Julius Nyerere, long-serving president of Tanzania, relinquishes power voluntarily

The guerrilla leader Yoweri Museveni takes Kampala and becomes president of Uganda

Western nations finally impose sanctions on South Africa in response to apartheid

The Rwandan Patriotic Front is formed, by a group of exiles, to bring about the downfall of Habyarimana's regime in Rwanda

Desmond Tutu is the first black African to be archbishop of Cape Town

A cease-fire withdraws Cuban troops from Angola and South African forces from Angola and Namibia

Frederik Willem de Klerk, promising reform, wins a whites-only South African presidential election

South African president F.W. de Klerk announces his radical intention to end apartheid

Nelson Mandela is given an ecstatic reception on his release after twenty-six years in prison on Robben Island, near Cape Town

The aged president, Félix Houphouët-Boigny, wins the Ivory Coast's first democratic elections

Namibia becomes independent with Sam Nujoma as president

Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi transforms Inkatha into a political party, the Inkatha Freedom Party

An army of the Rwandan Patriotic Front crosses the border from Uganda to invade Rwanda

Expelled from his own country, Saudi Arabia, Osama bin Laden moves to Sudan where he continues to develop al-Qaeda

A Tuareg uprising in Mali results in some 120,000 refugees fleeing the country

The incumbent president, Mathieu Kérékou, loses in Benin's first democratic election

As Ethiopian and Eritrean rebels approach Addis Ababa, the leader of the Dergue, Mengistu, flees the country

The rebel Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), led by Meles Zenawi, takes control in Ethiopia

Another cease-fire in Angola's bitter civil war brings another brief period of peace

Morocco and the Polisario end hostilities on the understanding that there will be a referendum in the Western Sahara

Hutu youth militias, known as the Interahamwe, are formed in Rwanda to spearhead attacks on Tutsis

Civil war in Somalia topples the Marxist dictator Mohamed Siad Barre

The Revolutionary United Front, led by Foday Sankoh, attacks Sierra Leone from bases in Liberia

Multiparty elections in Zambia result in a massive defeat for the long-serving president, Kenneth Kaunda

A new party, the Islamic Salvation Front, seems certain to win the Algerian election – until the army intervenes