South Africa is proof that the image of Africa so often portrayed as beset with chaos and failure is a travesty of the truth, French Foreign Minister Dominique De Villepin said on Thursday.
Addressing the National Assembly’s foreign affairs committee, he said the country was the embodiment of democracy in Africa, peaceful transition and coexistence between communities.
He also paid tribute to what he called South Africa’s pioneering role and President Thabo Mbeki’s resolute leadership on the African continent, which today was the first to devise answers to the substantial challenges facing it.
These included globalisation, democracy and development, he said.
While Africa needed to acquire the various kinds of know-how essential to participation in the global community, it also had to be careful ”not to lose its soul” in the process.
Although Africa had undergone remarkable democratic change in the space of a few years, vigilance was called for everywhere.
Turning to France’s role on the continent, De Villepin said unlike some of its northern partners, ”France shuns the temptation to turn its back on the world”, which would lead the Western world into a dead end.
”From the Ivory Coast to Ituri, France stands ready to answer the call, convinced that Africa embodies the promise of a future both more humane and more fraternal, even as societies are fragmenting and conflicts are breaking out all around us,” he said.
There were three clear principles guiding France’s involvement today — legitimacy of power; respect for national sovereignty and territorial integrity; and support for African mediation efforts.
The road to democracy remained strewn with obstacles, and merely replacing political leaders did not guarantee a solution.
Legitimacy depended also on the way in which power was exercised, as the ballot box might confer a mandate, but it did not confer immunity.
”While there is no single model for democracy, freedom and human dignity are indispensable and imperative elements of it,” he said.
The intangibility of frontiers also remained an absolute imperative, as redrawing national boundaries would risk triggering further disintegration.
Regarding African mediation efforts, De Villepin said the solutions to African problems ”can and must be African”.
France had no intention of intervening directly, or in isolation, to impose a solution from outside.
”Because of our deep attachment to your continent, we stand permanently ready to sound the alert, build awareness and act as a catalyst for the involvement of others concerned,” he said.
De Villepin is on a two-day official visit to South Africa, and will spend Friday in Gauteng before leaving for Accra, Ghana, on the next leg of his trip. – Sapa