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(449 A of 1950) on the illegality of South Africa’s continued presence there. 343While South Africa retained its UN membership until 1974, and thereby benefitedfrom the legitimacy afforded by multilateralism, it undermined the concept byfailing to implement the opinions of the international community regarding bothNamibia and its own domestic policies.The African National Congress came to power in South Africa following the firstall-race election in 1994. The relative calm surrounding the electoral process –which was, however, not without its own controversy and low-grade civil violence –marked the high point of a period of intense struggle between revolutionary andreactionary forces, underscored by race - in South African society that hadcontinued for much of the twentieth century. These forces have continued toanimate South African politics well into the first two decades of democraticgovernance. The question of how to manage national economic development hasfeatured as a major sticking point in the struggle, where revolutionary forces arerepresented by those desiring far-reaching redistributive change in society, andreactionary forces represented by those who seek the maintenance of the marketorientedstatus quo, whether whites or blacks hold the levers of economic power.Yet the foreign policy of the African National Congress upon its accession to powerin 1994 did mark, in some respects, a sharp turnaround in South Africa’sinternational posture. The country eschewed military means of resolving conflicts,and in a decision taken under the last apartheid government in 1990, its nuclearcapability was unceremoniously dismantled. 344 Although this decision was not takenby the new ANC government, and was in fact taken, in the view of some, toforestall the possibility of an ANC government possessing nuclear weapons, 345 noattempt was later made to reverse it. In fact, the ANC took a principled decision infavour of ‘blending down’ South Africa’s enriched uranium, rather than see it sold343 UN General Assembly, Resolution 449 (V), “Question of South West Africa”, 13December 1950. Accessed online at: http://daccess-ddsny.un.org/doc/RESOLUTION/GEN/NR0/060/47/IMG/NR006047.pdf?OpenElementon15 October, 2010.344 J.W. De Villiers, Roger Jardine, and Mitchell Reiss, “Why South Africa Gave Up theBomb”, Foreign Affairs, 72, Issue 5 (1993): 98.345 See David Albright and Mark Hibbs, “South Africa: The ANC and the atom bomb”,Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 49, No.3 (1993).151