Peter Fabricius What can President Ramaphosa do to establish 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, 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.

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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 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

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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. . It was also which remain to be fulfilled on his watch that 15 South African soldiers died in a clash with Seleka rebels in Central Ramaphosa has continued the seemingly African Republic in March 2013, on a mission interminable Lesotho mediation efforts- for that was never properly defined or explained. which he became SADC special envoy while still Deputy President – and South African Pretoria also played an active role in in- troops remain in DRC. creasing economic integration both in SADC and the AU. It took charge of the SACU-Plus- Yet, after what seemed a hopeful moment Mozambique bloc in its negotiations with the early in 2019 where he looked as though he EU for the Economic Partnership Agreement might join some other African leaders in call- (EPA) and has played a leading role in advanc- ing out the clearly-rigged elections in DRC, ing the Tripartite Free Trade Agreement and Ramaphosa then slipped back into line, ac- the African Continental Free Trade Agreement, cepting Felix Tshisekedi’s election victory as a the latter of which will create a market of fait accompli. And he has joined the regional some 1,2 billion people with a combined GDP chorus regularly blaming Zimbabwe’s continu- of US$2,24 trillion. ing economic crisis on a few remaining target- And it was also during Zuma’s presidency ed Western sanctions. Viewed as a whole, this that South Africa was invited to join the G20 has been quite an energetic record of African group of “systemically important” economies activism by Pretoria, though not without qual- and also BRICs – the Brazil, Russia, India and ification. Alden and Schoeman have noted, in China forum of large emerging economies - another paper, that this African Renaissance which then became BRICS. South Africa im- campaign, mostly conceived and executed by mediately gave BRICS an African mandate, Mbeki (though continued by his successors), inviting several African leaders to meet the as well as the aggressive drive into Africa by BRICS leaders at the first summit Pretoria South African companies – an important com- hosted, in 2013, with a view to their possibly ponent of South Africa’s soft power on the tapping into the huge development-financing continent – set the stage “for the exercise of resources of China in particular. substantive South African structural power Zuma’s other notable diplomatic gambit over the rest of the African continent.” 3 was to lead Algeria, Chad, Tanzania and

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This had led to a populist acceptance of One should add, as further evidence for the notion of South Africa as an African South Africa’s declining potential as a region- hegemon/regional power, with many scholars al power, that South Africa has also lost the concurring. The two authors cite many such “institutional memory” of its own transition scholars describing South Africa in terms such model, which it earlier exported to other tran- as a “benign hegemon” in Africa, or a growing sitions in Africa, with some success, such as in middle power acting as “bridge-builder” be- DRC, as Liesl Louw-Vaudran has noted, and tween Africa and the world. “Indeed, South she adds that “(r)esearchers and commenta- Africa’s elevation in 2009 and 2010 as Afri- tors agree that South Africa no longer has the ca’s only member of the G20 and BRICS military capacity it possessed at the time [of seemed to confirm its unique status,” they Mbeki]".7 “The momentum behind South Afri- observe.4 ca’s peacemaking efforts on the continent, epitomized by former president Thabo Mbeki’s South Africa: “reluctant hegemon?” African Renaissance, seems to have been lost. The political will to mobilize resources to this Yet Alden and Schoeman contend instead end is no longer as strong as before.” that, on closer analysis, “the case for South African hegemonic dominance over the conti- Louw-Vaudran also observed that with 5 nent is challenged by a number of issues”. China in particular aggressively expanding its These include the relative decline of South commercial presence in Africa, and working Africa’s “anemic domestic economy” to the directly with individual African countries, point where it now produces less than 25 per South Africa was no longer much needed as an cent of sub-Saharan Africa’s GDP – versus African gateway. 8 Even within South Africa’s over 50 per cent in 1994. More recently, one own foreign policy establishment there has should add, Nigeria has overtaken South Afri- been sharp criticism of South Africa’s recent ca as the continent’s largest economy. This foreign policy performance. After President economic decline raises doubts about the ousted Zuma to become na- affordability of an activist African agenda. tional president in 2018, his new Internation- Alden and Schoeman also cite as evidence of al Relations and Cooperation Minister Lindiwe the weakness of South Africa’s claim to hege- Sisulu commissioned a review of foreign poli- monic status its “limited ability to translate cy lead by former deputy foreign minister Aziz many of the key features of South Africa’s Pahad. It concluded that, during the Zuma putative economic, financial and military pre- administration, “Because both South Africa ponderance over the rest of Africa into solid and other countries that used to play leading foreign and economic gains in cases as di- roles on the African continent, such as Nige- verse as Cote d’Ivoire, the Democratic Repub- ria, had, for various reasons, vacated the po- lic of Congo and most recently the Central litical leadership on the continent, there African Republic”. In particular they mention emerged other countries that occupied that “the failure of South Africa to successfully vacuum, and thus being able to lead on many exercise influence over other African regimes issues on the African continent as well as with which deliberately act against its core inter- relations with outside regions and coun- ests, best represented by the case of Robert tries.”9 Mugabe in Zimbabwe where Pretoria had sub- This development was “an indictment on stantive economic leverage at its disposal but South Africa”. The Panel recommended a host also visible in Swaziland where South African of measures to return South Africa’s Africa economic dominance is even greater”.6 The policy to the – supposedly – golden Mbeki dwindling South African economy may also era, including re-instituting an Africa multi- explain why, nearly a decade after SADPA was lateral division within the Department of In- conceived, it has still not been established. ternational Relations and Cooperation (along- side the existing Africa bilateral division).

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disputes or civil war. The way it effectively Notwithstanding that the panel, compris- held South Sudanese vice president Riek ing mainly Mbeki supporters, was inclined to Machar under de facto house arrest for a year, mythologize his foreign policy, it is certainly supposedly to facilitate peace in his country, true that Pretoria’s political capital in Africa was a glaring example. did diminish during the Zuma years. This was Why has South Africa’s Africa policy been aggravated by a sense that he was more moti- so disappointing to so many? vated by personal commercial and political Some analysts have suggested this might interest than any altruistic vision for the con- be because South Africa doesn’t really desire tinent. The aggressive, head-butting cam- the role of “hegemon” after all. The German paign which South Africa launched to get for- scholar Sandra Destradi has offered South mer Home Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini- Africa as an example of what she calls “reluc- Zuma elected as AU Commission chairperson tant regional powers”, or reluctant “rising in 2012 was presented as a measure of Preto- powers”- countries which have all the power ria’s commitment to the continent. And it to influence regional and global politics but came at a price. The hard campaign lost South which somehow don’t. She cites Germany, Africa many friends on the continent. In the India and Brazil as other examples.10 As tes- end, though, the suspicion persisted that get- timony of South Africa’s supposed reluctance, ting Dlamini Zuma into the AU chair was more she invokes Abel Esterhuyse who has written about domestic than African politics. For de- that “In terms of economic and military spite paying that high price for the job, Dlam- strength, Pretoria should be Africa's 'natural' ini-Zuma didn’t even run for a second term in guide” yet “South Africa’s reluctance to some- 2017, instead going home to stand (unsuc- times act decisively in its capacity as a leader cessfully) for ANC president. This reinforced raises questions. South Africa often seems to perceptions that Jacob Zuma had simply steer away from the dictum that to be in “parked” his ex-wife in Addis Ababa for a few charge you need to take charge.”11 years, removing her as a possible political Destradi defines “reluctance” as compris- rival until the time was opportune for her to ing mainly “hesitation” and “recalcitrance”. succeed him as party and national president. “Hesitation”, in her definition, includes But if it’s true that Zuma was not a genu- not taking the initiative – for instance on the ine Africanist, it is also true that, even under UN Security Council; delaying taking action Mbeki, South Africa failed to wield its consid- and flip-flopping between different positions erable political and economic clout in the on issues, often because of varying opinions wider interests of the African people by put- among different government agencies. ting pressure on other African governments to “Recalcitrance”, Destradi defines as ig- stop undemocratic behaviour, the violation of noring or rejecting the demands or requests of human rights and the general abuse of their other countries to take action. citizens. Reluctance - or incapacity? His biggest failure was surely Zimbabwe where he backed Zanu PF to the hilt, regard- Is South Africa really such a reluctant re- less of its quite glaringly undemocratic and gional power? indeed inhumane behaviour. Mbeki apparent- Alden and Schoeman think not. They have ly condoned all of Mugabe’s wrongs, because asserted strongly, that, “Far from being a re- he believed that Britain was using the MDC as luctant hegemon, South African history is a front for its own interests in Zimbabwe. The marked by a drive to fulfil an ambition predi- Zimbabwe scenario has played out in several cated on its ‘manifest destiny’ as Africa’s other countries since, most notably in DRC leader.”12 And certainly Mandela’s forthright and South Sudan where Pretoria has usually “mission statement” to the OAU in 1994, taken the side of the incumbent in election Mbeki’s ambitious African Renaissance pro-

ARGUMENTE UND MATERIALIEN DER ENTWICKLUNGSZUSAMMENARBEIT 11 PETER FABRICIUS ject, even some of Zuma’s African mediations, Some of this one could ascribe to clashes even if much less systematic than Mbeki’s; between different foreign policy objectives. In and the Pahad panel’s appeal for a return un- the case of the UN SC Resolution 1973 vote der Ramaphosa to the active interventionism for example, the clash was apparently be- of the Mbeki years, suggest strongly that for tween South Africa’s human rights ambitions the most part the ANC government is still and its anti-imperialist, Africa-first agenda. hearing the call of that manifest destiny. Nonetheless one can see elements of reluc- South Africa is not hesitant but independent tance, as Destradi defines it, in Pretoria’s for- eign policy behaviour over the years and in Pretoria would no doubt defend its Afri- the more immediate past. can policy on the grounds that it is not a re- Flip-flopping or inconsistency has been luctant, hesitant or inconsistent regional evident in several South African positions. power, but merely acts independently of all Perhaps the most notorious example was in its greater powers. And so it would claim it has vote on the UN Security Council for military resisted the pressure of Western powers to intervention in Libya in 2011 and then its intervene in some African crises such as Zim- later condemnation of the military interven- babwe, while also resisting the pressure of tion and its vow to support no Security Coun- rival powers such as China and Russia, not to cil resolution which even so much as mildly intervene in say, Sudan. Thus it would insist it criticised the subsequent gross human rights has pursued a “consistent” independent poli- abuses by the Syrian government in the civil cy. It is hard though, not to discern a certain war there. Another inconsistency has been anti-Western bias at times in South Africa’s South Africa’s strong condemnation of Moroc- Africa policy on the ground. co for its occupation of the Western Sahara, For instance, no matter how eloquently while it has turned a blind eye to so many the ANC might defend its Zimbabwe policy in other human rights abuses on the continent, theoretical terms, in the end, its failure to in Zimbabwe, South Sudan, DRC, Swaziland exert any real influence there has resulted in and elsewhere. Or in the way Pretoria has so an economic cripple, a failed state on South often resisted calls for intervention in crises Africa’s doorstep, which is also sending large such as those just mentioned, and yet recent- numbers of refugees into South Africa, to in- ly, at the UN Security Council, joined the two crease the burden on an already over- other African members, Cote d’Ivoire and burdened state as well. Equatorial Guinea, in insisting that Sudan As Stephanie Wolters of the Institute for should be suspended from the African Union Security Studies has written, by repeatedly until the military junta which had ousted siding with the Mugabe government in mo- Omar al-Bashir handed power over to a civil- ments of crisis, SADC, and in particular South ian government. In doing so South Africa Africa “have facilitated the destruction of the seemed to blindside its BRICS allies, China economy and the pauperisation of the Zimba- and Russia, which doggedly pursued their bwean population.”13 Some analysts suspect usual policy of “non-intervention in the inter- that South Africa’s invocation of the reluctant nal affairs of member states.” Another recent Big Brother argument is really a mask for the inconsistency that has been observed in South fact that it has lost the ability to really play Africa’s behaviour has been its adherence to a the role of Big Brother anyway, for the mainly human rights agenda at the Security Council economic reasons cited above. One could add on some issues – such as the Sudan vote and that South Africa has also faced scepticism its support for Germany’s resolution on oppos- from other African countries, especially other ing sexual violence – while at the same time continental powers, such as Nigeria, about its apparently ignoring rigged elections in DRC, ambition to be an African leader. More recent- for example. Or a litany of misgovernance in ly, ever more frequent eruptions of xenopho- Venezuela. bic – or “Afrophobic” – violence as it has been

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dubbed, targeting other Africans in South Going beyond representivity Africa, have further diminished South Africa’s influence across the continent. It has been suggested that Pretoria is Some have suggested that South Africa’s trapped in a Catch 22; that if it really con- influence now hardly extends beyond the four fronts other African governments about their other members of the Southern African Cus- unacceptable behaviour, it will risk losing the toms Union, which are bound to it by a free African support on which its representivity in trade agreement ironically dating back well forums like the G20 and BRICS precisely de- into the apartheid era (in fact to 1910). pends. The counter to that argument, though, is that such representivity will remain merely South Africa: a symbolic leader of Africa? symbolic – and therefore rather meaningless – unless South Africa can really influence the Alden and Schoeman have more recently behaviour of those other African governments. offered the novel idea that South Africa has Alden and Schoeman have acknowledged now become a mere “symbolic hegemon” (or that “(t)his symbolic representivity of the perhaps a representative hegemon) in Africa. region introduces substantive constraints on They arrive at this conclusion by noting that South Africa’s ability to lead and has induced despite South Africa’s clearly diminishing a number of strategies by the government influence on the continent, the international aimed at off-setting these limitations. These community still accords it the status of Afri- are manifested variously as a preference for ca’s representative in global forums, by grant- unobtrusive foreign policy actions and con- ing it membership of such organisations as sensus-building strategies that underscore the G20 and BRICS.14 The two authors note collective African support.”16 that many analysts have predicted that South The suggestion here seems to be that by Africa will decline – or indeed already has increasingly taking “unobtrusive foreign poli- begun declining – as a regional power, from cy actions” and seeking consensus, Pretoria is the heyday of the presidency of the global in effect making a virtue of necessity, since it icon Mandela. lacks the ability to enforce its will anyway. “Yet, early in its third decade as a democ- Louw-Vaudran has written that South Af- racy, the country has retained and expanded rica badly needs to revive its role as a “norm its reputation as an emerging power, playing entrepreneur” – in effect “exporting” values an active role in global summitry through its such as democracy and human rights to the skillful usage of the notion of “African repre- rest of the continent. 17 She believes “it would sentivity,” they write.15 be strategic for South Africa to regain its sta- Perhaps that is a sign, one might add, of tus as champion of peace and democracy in how desperate the international community is Africa, as it could have positive spin-offs do- for an African country to respectably fill the mestically. Peace and prosperity on the conti- role of continental representative. nent will directly benefit South Africa’s own Whether that will remain true, as other economic interests, given that it is one of the African countries like Nigeria continue to rise, biggest investors in Africa.”18 might become the story of South Africa’s Afri- As a society South Africa certainly has ca policy during the third decade of the 21st proved itself capable of producing the right Century. norms, notably those emanating from the Con- For South Africa, under the Ramaphosa stitution. The country’s courts overturned administration, to really sustain its position several decisions by the Zuma administration even as Africa’s unofficial representative in which it had put its African relations above leader, but more than that, to make a real the demands of the Constitution. These in- impact on the Continent, it will have to accept cluded Pretoria’s granting of diplomatic im- that leadership is not a popularity contest. munity to Grace Mugabe on assault charges in 2017, failure to arrest then Sudanese Presi-

ARGUMENTE UND MATERIALIEN DER ENTWICKLUNGSZUSAMMENARBEIT 13 PETER FABRICIUS dent Omar al-Bashir on behalf of the ICC in ing and annoying a SADC ally – and a fellow 2015, its withdrawal from the ICC in 2017 member of the Former Liberation Movement without parliamentary approval and its partic- club to boot- in the name of Justice? This ipation in SADC’s suspension of the SADC tri- could prove to be a big test of Ramaphosa’s bunal from 2012. Africa policy. Well into his presidency, Ramaphosa had still not implemented the December 2017 ANC Recommendations policy decision to withdraw from the ICC any- way. A good sign. The South African government should im- plement the Pahad Review Panel’s recommen- Now another interesting legal case – dations to strengthen Africa policy. which may yet prove to be a case study in But it should go further than the Panel South Africa’s African foreign policy – is cur- did, by examining also the flaws of Mbeki’s rently unfolding where the Ramaphosa admin- “quiet diplomacy” in Africa and drawing co- istration is showing signs of going further in gent lessons. putting South Africa’s Africa policy on a sound One of these lessons should be that an Af- constitutional footing. South Africa’s justice rican policy – and indeed a global foreign minister Ronald Lamola has just successfully policy grounded in South Africa’s exemplary petitioned the Johannesburg High Court to Constitution – does not come cheap. It carries overturn a decision by his predecessor Mi- costs, both economically and politically. But it chael Masutha, to extradite former Mozambi- also brings long-term net rewards. South Afri- can finance minister Manuel Chang back to his ca and SADC should look to ECOWAS which in home country, supposedly to face charges of 2016 bluntly demanded that Gambian Presi- massive corruption arising from a fraudulent dent Yahya Jammeh step down after stealing shipping loan scheme. Masutha chose to send another election. When he hesitated, the re- him to Mozambique rather than to the US gional body deployed troops on the border. which had also requested his extradition to Ramaphosa should extradite former stand trial in America for the same crimes. Mozambican finance minister Manuel Chang Lamola’s lawyers argued in court that Masu- to the US – where he will definitely face jus- tha’s decision was invalid because it was tice – and not to his home country of Mozam- based on the assumption that Chang no longer bique – where he probably won’t. Ramaphosa enjoyed immunity from prosecution in should further demonstrate the legal basis of Mozambique. In fact he still did enjoy immun- South Africa’s African - and global - foreign ity and it seems the Mozambique government policy, by permanently shelving the December deliberately concealed this critical legal fact 2017 ANC policy decision to withdraw South from the South African courts and legal au- Africa from the ICC. thorities. Lamola now has to decide whether to extradite Chang to Mozambique or to the || Peter Fabricius US, based on all the facts – which have changed somewhat since Masutha’s decision Peter Fabricius is a South African foreign pol- because Chang has apparently resigned from icy journalist and analyst. He writes regularly for Parliament and therefore no longer enjoys the Daily Maverick, an online South African news- paper and for the Institute for Security Studies immunity. Mozambique civil society neverthe- (ISS), a Pretoria-based think tank doing research less suspects that Maputo has no real inten- mainly on Africa. For many years Fabricius was tion of prosecuting him for fear of what he foreign editor of the South African Independent may reveal in court about the complicity of Newspaper group. other senior Frelimo officials in the bribery scheme. Pretoria probably shares those suspi- cions of civil society. But will Lamola – i.e. the Ramaphosa administration – go as far as defy-

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ANMERKUNGEN

1 Mandela, N. (1994): Address at the Organisation for African Unity (OAU) meeting of Heads of State and Gov- ernment, Tunis. URL http://www.mandela.gov.za/ man- dela_speeches/1994/940613_oau.htm 2 Alden, C and Schoeman, M (2013): South Africa in the company of giants: the search for leadership in a trans- forming global order; in: International Affairs 89: 1 (2013) 111–129. 3 Alden, C and Schoeman, M. (2015): South Africa’s sym- bolic hegemony in Africa; in International Politics Vol 52.2. 239-254. 4 ibid. 5 ibid. 6 ibid. 7 Louw-Vaudran, L. (2016): Can South Africa Regain its Gravitas in Africa?, in: SIGLA Policy 1/2017. … URLhttps://www.sun.ac.za/english/faculty/milscience/sig la/Documents/Danish%20Round%20Tables/SIGLA%20ro undtable%2016%20December%2017.pdf 8 ibid. 9 Pahad, A, et al. (2019): Interim Draft Report. 30 March 2019. Foreign Policy Review: a strategic reflection and critical appraisal of the orientation and implementation of South Africa’s foreign policy. Destradi, S. (2017): Reluctance in international politics: A conceptualization; in: European Journal of International Relations 2017, Vol. 23(2) 315–340. 11 Esterhuyse, Abel (2010): South Africa, the Reluctant Leader. URL http://www.limesonline.com/en/south- africa-the-reluctant-leader?refresh [26.10.2019] 12 Alden/Schoeman (2015) p. 241. 13 Wolters, S. (2017): Why has SADC failed to provide prin- cipled regional engagement in the DRC and Zimbabwe?, in: ISS Today 24 Nov 2017. 14 Alden/Schoeman (2015) 15 Alden, C and Schoeman, M. (2016): Reconstructing South African Identity through Global Summitry. URL http://globalsummitry.oxfordjournals.org 16 Alden/Schoeman (2015) 17 Louw-Vaudran, L. (2016). Is South Africa a norm entpre- preneur in Africa?, in ISS Policy Brief 94/2016. [https://issafrica.s3.amazonaws.com/site/uploads/policy brief94.pdf 18 ibid.

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