Only a few years after the Lusaka Manifesto the buffer of white-ruled countries north of South Africa disintegrated rapidly, forcing the apartheid regime to take a different course of politics. Mid 1976 uprisings in Soweto and Gugulethu brought the country to the brink of a civil war. The Southern African Development Coordination Conference (SADCC), the predecessor of today's Southern African Development Community (SADC) was founded in 1980 in order to "reduce member states' dependence, particularly, but not only, on apartheid South Africa". The white rulers of South Africa eventually relinquished power to the black majority in 1994 but instead of acting on the moderate suggestions of the manifesto faced independence wars in all affected countries.