What Can President Ramaphosa Do to Establish South Africa As a Viable African Power?
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Peter Fabricius What can President Ramaphosa do to establish South Africa as a viable African power? It has been widely accepted that South Africa has a “manifest destiny” to lead its region and Africa as a whole towards peace, good governance, democracy and human rights. Yet questions have been asked about whether the South African government is a “reluctant hegemon,” hesitating to accept this considerable res- ponsibility. This paper argues that Pretoria does indeed wish to be Africa’s leader but lacks the political will and, increasingly the economic and military capacity, to play the role properly. It suggests the Ramaphosa administration has a chance to correct this and assert South Africa’s continental leadership, for South Africa’s sake and that of Africa. Schlagwörter: South Africa - Africa - SADC - African Union - regional power - hegemon - foreign policy - democracy - human rights - democracy What can President Ramaphosa do to establish South Africa as a viable African power? || Peter Fabricius Mandela warns his African peers that South “Africa cries out for a new birth,” Man- Africa is going to be on their case. dela said, before bluntly telling his new peers that “where there is something wrong in the The question of South Africa’s leadership manner in which we govern ourselves, it must (some call it “hegemony”) in its region – both be said that the fault is not in our stars, but in Southern Africa and Africa as a whole – has ourselves that we are ill-governed.” 1 Mandela preoccupied and perplexed politicians, ana- took up his own challenge early on, interven- lysts and diplomats ever since the dawn of ing diplomatically, in Lesotho in 1994, to per- democracy. “Leadership” here would mean suade the main political actors there to peace- exerting South Africa’s considerable political, fully reverse the so-called “royal coup” and to economic and military power and moral au- restore constitutional government. In 1997 he thority to expand peace, democracy, human and Deputy President Thabo Mbeki mounted rights and general good governance across an ambitious attempt to mediate a peaceful Southern Africa and the continent. It entails, resolution to the civil war which had just among others, the building and maintenance erupted in Zaire, by bringing together Mobutu of institutions to inculcate those values and Sese Seko and rebel leader Laurent Kabila on disciplining of states which deviate from or board a SA navy ship offshore. Mandela and otherwise undermine them. The new ANC gov- Mbeki failed, Kabila took power by force, but ernment assumed office already bearing a South Africa remained on the case. widespread assumption, both at home and abroad, that it had a “manifest destiny” to In 1998, still on Mandela’s watch, South rescue Africa, i.e. to harness the powers of Africa conducted perhaps its most controver- Africa’s largest economy and military, to paci- sial regional intervention, dispatching troops fy and develop what was then still a Continent to Lesotho to abort an incipient coup carried largely racked by conflict and bedevilled by out following opposition rejection of parlia- dismally-poor governance and poverty. mentary election results. The invasion unex- pectedly provoked a furious military reaction Democratic South Africa’s first President from Lesotho and in the ensuing fighting and Nelson Mandela evidently had no problem rioting, nine South African troops, over 50 accepting that responsibility. Barely one Basotho soldiers and several civilians died month into his presidency, he told his fellow and much property was destroyed in rioting African leaders at the OAU summit in Tunis, in and looting. But the coup was prevented and June 1994, that with apartheid South Africa South African mediators remained to help finally off the OAU’s agenda, it was time to Lesotho devise a more representative elec- discuss what South Africa’s contribution now toral system, though, 21 years later, it is still should be “to the making of the new African on the case as the tiny country is still prone to renaissance.” political instability. ARGUMENTE UND MATERIALIEN DER ENTWICKLUNGSZUSAMMENARBEIT 7 PETER FABRICIUS Mbeki institutionalizes the African Renaissance back up the peace deal. SADC also appointed Mbeki as its mediator in the Zimbabwe crisis After taking office in 1999, Mbeki institu- where he brokered a power-sharing deal be- tionalized the African Renaissance vision tween President Robert Mugabe’s ZanuPF and which Mandela had disclosed at Tunis. “Act- Morgan Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic ing against the apartheid era presumption Change (MDC) in 2008. that South Africa was ‘an island of European In 2004, the AU appointed Mbeki as me- civilization’ on the continent” Mbeki replaced diator to try to end the civil war in Cote it with a vision of South Africa being integral d’Ivoire where he made some progress before to Africa, as Chris Alden and Maxi Schoeman peace talks bogged down. 2 have pointed out. Mbeki also took the lead in representing Mbeki mobilized the support of other Africa to the wider world. Starting with the G8 strong continental leaders, notably Nigeria’s summit in Okinawa in 2000 he helped estab- Olusegun Obasanjo, to transform the mori- lish an African dialogue with this club of the bund Organisation of African Unity (OAU) into world’s wealthiest nations. This persuaded the more dynamic African Union in 2002 – them to provide more development support with a mandate to uphold democracy and hu- and debt relief for the Continent – in large man rights and to intervene in the affairs of part by offering Nepad and the APRM as guar- fellow African states, even forcefully, to curb antee that Africa would do its part to ensure atrocities. Mbeki also conceived accompany- the aid was well spent. ing institutions such as the ambitious pan- African New Partnership for Africa’s Develop- Zuma continues the Africa policy, but less en- ment (Nepad), the African Peer Review Mech- thusiastically anism – an instrument for African leaders to critique each other’s governance – and the Mbeki was abruptly and prematurely “re- Pan African Parliament. called” from office in 2008 by the ANC under Mbeki returned to DRC, hosting the Sun Jacob Zuma whom he had fired in 2005 be- City peace talks which eventually ended the cause he was suspected of corruption and who civil warfare – the so-called “Second Congo had then defeated him in a contest for the War” - in 2003 and ushered in the first demo- presidency of the ANC in 2007. cratic elections since 1960, in 2006. History will remember Jacob Zuma’s pres- South Africa backed up its mediation ef- idency, from 2009 to 2018, mainly for “state forts by deploying a contingent of over one capture”, the astonishing way in which he thousand troops to the first UN peacekeeping allowed his business associates, particularly mission in DRC, from 1999. In 2013 Pretoria the notorious Gupta brothers, to take over intensified its military contribution by giving much of the running of the state, including its UN peacekeeping contingent a robust com- deciding on key appointments to the cabinet bat mandate as part of the newly-formed Force and state owned enterprises. Zuma’s preoccu- Integration Brigade, tasked with neutralising pation with self-aggrandisement and with armed rebel groups in eastern DRC. South Afri- avoiding prosecution for corruption distracted can troops, including pilots of South Africa him greatly from the proper responsibilities of Rooivalk attack helicopters, were decisive in government. His administration did however defeating the M23 rebels backed by Rwanda. continue some of Mbeki’s African diplomacy, Meanwhile in 1999, Mbeki deployed first though Zuma’s backing for Nepad and the ex-president Mandela and then later Deputy APRM significantly declined. But South Africa President Jacob Zuma to mediate the Arusha did maintain its mediation role within SADC, Peace Agreement between Tutsi-minority Bu- as Zuma accepted the role of the regional rundi President Pierre Buyoya and mainly body’s mediator in both Madagascar, where a Hutu armed rebel groups – and also deployed crisis erupted in 2009 when President Marc South African troops to Burundi in 2003 to Ravalomanana was ousted in a coup led by 8 ARGUMENTE UND MATERIALIEN DER ENTWICKLUNGSZUSAMMENARBEIT WHAT CAN PRESIDENT RAMAPHOSA DO TO ESTABLISH SOUTH AFRICA AS A VIABLE AFRICAN POWER? Andry Rajoelina, and in Lesotho where a coup Uganda in establishing ACIRC - the African attempt by troops loyal to his predecessor Capacity for Immediate Response to Crises - forced Prime Minister Tom Thabane to flee to an apparently temporary rapid-response mili- South Africa in 2014. In Madagascar, South tary force comprising battalions of the five Africa’s mediation – bolstered by other inter- member countries, to intervene swiftly in con- national organisations – did lead to new elec- tinental crises before more formal forces tions in December 2013 which resolved the could be mobilised. The Zuma administration immediate crisis. In Lesotho, South Africa’s also announced the imminent establishment mediation also defused the immediate crisis, of the South African Development Partnership though it has continued to simmer. Agency (SADPA) which would channel South Zuma continued Mbeki’s role in Zimba- African development assistance mainly into bwe, mainly by trying – in vain, as it tran- Africa, sometimes in conjunction with tradi- spired - to ensure that Zanu PF created a level tional donor countries. Zuma also formally political field for the 2013 elections. It was articulated the widely-held notion that South also on Zuma’s watch that South African Africa was an economic “gateway to Africa,” a troops were deployed- along with soldiers base for foreign investors and traders to do from Tanzania and Malawi- into eastern DRC business with the continent. as the Force Intervention Brigade with a ro- bust mandate to “neutralize” armed groups Ramaphosa raises hopes of a return to Africa such as the Rwanda-backed M23.