The government has retreated behind a wall of silence to wrestle with the Nigerian issue, writes Gaye Davis
FEARS of ruffling the feathers of African leaders and of being seen as acting as an agent of western governments abrogating their own moral responsibility dominated top-level government talks on the Nigerian situation this week.
Led by President Nelson Mandela, the consultations – involving Foreign Affairs Minister Alfred Nzo, Deputy President Thabo Mbeki and senior foreign affairs and ANC officials – took place behind a wall of official silence.
Foreign Affairs spokesperson Clara Kiesewetter said on Wednesday a statement would be issued only once the discussions were concluded. “They’ve decided that until consultations are finished they will not be pressurised by the media to give further news,” she said.
Sources close to the talks said Mandela was consulting widely, particularly with southern African countries,in an attempt to bring them on board. They described the government’s dilemma as two-fold. It had to steer a morally correct course, yet it was clear Mandela’s strong lead in denouncing the Nigerian junta and calling for sanctions had already pitched South Africa way ahead of the position of any other African government. This, they said, could upset delicate political balances and compromise future interventions in Africa.
The second horn of the dilemma was a perception that South Africa had been “set up” by Britain and the United States to take the lead on Nigeria, allowing them to avoid taking any significant action themselves when their political and economic clout put them in a better position to do so.
“Traditionally, African countries close ranks when one of their number comes under attack from the West,” a source said. “We are the only African country that has come out strongly against Nigeria and we could alienate people because of the stand we are
Said another source: “It’s a caution similar to the restraint shown in responding to calls to send South African troops to Rwanda, which is in danger of becoming a new version of the former government which trampled over the region in pursuit of narrow national interests.”
Efforts were focused on maintaining pressure on western governments, especially Britain and the United States, to take action that went further than United Nations General Assembly resolutions of condemnation. Foreign observers, however, said while western governments appeared open to hearing Mandela’s arguments in favour of oil sanctions, they detected no headlong rush down this road on the part of either Britain or the United States, who had experienced their limited effect when used against Iraq, Iran and Libya.
Opposition politicians are now gearing for next week’s meeting of Parliament’s portfolio committee on foreign affairs, saying hard questions will be asked.
Indications this week were that ANC MPs would refrain from publicly criticising an ANC minister. MPs privately conceded that concerns about the management of the foreign affairs portfolio had been repeatedly raised in the ANC caucus but said a Cabinet reshuffle was extremely unlikely at this stage.
Said a cynical backbencher: “The culture is no-one gets fired – especially when newspapers are calling for the minister’s head”.
Democratic Party foreign affairs spokesman Colin Eglin said his party would push for a review of foreign policy formulation using Nigeria as a case-study of how the process had broken down.
He echoed ANC MPs when he said the portfolio committee and “the wider interested public” should play a role in making foreign policy and that a mechanism for this be speedily created.
“Three issues will have to be addressed: what happened, what should be done to remedy the structural defects in foreign policy making and what should be done in the case of Nigeria,” Eglin
Political observers see the committee’s response as a crucial test of the separation of powers in the new government. The two- day meeting will be the first time that the public’s representatives hear first-hand from the ministry about its Nigerian policy; an August request for a briefing was refused.
The ANC national executive committee’s sub-committee on international affairs will be briefed on Nigeria when it meets today. Also on the agenda is the “re-tuning” of the ANC’s own foreign policy and a close scrutiny of the form and function of the ANC’s own department of international affairs. A shadow foreign affairs ministry during the days of exile, it is now seen by many as little more than a sub-department of the Department of Foreign Affairs.
Chairperson Blade Nzimande said the meeting would give flesh to resolutions taken at the ANC’s national conference last December pledging continued contact and solidarity with countries, often former anti-apartheid allies, still fighting for their own freedom. A report would be given to the NEC for discussion when it meets on December 8, he said.
The politburo of the South African Communist Party last week took the position that government’s contact with the Nigerian regime should have been backed by contact with opposition groupings. Politburo member Jeremy Cronin said: “It reflects a need for all of us in the ANC to realise that foreign policy is effected at different levels and that the ANC in its own right has an important role to play.”
The party, whose central committee meets this weekend, said it was unfair to blame Mandela for the executions and criticised western governments for not taking a stronger line, as did the
ANC secretary general Cheryl Carolus said the ANC was “outraged by attempts to shift moral responsibility (for the Nigerian crisis) on to South Africa’s and particularly Mandela’s
“We are disgusted by the moral cowardice displayed by Britain and the United states, countries with far more political and economic clout than South Africa.” They should stop “twiddling their thumbs” and using Mandela as a “red herring” to draw attention from the role they should be playing.