviet-backed Angola and the end of apartheid in an independent Namibia freed from South Africa's control. But his assertion in this lengthy diplomatic history that the Reagan administration brought regional security to southern Africa, scoring a foreign-policy victory, rings hollow. He defends U.S. covert intervention on behalf of Angola's anti-communist mercenary rebels who, with financial help from South Africa's apartheid regime, devastated much of the Angolan economy, slaughtered innocent civilians, displaced 600,000 persons, caused widespread hunger and destroyed at least half of Angola's hospitals and clinics. Likewise, in Mozambique, the South African-financed mercenaries ravaged the country and economy. Notwithstanding Crocker's pointed insistence that America's "constructive engagement" was a regional strategy, not a cozy alliance with apartheid, critics may find gaping holes in the diplomatic record. Photos.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal:

These memoirs from an Assistant Secretary of State of African Affairs during the Reagan administration are a welcome insight into the complex negotiations and justifications that the administration maintained in dealing with major foreign policy issues: U.S. sanctions against South Africa, military support for rebels in Angola, and the independence of Namibia. Crocker describes his role and that of the United States as one of peacekeeping among regional warring parties and provides elaborate details of the diplomatic craft involved. But for millions of people in southern Africa, the United States was seen as actively contributing to the violence and deadlock. Thus, the book is important as an account from within the foreign policy establishment, although subsequent analyses are likely to take exception to many of Crocker's views. Recommended for large libraries with African and foreign relations collections.
- Bill Rau, Takoma Park, Md.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: W W Norton & Co Inc
• Publication date: 1993
• ISBN 10: 0393034321
• ISBN 13: 9780393034325
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 534