Nkomati Accord

Graca Machel, Samora Machel, PW Botha and Pik Botha at the signing of the Nkomati Accord, Komatipoort, 1984.

The Nkomati Accord was a non-aggression pact signed on 16 March 1984 between the government of the People's Republic of Mozambique and the government of the Republic of South Africa. The event took place at the South African town of Komatipoort with the signatories being Samora Machel and PW Botha. Despite repeated pleas from Machel for leaders of other SADCC nations to attend, the complete absence of any such heads of state demonstrated the derision the accord was viewed with from these nations. The treaty's stated focus was on preventing Mozambique from supporting the African National Congress on the one hand, and South Africa from supplying the RENAMO on the other.

However, Machel only partially honoured commitments to expel various ANC members from his territory, and the South African government continued to funnel arms and other supplies to RENAMO, allowing their destabilization of Mozambique to continue apace. A permanent peace accord, the Rome General Peace Accords, finally ended the Mozambican Civil War in 1992 and was supervised by the United Nations' ONUMOZ force until 1994.

References

• Msabaha, Ibrahim S. R., and Shaw, Timothy M (eds.). Confrontation and Liberation in Southern Africa: Regional Directions after the Nkomati Accord (Westview Press, Boulder, Colorado, 1987).
• Text of the Nkomati Accord and analysis of the peace process
• Y. G-M. Lulat, United States Relations with South Africa: A Critical Overview from the Colonial Period to the Present, Peter Lang Publishing Inc., 2008