Before the full turn of the African anti-colonial struggles in the 1950s, concluding with South African self-governance in 1994, the thinkers on the continent were perpetually perplexed by the urgent need for the establishment of functional democracies that fulfilled the hunger of the people for land and redistribution of economic resources.
At the Organisation of African Unity, the more enlightened democracies legitimately found fault with models of democracy led by military dictators. The West and its press had trained its surrogates to dislike the socialist-inspired regimes that were of great assistance to the liberation movement. Fledgling democracies such as that of Botswana were restrained in their comment on apartheid South Africa by virtual dependence on that country for food.
Never once did Botswana pronounce that it did not recognise the presidency of F.W de Klerk, P.W.Botha or John Vorster even if it might have wanted to do so. Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher's policy of 'constructive engagement' would not have permitted it. They wanted renouncement of violence by the liberation movement as a precondition for negotiations.
