The world has learnt some sobering lessons about intervention in civil conflicts in the past few years. The United States experience in Somalia led to a consensus that it was foolhardy for an international power to intervene when the political groundwork had not been done beforehand. Peacekeeping could only work when the parties wanted a third-party intervention, when there were specific political-military goals to be achieved and when there was a firm time-frame on the intervention.
And South Africa has learnt its own particular lessons, particularly in relation to Nigeria. The first is the danger of getting the timing wrong — acting when it’s too late — and of having inadequate intelligence. The second is the need to take a regional view and develop a consensus of affected African neighbours rather than acting alone.
The South African government has been wise to be cautious about rushing into African conflict situations. There is a justifiable nervousness about Pretoria reasserting itself as the bully of the continent. But there comes a time when the situation demands that the country overcome its collective queasiness and take firm and visible action. A threat of genocide in Burundi is such a case.
This is not to suggest the crude response of simply sending in the troops. The national defence force has yet to be confident enough of the successful integration of its forces.
And it has, quite rightly, set out in its White Paper strict and quite cautious criteria for involvement in international peacekeeping operations.
So far, the South African response has been confused, with President Nelson Mandela ruling out South African involvement in peacekeeping, but Deputy Foreign Minister Aziz Pahad leaving the door open. We are becoming used to an occasional dissonance between the presidency and the Foreign Affairs Ministry, but the result is the kind of confusion and uncertainty which so bedevilled our response to the Nigerian situation.
Perhaps this is a time for the president to put the same energy into Africa as he has recently done in Europe, or for Deputy President Thabo Mbeki to shift his focus from Washington to the centre of our own continent. A visible and strong diplomatic intervention from South Africa is called for. This need not necessarily be directed at the warring parties, for that may at this point achieve little, but the Mandela/Mbeki team could do a round of African states in a bid to achieve a strong and coherent regional attempt to pre-empt disaster. It would also help lay the ground for any future, more direct intervention.
There is a real and substantive role for Mandela’s statesmanship in this situation, directing an active, constructive and visible South African diplomatic role.