This week’s SADC summit saw quibbling among the region’s leaders, but a few strides were made nevertheless, reports Stefaans Brummer
WHEN the Southern African Development Community heads of state and government postponed their lunch at Johannesburg’s World Trade Centre on Monday, observers suspected there was serious quibbling in the air.
Two closed sessions of an hour and a half each, originally to have been broken by lunch, stretched to a solid four and a half hours, and only well into the afternoon did the leaders allow themselves a bite.
What the delay meant for the caterers must be clear; what it signified about unity of purpose and direction in SADC is anybody’s guess. For, in spite of SADC’s slogan of “integration through commitment, co-operation and popular participation”, the people of the region do not get to hear details of what went on behind those closed doors.
But that there was less than unanimity on the part of the 11 Southern African presidents and prime ministers or their deputies (12 after Mauritius’ membership application was approved during the summit) can be gauged from the fruits of the summit.
South Africa’s President Nelson Mandela, in perhaps the most candid admission that not all went as planned, said afterwards: “There is no doubt that this has been one of the most significant SADC summits ever … There are issues where we may not have reached complete consensus, but they all fade into insignificance by comparison to the great strides we have made.”
The summit did indeed make “strides”, in comparison to SADC’s earlier record of much talk and little action. But not all would agree with Mandela’s judgment that the disagreements “fade into insignificance” against those strides.
Here is the scorecard:
* SADC’s leaders signed a Protocol on Shared Watercourse Systems, perhaps the first concrete agreement yet signed by the body in pursuance of its aim of regional integration. But the protocol, which is to ensure upstream states do not use more than their share of water or pollute shared water systems, was not signed by Angola and Zambia as their Cabinets “had not yet completed their consultations”.
* SADC energy ministers were directed by the summit to sign an “inter-governmental memorandum of understanding” on a Southern African Power Pool. While it showed an advance on the aim to create a common pool of electricity in the region, the memorandum appeared to be a step down from a protocol establishing the pool, which had been envisaged to be signed by the heads of state and government.
* Mauritius’ application for membership was granted. Like South Africa, which joined SADC a year ago, Mauritius is an economic powerhouse compared to the rest of the region and may bring muscle and expertise to the block.
* The summit approved a request from Comesa, the Common Market for East and Southern Africa, for a joint summit with SADC to remove tension between the two bodies. SADC decided a year ago that its members should resign membership of Comesa (thereby creating two, rather than one, trade block), but many SADC members still retain dual membership.
While Mauritius joining SADC (as opposed to Comesa, which was also an option) appeared to be a victory for SADC, the fact that the joint summit was approved and that the resignations have not happened point to a possible rethink of the earlier decision, or a reluctance on the part of some SADC members to make a clear choice for the southern body. SADC executive secretary Kaire Mbuende said after the summit: “I am not going to demand from any country to know whether they have pulled out or not.”
* Perhaps most importantly, the Association of Southern African States (Asas), a political arm to complement SADC’s development aims with a regional conflict resolution and security co-ordination facility, was not agreed. Last year’s summit approved the creation of such a “sector” in SADC, but the idea was revised — and supposedly finalised for approval by this year’s summit — by SADC foreign ministers at a meeting in Harare in March.
The March revision decided Asas should be a loose association with direct input by SADC heads of state and a revolving chair, rather than the “sector” — which in SADC-speak would have meant it falling under the authority of SADC’s secretariat. As a “sector”, it would also have been co-ordinated and chaired by a single member country.
Monday’s summit decided to refer Asas back to the member states and their foreign and security ministers for more “consultation”. What had been decided twice before had to be revised again.
The new review appears to be based on the realisation that security ministers had mistakenly been omitted from the process earlier, but could also relate to the aspirations of a state like Zimbabwe, which has been eyeing the chair of Asas, and the secretariat of SADC, both of whom would benefit were the body to be a sector (under the secretariat and with a non-revolving chair).
Whether the above constitutes “great strides” or not, in the end, will have to be judged by the people of the region. Mandela acknowledged as much in his closing address, when he urged the leaders of the region to “move to put into practice the decisions we have