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1994, 370 placing tangible limits on the ambitious agenda of the future foreign policyof the incoming government.International levelInternationally, ANC foreign policy was on the back foot by the time the partycame to power in 1994. During apartheid, the ANC’s relations with wealthyWestern nations were based on the mobilisation for sanctions aimed at crippling theSouth African economy. When Western governments lifted sanctions soon after DeKlerk’s 1990 speech unbanning the ANC, well ahead of the ANC’s timetable, andwith disregard for its stated conditions for their removal, 371 the party’s position wasweakened and it was forced to adapt rapidly to new international realities. Theseincluded the supplanting of ‘geopolitics’ by ‘geo-economics’ in the aftermath of theCold War (meaning less support for its cause) and, probably most importantly, therealisation that the economic and political alternatives represented by the SovietUnion had disappeared. This meant that the ANC did not find much support in theWest, not only for its plans for keeping pressure on the government during thecrucial negotiations phase, 372 but also for its proposed interventionist economicpolicies at home.The organisation accordingly amended its foreign policy to accord more closely withthe dictates of the ‘New Diplomacy’ paradigm of the then-Director-General of theDepartment of Foreign Affairs, Neil van Heerden. This policy was one of the firstefforts by the apartheid regime to change its approach to Southern Africa followingthe destabilisation of the 1980s. Henceforth, the security apparatus was marginalisedin determining foreign policy (as discussed in section 5.1, p154), leading to a moreconciliatory, economics-focused foreign policy in the region. “The ostensibleobjective of the New Diplomacy was to open up the region to South African370 See Vishnu Padayachee, “The Evolution of South Africa’s International FinancialRelations and Policy: 1985-95”, in The Political Economy of South Africa’s Transition:Policy perspectives in the late 1990s, eds., Jonathan Michie and Vishnu Padayachee(Hinsdale, Illinois: Dryden Press, 1997): 29, 39. Financial inflows and IFI assistanceresumed when the political crisis eased, however.371 These conditions were contained in the ANC’s ‘Harare Declaration’, which outlinedthe ANC’s negotiating plan with the South African government. They included: ‘theadoption of a new constitution and the termination of all armed hostilities’ (Articles 21.6and 21.7). See Thomas, The Diplomacy of Liberation, 170.372 Alden, “From Liberation Movement to Political Party”, 74.160