Defence and Security Co-operation Under the Auspices of SADC - SADC and Sub-regional Security: Unde Venis et Quo Vadis? - Monograph No 19, 1998

Defence and Security Co-operation Under the Auspices of SADC

Published in Monograph No 19, SADC and Subregional Security, February 1998

Interstate security co-operation in the Southern African region dates back to the early 1970s, when the independent states of Tanzania and Zambia formed a grouping known as the Front-Line States (FLS) in order to lobby for the liberation of Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe. As other countries in the region gained independence from colonial rule, they joined the FLS in its resistance to exclusive white rule in these three countries. Upon independence in 1980, Zimbabwe joined the FLS to play a key role in the liberation of Namibia and South Africa. The FLS dealt with security issues on an informal basis, where the longest serving member acted as chairperson at joint meetings.

However, it was the resolutions and recommendations of the SADC Workshop on Democracy, Peace and Security, which was held in Windhoek from 11 to 16 July 1994, that set SADC on a course towards formal involvement in security co-ordination, conflict mediation, and even military co-operation. The Windhoek initiative was strengthened by the decision of the FLS, on 30 July 1994, to dissolve and "become the political and security wing of SADC."12

Importantly, one of the Windhoek working groups on conflict resolution, recommended that "... Conflict Resolution and Political Co-operation become a `Sector', the responsibility for which would be allocated to a SADC member state", and that a Protocol on Peace, Security and Conflict Resolution be drawn up. The Windhoek proposals were subsequently referred to the next meeting of the Council of Ministers in Botswana during which many of the intrusive and potentially prescriptive recommendations which could infringe upon the sovereignty of member countries were abandoned. At this meeting it was decided rather to establish a wing for conflict mediation and prevention, as opposed to a sector.

At the next meeting of SADC Foreign Ministers, convened in Harare on 3 March 1995, the creation of an Association of Southern African States (ASAS), under Chapter 7, Article 21(3) (g) of the SADC Treaty, was recommended.13 The idea was for ASAS to replace the defunct FLS co-operative framework with a mechanism to deal with conflict prevention, management and resolution in Southern Africa. It was envisaged that ASAS would function independently of the SADC Secretariat, and that it would report directly to the SADC Heads of State and Government. It was also envisaged that ASAS would incorporate two specialised SADC sectors, one dealing with political affairs and the other with military security.

These recommendations were considered by the August 1995 SADC Summit which was held in Johannesburg. However, the foreign ministers' proposals had not been based on consultations with the various ministers of defence and police, nor the intelligence community.14 Moreover, some of the delegates were uncomfortable with the name of ASAS and the idea that such sensitive sectors would be accorded to individual member states (as had been the practice with the sixteen sectors dealing with economic co-operation and integration). The decision to formalise the political and security dimension of SADC was therefore postponed until the 1996 Summit, with the final Johannesburg communiqué simply stating that, "... [t]he Summit considered and granted the request of the Foreign Ministers of SADC, that the allocation of the sector to any Member State be deferred and that they be given more time for consultations among themselves and with the Ministers responsible for Defence and Security and SADC Matters, on the structures, terms of reference, and operational procedures, for the sector."15

This challenge was taken up on 18 January 1996, at a meeting in Gaberone of the SADC Ministers of Foreign Affairs, Defence and Security. The ministers agreed at this meeting to recommend to their Heads of State the creation of a SADC Organ for Politics, Defence and Security, which "would allow more flexibility and timely response, at the highest level, to sensitive and potentially explosive situations." This agreement, it was assumed, would allow for a permanent SADC mechanism while maintaining the flexible approach of the old FLS grouping.16

The concept of this political and security `leg' of SADC was accepted by the SADC Heads of State at the 28 June 1996 Summit in Gaborone. Indeed, the Summit went further and defined sixteen substantive political, defence and security objectives to be pursued through the Organ.17 It was, perhaps, the articulation of these objectives that precipitated the current `crisis' in SADC political and security co-operation, for it signalled the need for a break with the informality of the FLS. Clearly, none of these objectives can be addressed either by existing SADC structures, or the rationalised structure outlined in the previous section. But the only authoritative guidelines which have thus far emerged for an institutional framework for the pursuit of these objectives, derive from the same communiqué, namely:

the SADC Organ on Politics, Defence and Security will operate at the Summit level, and function independently of other SADC structures;

the Organ will also operate at ministerial and technical levels;

the Chairpersonship of the Organ shall rotate on an annual and on a troika basis;

the Inter-State Defence and Security Committee (ISDSC) will be one of the institutions of the Organ; and

the Organ may establish other structures as the need arises.

As outlined in the introductory section, the need has clearly arisen for other structures, and for placing the present activities of the ISDSC within a rational framework for the pursuit and co-ordination of the political and security objectives stipulated in the SADC Treaty and refined at the Gaborone Summit. However, several proposals on structuring the Organ in line with a `two-legged', or `triangular' SADC (meeting at the level of the Summit, but totally organisationally divergent at lower levels) have been met with considerable resistance notably by the incumbent chair of the Organ.

One of the reasons that SADC seems no closer to resolving the pressing issue of truly `operationalising the Organ', is the inverted role of politicians and officials. In most intergovernment organisations, heads of states and government, ministers, and ambassadors emerge dishevelled from the Summit after fighting their points of view and achieving substantial consensus on meaningful policy direction. It is then up to senior officials to co-operate in giving effect to such broad policy guidelines based on consensus. In the case of SADC, however, the politicians appear very ready to agree on what emerges as hollow policy i.e., lofty goals with very little in the way of substantial policy guidelines, and then leave the real policy debate to the officials, who, however technically competent, have to refer all the details back to their principals, since they are often left in the dark.

At present, these officials seem deadlocked between two divergent views on structuring the Organ. The South African point of view sees the legal basis of the Organ deriving from Article 10 of the SADC Treaty, which states, among others, that:

the Summit shall consist of the Heads of State and Government of all member states, and shall be the supreme policy-making Institution of SADC;

the Summit shall be responsible for the overall policy direction and control of the functions of SADC;

the Summit shall elect a chairperson and a vice-chairperson of SADC from among its members for an agreed period, on the basis of rotation; and

the Summit shall decide on the creation of commissions, other institutions, committees and organs as the need arises.

The Treaty makes no provision for a SADC Summit which is separately constituted, under separate chairpersonship, and with a separate mandate to that of SADC proper. It would therefore appear as if such an arrangement is untenable under the present SADC Treaty.

On the other hand, Zimbabwe believes that it is entirely possible for the Organ to continue to function under a separately constituted summit within SADC, under a separate chair, as the idea is to run the Organ on the same `flexible and informal' basis as that of the FLS prior to the end of apartheid rule in South Africa. However, this implies that the Organ would not be based on a firm legal principle. Moreover, sensitivities resulting from informal leadership and institutional roles may undermine the credibility of SADC, and frustrate further attempts to rationalise SADC proper.

The tensions between these opposing viewpoints came to a head at the 1997 SADC Summit, which was held in Blantyre, Malawi, on 8 August. The Summit was shrouded in controversy created by media reports which intimated that presidents Mandela and Mugabe were at loggerheads about the future development of the Organ, and that Mandela had threatened to take South Africa out of SADC if he did not get his way on the issue.18 While such reports were obviously exaggerations of fact, they did sound a clear warning that the Organ has the potential to become a source of conflict, rather than an instrument for its prevention, management and resolution.

Nevertheless, the Summit "reaffirmed the importance of the Organ as a vehicle for strengthening democracy in the region and co-operation in defence and security matters," without any further reference to how the wheels will be put on this vehicle.19 The matter of mobilising the Organ was postponed until a further meeting of Heads of Government, to be held in Luanda during September 1997 a meeting which, for fairly obvious reasons, never took place. President Dos Santos apparently did not want a `bun fight' in his capital to upset the delicate Angolan peace process.