THEAPARTHEIDERA
dence, however, and local Africans resorted to guerrilla warfare against the
regime.f? Between 1966 and 1968 Britain transferred power to Africans in
three other neighbors of South Africa-Basutoland
(Lesotho), Bechuana-
land Protectorate (Botswana), and Swaziland. Successive governments in
Pretoria had tried to persuade London to allow South Africa to incorpo-
rate those three territories, as had been envisaged by the South Africa Act
of 1909. But after 1961, when South Africa became a-republic and left the
Commonwealth, incorporation was no Ionger possible.s"
African nationalism continued to transform the Southern African re-
gion. In 1974, African resistance to Portuguese colonialism led to a coup in
Lisbon, and the following year Angola and Mozambique gained indepen-
dence.s? By 1978, the white settler regime in Rhodesia was barely surviv-
ing a fierce civil war and international
sanctions, and South Africa was
controlling Namibia only by defying the United Nations.
The United Nations differed from its predecessor, the League of Na-
tions. Whereas the European powers had dominated the League of Na-
tions, which the United States never joined, the Soviet Union and China, as
well as France, Britain, and the United States, had permanent seats and