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ample resources in many sectors, enabling them to
effectively adapt to, absorb or deter many threats, also
in terms of human collectivities. Industrialization,
democratization, interstate competition for wider
markets and mutual identification between rulers and
ruled, all made this possible (Van Benthem van den
Bergh 1998:6±9). Botswana is one of the few strong
Third World states in terms of ideological and
structural (domestic) legitimacy, as well as physical
base, but remains a weak power with limited
capabilities to deter extensive military, economic or
ecological threats to its national security. Even more
so than Colombia, which has stronger economic
structures, Angola's weakness is almost absolute: its
weak state institutions do not have control over the
natural resources wealth available within its borders,
thus making it vulnerable to most such threats. Both
Angola and Colombia possess some attribute of
importance to other states and nonstate actors,
namely oil and diamonds, and cocaine, which even
result in constant domestic and external pressures on
their state weakness and vulnerabilities. This does not
mean that strong states do not experience vulnerability
to significant threats. For example, the US state
and society have been unable to escape the subversive
penetration of its political and social fabric by
the threat of illicit cocaine trafficking from Colombia.
This also explains US determination to intervene in
Colombia's internal affairs to protect its own national
security (discussed in Part 4). Strong socio-political
cohesion (the consolidation of domestic political and
societal consensus), however, has placed the US in a
much stronger position to deal with this international
criminal economy-related threat. On the whole, weak
and insecure states find it almost impossible to
adequately perform their basic functions. Their central
government authority and institutional decision-making
capacity is paralyzed. Summarizing, a failed state
is the sum of a disputed state legitimacy, an underdeveloped
national identity, and absence of strong
empirical statehood to secure sustained protection of
the nation and territory by the legal controls, socioeconomic
organization and regulation (Zartman
1995:5±9).
The foregoing explanation is far from complete.
However, in combination with brief reference to some
academic definitions of state failure, it serves to
establish an adequate basis for the subsequent
elaboration and comparison of the Angolan and
Colombian state collapse experiences. Furthermore,
reference to conventional definitions of state failure is
also useful in so far as it serves to identify a number of
(additional) key variables, as well as forces or actors
actively involved in the dynamics of such failure. For,
certainly in the case of Angola and Colombia, the
state's (partial) loss of the exclusive right to rule
(related to the people's unwillingness or inability to
support the state), has been constantly abused by
nonstate actors, also becoming objects of security
(e.g. guerrilla movements; secessionist groups; paramilitaries;
crime syndicates; mercenary (security)
organizations, and oil and diamond MNCs).
Defining state failure
Fituni (1995:143), describes a collapsed state as one
whose `economic, political, cultural, and civilization
links have been disrupted to such an extent as to have
brought about drastic deterioration of its condition of
existence'. This definition correlates with Buzan's
different sectors of security mentioned above. Woodward
(1998:1) adds the `collapse of sovereign
capacity', where the sovereign territorial state as the
standard unit of security has failed to secure harmony
between the interests of the state, on the one hand,
and the interests of the nation (people), on the other.
Its functional balance of inputs and outputs is
destroyed. People remove or divert their support to
other objects of security because they realize that the
state is incapable or unwilling to provide essential
supplies. Zacarias (1999:124) refers to failed states in
Southern Africa as `states in gestation whose governments
find it hard to consolidate and acquire internal
legitimacy'. Helman and Ratner describe the failed
nation-state as `utterly incapable of sustaining itself as
a member of the international community' (Dorff
1996:3). Other sources mention, inter alia, loss of
state control over political and economic space;
ungovernability of the state; civil war and ethnic
strife; warlordism, and a pervasive sense of chaos and
anarchy, as features or variables of state collapse
(Zartman 1995). Most, if not all of these variables
reflect one common feature ± institutional weakness,
reflecting the inability to maintain its independent
identity and functional integrity (Zartman 1995:5;
Zacarias, 1999:124±125).
No doubt, both the Colombian and Angolan
experiences reflect a significant amount of the variables
listed in the definitions. Many Angolans and
Colombians do not regard the state as the sole
legitimate symbol of national identity and guarantor
of sustained socio-economic and territorial protection.
The state has come to share its `legitimate' right to rule
with nonstate actors eager to grab the political,
economic, social and legal power of state planning,
decision-making and execution. Following parts will
indicate how some of these groups have violently
exploited the government's weakness to serve their
own interests of power and greed. However, the
saying is that it takes two to tango. State failure,
particularly in the case of Angola, has not been a
totally undesirable outcome for the influential political
and military ruling e lite. The latter realize too well that
a strong state with strong empirical statehood (good
governance, democratic values, and legal controls)
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