SADC – THE SOUTHERN ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT COMMUNITY? DEVELOPMENT ARRESTED THE SOUTHERN – SADC Southern Africa is likely to experience more social unrest in the foreseeable future. That is one of the conclusions in this policy dialogue, which provides an overview of political and economic developments rele- vant to regional peace and security in Southern Africa. SADC – The Southern While the region continues to experience isolated armed conflicts, and while developmental backlogs Arrested Development present a major risk to regional stability in the long Enduring Challenges to Peace run, currently the most acute source of instability Community? and Security in Southern Africa stems from governance deficits, which in the past decade have prompted crises in many of the member states of the Southern African Development Commu- nity (SADC). SADC’s institutional framework for regio- nal peace and security has proven ineffective because SADC leaders have prioritised national sovereignty over the enforcement of democratic principles. The in- stitutions have little capacity as they lack material and political support. The governance deficits and SADC’s lacklustre conflict management may in the long run arrest development in Southern Africa. MICHAEL AEBY MICHAEL MICHAEL AEBY is an Associated Researcher at the Institute for Democracy, Citizenship and Public Policy in Africa (IDCPPA), University of Cape Town. His research focuses on the African Peace and Security Architecture, civil society participation in peace processes, mediation, transitional governance, power-sharing, and the SADC region. ISBN 9789171068538 90000 > Policy Dialogue No. 14 9 789171 068538 Michael Aeby POLICY DIALOGUE No. 14 SADC – THE SOUTHERN ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT COMMUNITY? Enduring Challenges to Peace and Security in Southern Africa Author Michael Aeby NORDISKA AFRIKAINSITUTET The Nordic Africa Institute UPPSALA 2019 INDEXING TERMS: Southern Africa Regional development Regional cooperation Governance African organizations Conflict management Peace Peacekeeping Regional security Southern African Development Community SADC – The Southern Arrested Development Community? Enduring Challenges to Peace and Security in Southern Africa Policy Dialogue No. 14 Author: Michael Aeby ISBN 978-91-7106-853-8 print ISBN 978-91-7106-854-5 pdf ISSN 1654-9090 print ISSN 1654-6790 pdf © 2019 The author and the Nordic Africa Institute, Uppala, Sweden Language editor: Clive Liddiard Layout and production editor: Henrik Alfredsson Print on demand: Lightning Source UK Ltd. Front cover: Train in Mozambique, May 2011. Photo: Nina May, Flickr. The Nordic Africa Institute conducts independent, policy-relevant research, provides analysis and informs decision-making, with the aim of advancing research- based knowledge of contemporary Africa. The institute is jointly financed by the governments of Finland, Iceland and Sweden. The opinions expressed in this volume are those of the au- thor and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Nordic Africa Institute. This work is made available under a Crea- tive Commons Attribution-Non Commer- cial-No Derivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) Licence. Details regarding permitted usage can be found at www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc- nd/4.0 Print editions are available for purchase, more information can be found at the NAI web page www.nai.uu.se. Contents 1. Introduction ........................................................................................5 2. Regional trends and enduring challenges ..................................... 13 Armed conflict: from regional wars to local insurgencies ........................................ 13 The quality of governance and democracy ................................................................ 15 Socio-economic development ................................................................................... 20 3. The development of SADC’s institutional framework and policies on regional peace and security ................................. 27 SADC’s predecessors and their institutional legacies ..............................................27 The development of SADC’s institutional framework .............................................. 28 The ‘Implantation’ of the Organ for Politics, Defence and Security into SADC ....... 31 The implementation of the Strategic Indicative Plan for the Organ ....................... 34 The operationalisation of SADC’s APSA component ................................................37 Regional dynamics and norms informing SADC’s conflict management in practice ..39 4. Southern African hot spots and hotbeds of conflict ....................45 Mozambique’s RENAMO rebellion, uneven development and financial woes ....... 45 The renewed RENAMO insurgency and peace process .........................................................45 Resource rents, redistribution and debt crisis .......................................................................50 Angola’s Cabinda conflict, youth protests, violent kleptocracy and transition of power .. 51 The separatist struggle in Cabinda .........................................................................................52 Rampant inequality, youth protests and state-sponsored violence .....................................54 The Dos Santos family-state enterprise and the transition of power ...................................56 Zimbabwe’s unresolved crisis of governance and thinly disguised military coup ..... 57 Zimbabwe’s long descent into crisis and the SADC-brokered Global Political Agreement ...58 Economic standstill and informalisation................................................................................ 60 Demobilised civil society organisations and social media-driven upheaval ........................62 Fragmented opposition, coalition-building and electoral reform .........................................66 ZANU-PF’s succession struggle and the thinly disguised military coup ..............................69 Zimbabwe since the coup: Elections, protests and violent repression ................................ 75 5. Conclusion ........................................................................................ 81 About the author ...................................................................................86 References .............................................................................................87 Index ...................................................................................................102 About the Policy Dialogue Series ......................................................108 4 | SADC – The Southern Arrested Development Community? Map illustration: Henrik Alfredsson, the Nordic Africa Institute Africa the Nordic Alfredsson, Henrik Map illustration: DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO SEYCHELLES Kinshasa Dodoma TANZANIA Dar es Salaam Luanda COMOROS MALAWI Moroni ANGOLA ZAMBIA Lilongwe Lusaka Harare MADAGASCAR MOZAM- NAMIBIA ZIMBABWE BIQUE Antananarivo BOTSWANA Windhoek Gaborone Pretoria Maputo ESWATINI Bloemfontein MAURITIUS Maseru ATLANTIC LESOTHO INDIAN OCEAN SOUTH AFRICA OCEAN Cape Town 0 400 800 Kilometres The Southern African Development Community (SADC) has 16 member states. Chapter 1 – Introduction | 5 1. Introduction The majority of countries in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) have been generally peaceful and stable in recent years; however, the region continues to grapple with a series of violent intrastate conflicts and latent security risks. This policy dialogue report reviews some of the major challenges to peace and security that the region has faced in the past few years, as well as the development of SADC’s peace and security architecture and responses to crises in member states. The relative stability of the Southern African region at present is remarkable, con- sidering its long history of violent, large-scale conflict. Not only was Southern Africa the last part of the continent to be freed from colonialism – through armed liberation struggles, which continue to shape its politics and societies – but the region also suf- fered from intertwined proxy and civil wars that, in some instances, outlived the Cold War. By pursuing a concerted strategy of deliberately destabilising African states that harboured liberation movements and fuelling intrastate conflicts north of its borders, the South African apartheid regime undermined peace and development in the region, and prompted its neighbours to form a defensive alliance.1 Both SADC’s peace and security architecture, which emerged from this historic alliance of Frontline States, and the Community as such were put to the test in the late 1990s, when several SADC states became embroiled in ‘Africa’s World War’, which raged in the Democratic Re- public of the Congo (DRC).2 Whilst armed conflict continues in the eastern DRC, the generally peaceful SADC region nowadays boasts a number of stable democracies and prosperous economies. Moreover, in the past 20 years, SADC institutions have taken on an important role in managing matters of regional peace and security, including crises in member states. Major crises and risks in the region presently relate to armed insurgencies, weak in- stitutions, poor governance, democratic deficits and unstable governments, as well as enduring socio-economic grievances that give rise to social conflicts and undermine human security. In addition to the war against multiple rebel groups in the DRC, the region has seen the rekindling of armed insurgencies in Angola and