Time for an Amicable Divorce?

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

Thus, at the end of 1997, it appears as though the 1994 `Windhoek vision' has been blurred, if not eclipsed by the `blow-up in Blantyre', and that the Organ will continue to exist merely on paper as an ill-defined and rather unwanted appendage to the Southern African Development Community. The regional co-ordinating structures which are embraced by the SADC umbrella are now in a state of fundamental review which is likely to involve a lengthy process of debate, consultation and negotiation. In the interim, opportunities for meaningful co-ordination and co-operation on defence and security matters will likely remain almost entirely within the realm of the ISDSC, which has neither the mandate nor the structure to deal appropriately with conflict prevention, management and resolution.

While SADC was born in 1980 as the successor to the Southern African Development Co-ordination Conference, the Organ on Politics, Defence and Security has been regarded as the successor to the Front-Line States (FLS). Without denigrating the important role of the FLS organisation in liberating the region from the yoke of colonialism and apartheid rule, it is now clearly time for regional leaders to look to future challenges, rather than to hanker after relationships which are more suited to a bygone era.

The demise of apartheid rule in South Africa coincided with the end of the Cold War, and created new opportunities for the prevention, management and resolution of conflict by intergovernment bodies. Indeed, the imminent dismantling of apartheid enabled the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) to adopt the 1993 Cairo Declaration and to embark on a brave new role in this arena. Similarly, the termination of the Cold War has allowed the United Nations to take hitherto unprecedented measures in its attempts to maintain and restore international peace and security. The Southern African region is seen as a key partner of both these organisations in such endeavours. It is also relevant to note that both the UN and the OAU have realised the need for significant organisational restructuring in order to deal with the new challenges to peace and security.

The point has perhaps been reached where a fundamental decision needs to be taken: to organisationally divorce the embryonic Organ on Politics, Defence and Security from SADC, and to negotiate a separate treaty which creates a more appropriate framework for addressing the type of political and security objectives which have already been articulated by the leaders of the region.

This does not mean that the SADC Treaty must be amended to eliminate the political principles and objectives, but it may be refined to state that such objectives may best be pursued by SADC member states acceding to a treaty which establishes an appropriate framework for political and security co-operation. Indeed, the report on the Review and Rationalisation of the SADC Programme of Action already recognises and admits the need for amending the SADC Treaty in order to implement the proposed new institutional structure of SADC proper.

If the concept of a `divorce' is accepted, the SADC consultants' report can be embraced and debated with the enthusiasm it deserves. There are, after all, sound reasons for separating development integration from many of the thorny `political' issues on the current SADC agenda. Not least among these may be the contention that "the aims of economic [in]dependence and self-reliance of SADC had been undermined by the insistence of the so-called donor community and its partners in South Africa that the strategy of SADC be based on sectoral projects co-ordinated by donor agencies," and that the leaders of the former FLS recognised "that the involvement of donors influenced the secretariat of SADC and an Organ on Politics, Defence and Security could not afford the same level of influence."20

However, the proposed divorce from SADC of defence and conflict management issues should be an amicable one, and be built on the hard-won gains around which consensus has already been achieved. These gains culminated in the objectives articulated by the Heads of State at the June 1996 SADC Summit in Gaberone. As it was only after this Summit that the consensus around the Organ broke down, these objectives remain a useful starting point for picking up the pieces and moving towards the creation of a functional Southern African structure and mechanism for conflict management. There is also no reason why meaningful gains should be lost or reversed it is simply a matter of taking a new tack when the sails of the evolving security architecture start flapping.

The lessons from other regions with a longer history of intergovernmental security co-operation indicate that it is necessary to realign security arrangements with significant changes in the overall security environment, and that this can be done without undermining unity of purpose.