South Africa's foreign policy

The ANC government in South Africa has had an intersting and challenging 16 year rule of the republic. When the government changed in 1994 the ANC was still uncertain of who best to ally with based on their struggles during apartheid. This writing assignment will require that you examine South Africa's attitudes to certain events that have taken place in the last 15 years and the country's attitude towards the nations involved in these events.

Event #1 - Analyse the ANC's perception of the 2003 American invasion of Iraq. How did Mr. Mandela and Mbeki feel about the U.S. and British involvement in this country? Do you think that their feelings about the invasion were influenced by economics and the fact that both the US and UK were major trading partners with South Africa?

Event # 2 - An event of your choosing. Analyse ANC reaction to a major world issue by researching and reporting on how and why the South African government reacted as it did to the event.

This assignment must be posted by Monday April 4.

An opinion on sanctions

Although our attentions have been fixed recently on issues in Northern Africa, the fighting in Cote d'Ivoire has intensified recently due to the power struggle between the two leaders and their followers. On Friday Nigeria and France circulated a draft resolution in the U.N security council imposing sanctions on Laurent Gbagbo, the president of Cote d' Ivoire who has refused to step down after the November 2010 elections in the country.

This conflict in Cote d'Ivoire has displaced nearly 1 million people and this assignment requires that you anlyze the usefulness of imposing economic sanctions on Cote d'Ivoire. What does the U.N. hope to gain by imposing sanctions on the Ivory Coast? Will it help the humanitiarian crisis that is developing? Have economic sanctions traditionally helped resolve issues on the continent? Why or why not? Provide examples to prove your point.

Your well researched response needs to be posted no later than 8:00am Friday April 1.