And Post-Apartheid
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Prospects13.qxd 2005/07/13 01:22 PM Page 77 CHAPTER TWO Regional security structures: Pre- and post-apartheid The development of Southern Africa’s regional security arrangements as well as that of the social-political and economic context predates decolonisation. Jakkie Cilliers examines these efforts from the 1950s, during which period the emphasis was on co-operation in “decolonisation and ending minority regimes in the former Rhodesia, South West Africa and South Africa”.1 It will be shown that the political difficulties that were experienced by the sub-regional security apparatus were characterised by the aggressive foreign policy projections of apartheid South Africa, the settler colonies of Angola, Mozambique and Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and reactive policies by other African-ruled states in the region. In this regard, the chapter describes and analyses policies and structures that are designed to create inter-state security arrangements. In the investigation of collaborative efforts in security for the region, the chapter looks at the African Charter associated with South Africa’s Prime Minister DF Malan of the National Party, which contrasted with General Jan Smuts’s ‘British-centric Commonwealth’. Smuts visualised a collaborative arrangement that acknowledged independent states, racial segregation, and the supremacy of the ‘white’ race,2 the Simonstown Agreement and the African Defence Organisation—all closely associated with South Africa. Other South African-led initiatives include Prime Minister Vorster’s détente, Prime Minister PW Botha’s Constellation of Southern African States (CONSAS), and the Total Strategy. Another initiative that requires examination is the British-sponsored Central African Federation (CAF) of Rhodesia and Nyasaland. Other structures associated with the newly independent states of the period include the East and Central African States (ECAS), the Mulungushi Club, and the FLS alliance. All these structures have been efforts at collaborative security arrangements. All faced challenges, which affected the attainment of the envisaged objectives. 77 Prospects13.qxd 2005/07/13 01:22 PM Page 78 78 Prospects for a Security Community in Southern Africa This coverage shows that there are two sets of structures, which are evidently racial in composition, namely ‘white’ and ‘black’. The ‘African Charter’, Simonstown Agreement, African Defence Organisation, CONSAS, Total Strategy and the Central African Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland may be closely associated with the ‘white’ racial categorisation, while the East and Central African group of states, the Mulungushi Club and the FLS are linked to the ‘black’ racial grouping. This fits well with Willie Breytenbach’s model of collective security in the region, in which he adopted Cantori and Spiegel’s concepts of “black and white blocs” in reference to the two power blocs that emerged in the Southern African region.3 Breytenbach explains that, prior to 1974, the ‘white’ bloc comprising South Africa, Portugal4 and Rhodesia, behaved as an alliance at both regional and international levels.5 Breytenbach identified the ‘black’ bloc as the FLS and the liberation movements in the Figure 2: ‘White’ and ‘Black’ bloc up to 1975 Prospects13.qxd 2005/07/13 01:22 PM Page 79 Naison Ngoma 79 Southern African region. He further stipulated that the development of the ‘white’ and ‘black’ blocs was largely due to colonialism and apartheid, consequently signifying the critical role of both South Africa and the Western states. Figures 2 to 5 show the ‘white’ and ‘black’ blocs. This section describes and analyses the events in the region from this dichotomous dimension (i.e. white and black) of security alliances, which prior to the end of apartheid were designed to mitigate the insecurity through establishing some form of structures. This section evaluates these efforts. THE ‘WHITE’ BLOC The ‘white’ bloc thesis is premised on a common understanding arising from a perception of threat against the gains achieved by the settler Figure 3: ‘White’ and ‘Black’ bloc up to 1980 Prospects13.qxd 2005/07/13 01:22 PM Page 80 80 Prospects for a Security Community in Southern Africa communities in the region, and therefore the need for a security arrangements that ensured the preservation of their ‘civilisation’.6 Such a security arrangement clearly needed a concept that would be accepted by all the members of the bloc. The common understanding in the ‘white’ bloc took the form of policies and activities, which entailed a search for a common security structure that would bring about sustainable security through pooling efforts by South Africa, Northern and Southern Rhodesia as well as Nyasaland and the Portuguese- controlled Mozambique and Angola, and the South Africa–controlled South West Africa. Although the ‘white’ bloc would appear to indicate a preoccupation with the ‘white’ race, this did not imply non-association of other races, as can be seen from such initiatives as Botha’s CONSAS. The inter-racial engagement was at both sub-regional and regional levels. Prime Minister Malan’s argument may be seen in this light. Figure 4: ‘White’ and ‘Black’ bloc up to 1990 Prospects13.qxd 2005/07/13 01:22 PM Page 81 Naison Ngoma 81 Nolutshungu writes that in 1949 Malan argued that, while Africa required economic development, it also required “protection and guidance”.7 Other political leaders in the ‘white’ bloc supported his views, as these conformed to the mission to ‘save’ the ‘white’ community from the hostile intent of the ‘black’ bloc and its supporters. Several issues associated with the ‘white’ bloc in general and South Africa in particular, and which showed efforts to form inter-state structures that pointed towards the enhancement of some common good (however skewed), include a number of initiatives stretching from the 1930s to the late 1970s. However, only some of the later ones, particularly those that had a significant impact on developments in the sub-region, will be discussed in detail.8 The drive towards a form of regional security arrangement may be traced to the time of Jan Smuts when, as prime minister of South Africa, Figure 5: ‘White’ and ‘Black’ bloc after 1990 Prospects13.qxd 2005/07/13 01:22 PM Page 82 82 Prospects for a Security Community in Southern Africa he championed the British Commonwealth idea and was not opposed to the idea of a larger South Africa which would have included such territories as Southern Rhodesia and South West Africa (present-day Namibia), with a view to protecting the interests of South Africa and the white people in particular: ‘whites’ in big business, “empire loyalists”, and liberals who were keen to prevent the isolation of South Africa. This conformed to Lord Passfield’s doctrine: “where white and black interests conflict, white interests must be paramount”.9 Nolutshungu argues that it is upon this policy that Malan’s ‘African Charter’ was premised. The concept of an African Charter was later used in reference to what James Mayall defined as the “endorsement of the territorial status quo, and its explicit denunciation of subversion and political assassination and intervention in the domestic affairs of other states”.10 This ‘true’ African Charter was signed in May 1963. Closely associated with the ‘African Charter’ are the Simonstown Agreement, Defence of Africa and the African Defence Organisation. It is therefore these policies that provide the groundwork for the ‘white’ bloc’s drive towards an inter-state security structure, which could appropriately be discussed in the framework of Malan’s ‘African Charter’. THE ‘AFRICAN CHARTER’ Malan’s ‘African Charter’ refers to what he termed “African Powers” as the two primary actors, namely colonial powers and those powers with possessions on the continent. A significant component of the policy is its proclamation for the preservation of Western European Christian civilisation and the ‘safeguarding’ of the continent for European civilisation, as well as its defence against communism from Simonstown to Suez.11 This led to what is referred to as the Simonstown agreement, in which Britain gave its naval base of Simonstown on the Indian Ocean coastline (in eastern Cape Town) to South Africa but its usage to the African Powers, who, particularly the UK, were to continue in exchange with the defence of the Southern African region. This accord facilitated South Africa’s acquisition of such military hardware as “frigates, helicopters and long-range aircraft designed to improve the country’s capacity to patrol the seas around the Cape”.12 Britain terminated the Simonstown agreement in 1975. It is evident that the policy for the defence of Africa was to South African politicians an “extension of the defence of South Africa”.13 Prospects13.qxd 2005/07/13 01:22 PM Page 83 Naison Ngoma 83 Nolutshungu further makes the point that South Africa yearned to both check African armies and become conversant with military progress on the continent. Related to this is what Pettman describes as South Africa’s policy in the 1960s to find its “natural sphere of influence” in the application of a ‘Monroe Doctrine’ for Southern and Central Africa, directed at the continent and at the West. In respect of the continent, the policy was to destabilise the OAU and in that way reduce the likelihood of African countries directing their efforts towards South Africa. In respect of the West, the aim was to show Britain and the US that intervention in the region would be dangerous. The Monroe Doctrine, premised on the 1823 doctrine that proclaimed that the US would not approve any intervention in the American continents by a foreign power, implies that there ought not to be any intervention by an external actor. Portugal’s former Minister Nogueira stressed this point when he called for talks with African states “within a purely African framework and excluding powers alien to the continent”.14 The prime aim was clearly that of serving South Africa’s interest by refocusing the independent African states by destabilising them while at the same time making it clear to the Western states that they could not attempt to intervene on the African continent.