Africa has long been the victim of foreign invaders, imperialists, missionaries, adventurers, mercenaries, Cold War warriors and ideologues from both the Soviet Union and the World Bank. One of its most devastating relationships has been with those who would claim to have Africa’s interests most at heart – the United Nations.
The rare in-depth interview in this edition with Rwandan Vice-President Paul Kagame is a scathing indictment of the UN for ignoring the pleas of the Rwandan people when help was most needed.
The UN, briefed about the the possibility of genocide in 1994, did nothing except to provide a false sense of security. And then it allowed the creation and sustenance of camps where the Hutu militia held hundreds of thousands of refugees hostage while plotting fresh atrocities.
The fear of yet another catastrophe – and no prospect of security from the international community – prompted Kagame to assemble an African force to overthrow Mobutu Sese Seko in Zaire earlier this year.
The UN’s record in Angola is not much better. For decades the organisation was unable to act against the political will of the United States, which, along with apartheid South Africa, was Unita’s main backer until 1993.
The UN folded its arms while Unita leader Jonas Savimbi took the country back to war in 1992 after losing UN-supervised elections. Again, since the Lusaka Accord of 1995, the UN has been willing to tolerate endless delays in the peace process, allowing Savimbi repeatedly to fail to honour his commitments and once again bring the country back to the brink of war.
But there has been a shift in Africa’s international relations recently that could do a power of good in the major conflict areas.
The emergence of the Ghanaian Kofi Annan as UN secretary general and the decided shift in US policy towards Luanda could reshape the situation in Angola, for which the US and UN bear so much responsibility. The UN’s mediation has a chance of preventing hostilities if it and the US bring enough pressure to bear on Savimbi.
The shift in US policy is more amazing in Congo. America’s ambassador to the UN, Bill Richardson, recently conceded that at the roots of the conflict in the Great Lakes was “the failure of the international community to respond adequately to both the genocide and the mixing of genocidal killers with legitimate refugees”.
There are other positive signs. The French have suffered a series of humiliations in Africa and are cutting back their troops in their neo-colonial empire. Even in Kenya, the international community is getting tough on Daniel arap Moi. But these changes should not simply be subject to whim. International forums, beginning with the UN, must be democratised. It is time to pursue President Nelson Mandela’s call for the UN security council to be restructured to allow African representation.
Africa remains economically and militarily weak against the great powers, but it is not without moral authority. The new initiatives that are emanating from the African continent must be supported on their own terms, and not by the imposition of the agendas of other countries.
As Kagame points out, Africa is not fighting against that which calls itself the civilised world. It is fighting to join it.
End the rates squeeze
The Growth, Employment and Redistribution (Gear) strategy is under threat, not from the usual suspects, labour and business, but from the Reserve Bank. Monetary policy, as practised by Chris Stals, goes against the very grain of the government’s growth strategy, and the government, having given the bank full independence, is powerless to change Stals’s current course.
His obsession with inflation is completely out of touch with the economic realities. While government critics are quick to point out Gear’s failures, they are less inclined to consider the real reasons. Gear envisages export-led growth; this demands a cheaper currency. Instead, high real interest rates are ensuring – until this week’s hiccup – that the rand remains overvalued.
And it’s no wonder jobs are being lost, not created as envisaged by Gear, when high rates are squeezing industry and consumers.
Inflation, at around 9,5%, is not the problem; real interest rates of 11,5% are. Stals’s reasoning for sticking to his tight monetary policy is flawed. Interest rates are a very blunt tool for manipulating credit demand; tighter control over banks’ lending policies would be more effective – and helpful to the wider economy.
Stals believes his mandate is to control inflation and maintain a stable currency; 20-million South Africans may beg to differ. What they want is jobs. With less than two years to go before the next election, the government cannot afford to let the bank continue on its present course.
Particularly when drought is looming. The effects of El Ni–o are difficult to predict, but agriculture, which plays an important role in the formal as well as informal economy, will be hit. The only question is how badly.
Cutting interest rates now would help to provide a buffer against the worst-case scenario, which could see the rate of economic growth drop by between 0,5% and 0,8% next year. South Africa can ill afford such a knock, still less the price of inaction.
The Reserve Bank may be independent, but it is not the sole arbiter of South Africa’s economic fortunes. The government has done its bit with Gear, pledging itself to sound economic management. It’s time the bank did the same.