aGregory Mthembu-Salter
CROSSFIRE
Howard Barrell’s article last week painted a depressing picture of life in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It seems that Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma is both micro-managing her staff and routinely bypassing them, jetting off at short notice for consultations in the Great Lakes region, the results of which are made known only to President Thabo Mbeki, leaving her officials unsure of what to do next.
How different it all looks from the Great Lakes, where the competing rebel factions in east Democratic Republic of Congo, the Rwandan government, and the parties jostling for power in Burundi all say they have rarely encountered a politician like Dlamini-Zuma. They rave about her willingness to listen and her grasp of the complexities of the region, and they acknowledge and respect her government’s determination to secure lasting peace there.
Acquiring this formidable reputation in the short time Dlamini-Zuma has been foreign minister has not been easy. Dlamini-Zuma has travelled to the Great Lakes region repeatedly and has adapted to the notoriously flexible timetables of her hosts – a fact that may explain the sudden changes of plan her officials complain about. In addition, Dlamini-Zuma and Mbeki have hosted numerous political delegations from the Great Lakes region in South Africa, with the two often conversing till the small hours with their guests, and then immediately deploying senior officials to follow up with practical action.
That Dlamini-Zuma has found some of her ministerial staff to be of limited use in Great Lakes diplomacy is not surprising. Not only did South Africa’s lengthy diplomatic isolation affect departmental competence, where long-term problems have been exacerbated by the uncomfortable addition to the old guard of African National Congress cadres, but in addition diplomacy in the Great Lakes does not conform to the usual rules. Dlamini-Zuma has quickly acclimatised to how things are done up there, but the extent to which her ministry has done the same is unclear.
The concern that Dlamini-Zuma and Mbeki are obsessed with the Great Lakes region is understandable. The world is a big place and South Africa’s dealings with it are increasing. Yet the Great Lakes is crucial to South Africa and South Africa is the only country with the commitment and clout to do much about setting it straight.
On top of the immediate threat of thousands of refugees streaming into Southern Africa from the Great Lakes region if full-scale war resumes, there is also the consideration that such a conflict would doom Mbeki’s efforts to convince the world that the “African renaissance” is real, and that Africa is a serious place in which to invest and do business.
South Africa’s concern with the Great Lakes region is based on its own interests, which is why the main actors there – Laurent Kabila, Paul Kagame et al – can be absolutely sure that South Africa’s involvement is guaranteed. The contrast is stark with Europe and the United States, the other major foreign players in the Great Lakes region. Since the end of the Cold War, the hallmark of their involvement has been inconsistency, fluctuating between disinterest and media-friendly mercy missions.
France was always the exception, but its preparedness to intervene was destroyed by the defeat of the French-backed genocidal regime in Rwanda in 1994, and today France’s efforts in the Great Lakes region are timid and ineffective.
Britain is, meanwhile, unprepared to devote sufficient resources to capitalise either on its colonial connections in Africa or on the possibilities opened up by France’s ignominious post-1994 retreat, with the result that Britain boxes below its weight in the region, and is of far less influence than it could be.
That leaves the US, which, as the world’s only remaining superpower, has axiomatic influence in the Great Lakes, and has enough resources to make a difference. But the US is haunted by its failure in Somalia in 1992, the consequence of which is that the US government refuses to deploy troops in Africa and blocks international efforts to do so, as it did in Rwanda in 1994, and eastern Congo in 1996. So when the US talks tough to the Great Lakes region, everyone can ignore it, knowing that nothing will come of the threats and warnings.
Part of South Africa’s job is to persuade Western powers to do better than this in Africa but, in the meantime, somebody has got to be in there, trying to move developments in the right direction. So far South Africa, guided by Mbeki and Dlamini- Zuma, has been doing just that.
At the beginning of the year, Congolese peace negotiations headed by Zambian President Frederick Chiluba were going nowhere, but through a combination of listening and learning, and the judicious application of pressure, particularly on Rwanda and Uganda, South Africa played the key role in securing everyone’s signature to the Lusaka peace agreement by August. True, this agreement is now endangered by the resumption of hostilities in Congo’s Equateur province, but if anyone can save the Lusaka agreement, it is South Africa.
Then there is Burundi. Its multi-party talks process was already in trouble before the man mediating it – former Tanzanian president Julius Nyerere – died in October, leaving the process directionless and tempting the protagonists to resort to full-scale war instead. Now the Burundian government has requested that the new mediator be South African, and if possible, former president Nelson Mandela.
None of this diplomatic activity is visible inside South Africa, and is perhaps of little comfort to frustrated foreign affairs officials, but it remains of vital importance to South Africa and Africa as a whole. While Mbeki shapes South African policy in the Great Lakes region, much of the credit must also go to Dlamini-Zuma who, on the evidence so far, is perhaps the best foreign minister South Africa has ever had.
Gregory Mthembu-Salter works from Cape Town for the London-based human rights organisation African Rights, and is an analyst on the political economy of Central Africa
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