Anyway, what would have happened if, say, the Kingdom of Swaziland had decided to invade South Africa by the sea route, carrying its war canoes stealthily on foot through Mozambique before launching them into the Indian Ocean and breaching the shores of KwaZulu-Natal, while half the South African navy was 6 000 nautical miles away across the Atlantic?
South Africa’s crusty admirals have made a name for themselves complaining about the lack of readiness of the South African navy due to cuts in the post-apartheid defence budget. Now one of its few battleships is pressed into service to go and attend a shindig in Haiti on the orders of President Thabo Mbeki, complete with 250 fierce armed soldiers and sailors, 18 home-grown spooks, four ambulances, a helicopter gunship, and a presidential limousine.
The soldiers and sailors must have been wondering what the hell was going on. Where or what is Haiti, anyway? Is it the same as Tahiti ? What, they asked themselves, have we done to deserve a holiday in Tahiti? Theirs, of course, is not to wonder why; theirs it is to do or die, and stuff like that. Besides, it turned out not to be Tahiti.
So off they went across the high seas, leaving our flank exposed.
The people of Haiti were also baffled at what a large battleship flying the South African ”jolly y-fronts” flag was doing riding at anchor just off the shores of their beleaguered capital city. The last time such a sight had been seen was when the Americans came to restore their current President, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, to the presidency after he had been fired by a military uprising.
The time before that was in 1811, or thereabouts, when the French had sent a frigate in to see if they could retake the sugar island they had lost in the Haitian revolution of 1804.
So of course the Haitians had to ask themselves questions again this time.
”What is the ‘real reason’?” leaders of some of the opposition groups asked in a press release to the world’s deaf and dumb press, ”why South African soldiers, armed to the teeth, are so present on Haitian soil, in Gonaives and Port-au-Prince, in particular?
”It cannot be to celebrate Haiti’s bicentennial festivities, by using (or threatening to use) their guns, tear gas, batons and armed helicopters, against the very people they are there to celebrate with! Do they intend to use those weapons on the innocent Haiti citizens with the blessings of the present Haitian dictatorial government? What international decree allows this sort of infraction against innocent citizens by a foreign national — or is this an invasion?”
Good question. If it wasn’t an invasion, what was it? The only other presidents in the world who feel that their state visits to foreign countries need to be accompanied by a sizeable military contingent are George W Bush and Moammar Gadaffi. Everyone else just arrives in the presidential jet, walks down the red carpet, shows suitable expressions of appreciation for the local hospitality, and then goes away again.
So why the battleship?
The answer was never forthcoming. But on the day of the big shindig, its helicopter gunship came under rebel fire as it flew provocatively over the stadium where the two presidents were supposed to be commemorating the great Haitian revolution on behalf of all Africans (even though all Africans had been told nothing about it).
It could have been South Africa’s own, ignominious Black Hawk Down, only the bullets bounced off the fuselage or something, and the machine was able to scamper back to safety — but not before ducking in to pick up a bunch of South African functionaries (no doubt a good few of our home-grown spooks among them), who had been forced to throw themselves to the ground as the same naughty ex-African gunmen raked the stage — where the two presidents were shortly due to take the salute on behalf of all Africans at home and in the diaspora — with machine-gun bullets from the surrounding buildings.
Fiasco. Bun fight called off. Rebels very happy. Jolly-y-front battleship sails away, leaving Haitian natives to sort out their own problems once again.
The whole mess was a gift on a silver platter, of course, for South Africa’s unreconstructed white constituency — with Tony Leon’s Democratic Alliance leading the charge, ably supported by a senior correspondent of the Independent Newspapers group. They, in turn, were merely following the lead given by Britain’s Economist magazine (Mac Maharaj’s favourite read), who headlined its piece on the historic event, ”The sad bicentennial of a once fabulous sugar colony”.
There was more than a hint of a suggestion from these quarters that once the colonial masters leave or are thrown out, chaos reigns. The logical extension of this is that slavery and colonialism were good, and black independence has always been bad.
No doubt our president was responding to this deep-rooted, subliminal racism by making the journey to support the Haitian people, and hopefully make a statement about the importance of the Haitian revolution on the broader canvas of Africa’s anti-colonial and anti-apartheid wars that were to follow more than a century later.
Unfortunately it turned out to be a lonely journey. His fellow African heads of state (in fact, most of the rest of the world, black and white) erred on the side of caution, given the seething, revolutionary unrest that is stalking this Caribbean island. The middle of a popular uprising is no place to be caught taking sides, unless you are absolutely sure what the outcome is going to be.
Showing up in rather swaggering style with your own battleship in the midst of this uncertain stew is bound to get a few backs up.
If only the president had taken us into his confidence, we might all have been inclined to celebrate the historic significance of the Haitian revolution of 1804 with fireworks, speeches and partying right here on African soil. Heck, the sailors on that battleship might even have been inspired to burst into a spontaneous Bafana Bafana Haitian Hornpipe. As it is, every man jack of us was left with egg on our face.