South Africa’s apparent support for a Sri Lankan candidate to run against Commonwealth secretary-general Don McKinnon’s reappointment is seen as the country giving him his come-uppance for maintaining a hard-line stance on Zimbabwe.
President Thabo Mbeki favours a strategic position that draws President Robert Mugabe back into the international family, then allows him to exit graciously as an elder statesman.
South Africa was initially a Commonwealth darling, after its readmission at the end of apartheid, now its relations with the organisation’s secretariat are frosty.
Last month Mbeki lobbied to get Mugabe invited to the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (Chogm) that started in Abuja, Nigeria, on December 4. He failed, in part because McKinnon rallied opposition to the move.
And, earlier this year, McKinnon successfully rebuffed efforts by South Africa to lift Zimbabwe’s suspension from the organisation. Mbeki wanted it lifted then, citing political progress in Zimbabwe, but McKinnon trumped him by securing enough support for the ”broad view” that the suspension should stay in place until Chogm, the Commonwealth’s highest decision-making body.
At the time South Africa’s High Commissioner to Britain, Lindiwe Mabuza, led a campaign against McKinnon accusing him of not securing consensus for the extended suspension of the Mugabe government.
”Frankly, we sometimes do find difficulty with South Africa’s position,” said a Commonwealth official. ”Now it’s backing the Sri Lankan candidate [Lakshman Kadirgaman]. Why? Is it pique at the Zimbabwe issue? If so, why? What results has its position [of quiet diplomacy] yielded?”
He added that South Africa’s position was often confusing because it sent out mixed messages on Zimbabwe: foreign affairs officials took a far feistier position against Zimbabwe’s transgressions than the Presidency and Minister of Foreign Affairs Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma.
Spokesperson for the South African Ministry of Foreign Affairs Ronnie Mamoepa on Thursday would not confirm South Africa’s support of the Sri Lankan candidate, saying instead that Dlamini-Zuma was still in consultation with Mbeki and the Cabinet about which candidate South Africa would support.
The fielding of a Sri Lankan candidate is a curve ball for McKinnon, who did not expect to face a leadership race. In line with Commonwealth rules, he can (and intended to) stay two terms. Now he will have to spend the time at Chogm lobbying for his job when he should be trying to keep Zimbabwe isolated.
The emerging view as Chogm got under way this week was that there had been no progress in Zimbabwe to justify the lifting of its suspension. McKinnon said efforts by his organisation to secure reforms in Zimbabwe had yielded only a total lack of success. ”We have not met for 18 months and Commonwealth officers have been denied visas.”
He added: ”I have talked to every Commonwealth leader and there is more than one view on how to proceed on Zimbabwe. But the discussion is by no means an Africa versus the rest of the world one.”
Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo’s decision not to invite Mugabe suggests Pretoria may have lost a key ally in its efforts to rehabilitate the ageing Zimbabwean leader and help him leave the political stage gracefully. Unlike Mbeki, Obasanjo has no historical liberation movement solidarity with Mugabe.
If South Africa ends up fighting in Mugabe’s corner only with political dinosaurs like Namibia’s Sam Nujoma, it risks squandering its moral authority.
And while Mbeki’s camp has put out the word in international circles that Mugabe would retire by next June after handing over power at the Zanu-PF congress, taking place this weekend, it seems that this simply is not going to happen.
What is the Commonwealth likely to do? Firstly, it will listen, says Chogm spokesperson Joel Kibazo. ”A very wide field and knowledge base is represented here. Some countries, like Nigeria and South Africa, are engaged and will have an input to make.”
Zimbabwe is likely to be the key topic when the heads of government go into their retreat at the weekend. Worsening repression in that country is grist to the mill of those who want the Commonwealth to extend the suspension.
While Mugabe is not in town, the country’s activists are, and they spent the week lobbying for tough action. ”Due to Zimbabwe’s intransigence and seeming contempt for the ideals held by the Commonwealth, its suspension should be extended,” said the Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition, an umbrella body for unions, NGOs and other organisations rallied against Mugabe’s leadership.
If serious reforms did not start, said the organisation, then ”the issue of expulsion should be considered”. Another option, said a Commonwealth insider, was that an eminent persons group be appointed to try to negotiate an end to the country’s political crisis.
Whatever the final decision, the Commonwealth’s reputation is on the line. Like other older inter-governmental forums, including the Non-Aligned Movement, the organisation is fighting to remain relevant in a changing world.
Newer conurbations like the G20 group of developing countries, which toppled the Cancun trade rounds; the G3, which comprises Brazil, India and South Africa as well as the African Union and its European counterpart are in the ascendancy as power blocs.
The Commonwealth’s ”unique” status as a forum that yokes together wealthy and developing countries; giants like Nigeria and island states like Malta; northern hemisphere heavyweights like Britain and the world’s largest democracy, India, in an atmosphere of equality and consensus-seeking is nice, but increasingly out of place in contemporary geopolitics where the trend is toward blocs of interest built on similar development and economic status.
Britain and Australia’s role in the United States-led war in Iraq also split the Commonwealth this week. If Zimbabwe was chided for violating principles, then why not Britain and Australia, which were in violation of the Commonwealth’s stated support for multilateralism, activists asked.
Kumi Naidoo, the chairperson of Civicus, a grouping that represents civil society in 110 countries, says the jury is out on the Commonwealth.
”Its litmus test is whether it can bring real and tangible change in three areas,” he said. These were democratic consolidation (in Zimbabwe, Pakistan and elsewhere); the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals — the global set of goals to eradicate hunger; halve poverty and to boost education levels by 2015 — and the inclusion of groups like women and youth. – IPS
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