Africa Between 1980 - 1989

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1980

  • Ceasefire in Rhodesia ends civil war; settler government in Rhodesia capitulates in face of guerilla pressure; Robert Mugabe's ZANU wins fifty-seven of eighty contested seats in the Rhodesian elections. Rhodesia gains independence from Britain, becoming Zimbabwe
  • Civilian rule is restored in Nigeria with Alhaji Shehu Shagari

  • President Senghor of Senegal resigns from office. Vice President Abdou Diouf succeeds him

  • Federated Union of Black Artists (FUBA) Academy is founded in Johannesburg


1981

  • Kenya and Somalia sign cooperation and border agreement
  • Eritrean nationalists enter their 20th year of armed resistance to Ethiopian occupation
  • Other armed struggles against Amharic supremacy within Ethiopia now in course by Oromo and in Tigre
  • Jerry Rawlings seizes power in Ghana, in his second military coup, remaining president of the country until 2000

  • OAU demands the withdrawal of Lybian troops from Chad

  • President Kaunda of Zambia meets South African Prime Minister P.W. Botha on the border of Botswana and South Africa

  • Kenya officially becomes a one-party state

  • Lybian jets are shot down by United States Aircraft

  • South African troops advance into Southern Angola to fight against SWAPO guerillas

  • President Anwar Sadat of Egypt is assassinated in Cairo by an islamic fundamentalist


1982

  • Nine states (Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe) persevere with organisation of economic co-operation formed by them in 1979; Southern African Development Coordination Conference (SADCC), with Headquarters in Gaberone, Botswana, is held
  • FEPACI meets in Nyamey (Niger) and issues the Niamey Manifesto

  • Split in South Africa's National Party occurs following opposition to Prime Minister Botha's proposals for constitutional change

  • South Africa raids ANC bases in Mozambique

  • Republic of Sudan makes progress with new major canal in far south Jonglei Canal - designed to conserve Upper Nile waters lost in Sudd marshlands since time began

1983

  • Souleyman Cissé's Finye wins the Grand Prix at FESPACO in Ouagadougou

  • Centre International des Civilisations Bantus (CICIBA) is established in Libreville, Gabon

  • South African antiapartheid organization United Democratic Front is launched in Cape Town

  • Nigeria expells 2 million illegal immigrants, mostly Ghanian

  • Nigerian civilian government of President Shehu Shagari is overthrown in fourth coup led by Major-General Mahammadu Buhari

  • New Constitutional Bill in South Africa

  • Captain Sankara seizes power in Upper Volta to initiate radical reforms in the country, which is renamed Burkina Faso

  • Discussions begin over the future of Namibia between South Africa and the United Nations


1984

  • Mozambique and South Africa sign Nkomati Accord, a mutual non-agression pact
  • Military regime in Nigeria under Buhari

  • President Sékou Touré, Guinea, dies. Military Comitee for National Recovery, under the leadership of Colonel Lansan Conté and Colonel Diarra Traoré, seizes power

  • Benin, Ghana, Nigeria, and Togo sign cooperation agreement.

    First Cairo International Biennale

  • P.W. Botha becomes President of South Africa

  • New constitution in South Africa makes electoral concessions to 'Coloureds' and Indians, but none to Africans

  • Archbishop Desmond Tutu is awarded Nobel Peace Prize

  • Lomé III Treaty is signed to order trade relations between Europen Community and African States

  • "A Hundred Years after the Berlin Conference: Perspectives on Africa's Liberation" is held at Makerere University


1985

  • State of emergency is declared by South Africa's apartheid government. The Congress of Trade Unions (COSATU) is launched in response. South African troops withdraw from Angola
  • Buhari regime in Nigeria ousted by military coup; General Babangida tales over
  • While repression grows inside South Africa, apartheid regime steps up military interventions in Angola and Mozambique
  • Repeated milityra victories by Eritrean Peoples' Liberation Front, now joined by Tigray PLF. Regime under siege but continues to refuse to negotiate with dissident ethnic groups

  • Transitional government is set up in Namibia

  • President Nyerere resigns from office in Tanzania

  • The government of Israel conducts an airlift of Ethiopian Falasha Jews to Israel

  • First Biennale of Contemporary Bantu Art, Libreville, Gabon

  • A seminal exhibition opens in Johannesburg, "Tributaries: A View of Contemporary South African Art", curated by Ricky Burnett, which brings together for the first time the work of both mainstream and rural African artists

  • Ousmane Sembène (Senegal), Souleyman Cissé (mali), and other African filmmakers found the West african Film Cooperation (WAFCO) as an inter-African film body instrumental in cultural advancement and preservation

  • First People's Parks created in Soweto, South Africa

  • December 25: Six-day war between Mali and Algeria over disputed Agacer strip


1986

  • Military leader General Babangida announces civilian rule shall be restored in Nigeria in October 1990.

  • Popular Nigerian journalist and editor Dele Giwa, who is critical of the Babangida's government, is murdered by a letter bomb

  • Pass Laws - which have, for more than two decades, required black South Africans to carry official cards, without which they not move freely in cities - are abolished

  • Bishop Desmond Tutu is awarded Martin Luther King Jr. Non-Violent Peace prize for antiapartheid activity

  • Yoweri Museveni is inaugurated president of Uganda following capture of Kampala by National Resistance Army

  • Edward Perkins is appointed first black American Ambassador to South Africa

  • US military forces bomb Tripoli, capital of Lybia; Gaddafi escapes injury

  • Referendum in Central African Republic approves establishment of one-party state

  • Nigerian writer Wole Soyinka is awarded the 1986 Nobel Prize for Literature

  • South African backed coup in Lesotho; South African raids into Botswana, Zambia, and Zimbabwe

  • Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, holds exhibition entitled "From Two Worlds", which includes the works of Sokari Douglas Camp, Gavin Jantjes, and other African artists

  • Widespread boycotts and violence lead to declaration of state of emergency in South Africa; hundreds killed by government forces, over 8,000 detained. United States implement trade sanctions and disinvestment by US companies begins

  • President Samora Machel of Mozambique is killed in plane crash and is succeeded by Joaquin Chissano

  • Publication of the book "Farbe bekennen – Afro-deutsche Frauen auf den Spuren ihrer Geschichte"
  • Founding of the "African Student Union" (ASU) in Berlin
  • 1st National Meeting of the Initiative of Black Germans and Blacks in Germany (ISD)

1987

  • Ugandan government forces kill 350 Uganda People's Front oponents in Battle of Corner Kilak

  • Nigerian military government postpones restoration of civilian rule from 1990 to 1992

  • Award-winning Zimbabwean writer Dambudzo Marechera dies in Harare

  • Conservative Party becomes official opposition after whites-only elections in South Africa

  • Souleyman Cissé's "Yeleen" wins the Jury Price at the Cannes Film Festival

  • Meeting in Dakar between ANC leaders and dissident white Afrikaners

  • Military coup in Burkina Faso; President Thomas Sankara is assassinated

  • Conference in Amsterdam to form Culture in Another South Africa (CASA); sponsored by the ANC and the Dutch Anti-Apartheid Movement, and is occasion for more than 300 South African artists to meet and discuss the future of a multiracial South Africa


1988

  • South African troops in Angola suffer major defeat, withdraw
  • International isolation of apartheid regime causes serious anxiety for regime
  • Founding of the countries of Namibia and Eritrea (until 1993)
  • Third "Festival Panafricain des Arts et Cultures" in Dakar, Senegal
  • Egyptian novelist and writer Nabuib Mahfouz is awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, becoming the first African writer and winner with arabic as native tongue

  • Barbican Art Gallery, London, shows contemporary stone sculpture from Zimbabwe

  • Nigerian photographer Rotimi Fani-Kayode dies of AIDS in London

  • Talks in London, New York, Geneva, and Brazzaville lead to agreement of Cuban withdrawal from Angola and independence for Namibia

  • Strikes in South Africa against government anti-strike laws.

    Cuban and South African withdrawal from Angola

  • Civil war begins in Somalia

  • Ousmane Sembène "Camp de Thiaroye" is refused entry at Cannes Film Festival

  • Férid Boughedir diects Camera Arabe, a major documentary on Arab cinema

  • President Botha meets President Chissano of Mozambique, agreeing to end South African aid to rebels in Mozambique


1989

  • In Chad, political conflicts unresolved but civil war abates
  • Sudan continues to suffer great internal conflict, and civil war between north and south
  • Collapse of communism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe
  • Ban on political activities lifted in Nigeria; two government-sponsored political parties - the Social Democratic Party and the National Republican Convention - are formed in Nigeria

  • Arab Maghreb Union common market set up by Algeria, Tunesia, Lybia, and Mauretania

  • "The Other Story: Afro-Asian Artists in Post-War Britain", curated by Rasheed Araeen, is shown at the Hayward Gallery, London

  • Idrissa Ouedraogo's acclaimed film "Yaaba" is released

  • P.W. Botha resigns and is succeeded by F.W. de Clerk; after elections de Klerk announces program to reform aparheid system

  • President F.W. de Klerk conducts secret talks with Nelson Mandela, who remains imprisoned

  • Walter Sisulu of the ANC is released from South African prison

  • "Magiciens de la Terre" is held at the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris

  • November 9: Fall of the Berlin Wall