Australians are unusually focused on South Africa at the moment, and it’s not just because of the ICC Cricket World Cup 2003.
South Africa is being used by both sides in the heated debate over Australian participation in any war in Iraq. Many Australians, including political leaders, are impressed by President Thabo Mbeki’s calm counsel to world leaders about the need to avoid a war with Iraq if at all possible. And Australian Prime Minister John Howard is citing South Africa as the model that Iraq should follow in renouncing dangerous weapons.
Australians aren’t usually passionate about their politics. The political language here is measured and the majority of issues dull by comparison with the enormity of the challenges faced by South Africans at the start of the 21st century. But the Iraq crisis is dividing Australia in a way not seen since the Vietnam War when hundreds of thousands took to the streets of our major cities to protest against Australian involvement in that conflict.
What has got Australians so worked up on both sides of the debate on Iraq has been Howard’s gung-ho approach. Howard was, along with the United Kingdom’s Prime Minister Tony Blair, the only international leader to commit his country to joining President George W Bush’s “Coalition of the Willing” in being prepared to strike against Iraq.
While Howard and his government have maintained the fiction that no decision has yet been made about whether Australia would participate in any war once the fighting commenced, the evidence suggests otherwise. In Parliament, the opposition Labour Party leader, Simon Crean, produced a letter from the mother of a sailor on an Australian warship, the Kanimbla, now on its way to the Persian Gulf. According to the unidentified mother, this ship had been carrying out beach landing exercises in September last year with troops currently en route to the Gulf.
And in another leaked memo, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer is quoted as telling New Zealand High Commissioner to Australia Kate Lackey that Australia was not in a position to withdraw its troops from the Gulf “if the United Nations process” broke down.
Among the Australian public there is deep and passionate division about the “all the way with USA” strategy of Howard’s government. The latest opinion polls, carried out by the respected Newspoll organisation, show that while 57%
of Australians support an intervention in Iraq if its sanctioned by the UN, only 18% support action without the UN sanction.
The peace movement represents a very broad cross-section of the community — in Howard’s own party there is a dissenting faction calling themselves Liberals against the War.
And the peace movement is looking across the Indian Ocean at Mbeki’s public actions and stance on the Iraq crisis and wishing that the Australian government would follow the same course. On February 16 there are anti-war rallies planned in every major city in Australia, but Howard will not be following Mbeki’s lead and delivering a memorandum to the US ambassador about why war with Iraq is a dumb idea.
While Mbeki has sent his Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Aziz Pahad, to urge Saddam Hussein to cooperate with the UN weapons inspectors, Downer, appears intent on banging the drums of war — in recent days he and Howard have swung firmly behind the proposition that Australia join a US led attack on Iraq, even without UN approval.
One political leader in Australia who is campaigning actively against Australian participation in any Iraqi conflict and who is impressed with South Africa’s actions, is the Democrats’ Senator Andrew Bartlett, whose party holds the voting balance of power in the Australian Parliament upper house — the Senate.
Bartlett, in an interview with the Mail & Guardian, was fulsome in his praise for Mbeki’s stance on Iraq. “President Mbeki is playing a positive leadership role in trying to prevent war in Iraq. Unlike John Howard, who seems to be wedded completely to the White House stance, South Africans have a political leader who is listening to the community.”
Bartlett said Australia and South Africa have much in common when it comes to geo-politics. “South Africa, like Australia, is a middle-ranking power. But unlike Australia, on this occasion South Africa is acting in the constructive way a middle-ranking power can — being an honest non-aligned broker seeking peace.”
South Africa is also being used in Howard’s arsenal of arguments in the Iraq debate. In a radio interview shortly before he presented to the Parliament why Australia must participate in any Iraq war, the prime minister turned to South Africa as the model that Iraq should follow if it wants to avoid war.
Howard said there is only a slim chance of avoiding war in Iraq. But if that slim chance is to be realised then Iraq must do “what South Africa did when that country decided to renounce dangerous weapons, invite the inspectors in”.
Howard was referring to South Africa’s voluntary dismantling of its nuclear weapons between 1990 and 1993.
The following day in his address to Parliament he again referred to South Africa’s willingness to undertake a disarmament process. But Howard’s admiration for South Africa has not extended to joining Mbeki — with whom he
will soon again meet to discuss the Commonwealth’s response to the Zimbabwe crisis — in leading the charge against more carnage in the Middle East.