Regional Instability:

The Challenge for the Future

A View from Mozambique*

Prof Dr Sergio Vieira (Col Rtd)
Director of the Centre of African Studies (CEA), Eduardo Mondlane University, Maputo

* Paper presented at a conference on Changing Dynamics: Military -Strategic Issues for a Future South Africa, hosted by the Institute for Defence Politics in conjunction with the Hanns Seidel Foundation, CSIR conference centre, Pretoria, 6 August 1992.

Published in South African Defence Review Issue No 6, 1992

INTRODUCTION

The theme of this article is certainly one that holds great interest for academic studies. But for the men and women of this part of the world, where death and destruction have become banal events, it is vital, since only in stability will they find the space for a peace that will generate prosperity for them, and that will ensure their existence and dignity.

The simple fact that we are debating these questions indicates the evolution that has taken place, the gestation, the emergence of shared tolerance and common interest. This augurs well for the gigantic task of rebuilding shattered lives and economies.

Faced with conflicts, we can approach means of resolving them in terms of the more or less proven mechanisms that seek to diminish or eliminate confrontation and violence. But this "technocratic" approach suffers from the limitation that it marginalises the causes and roots of contradictions. It runs the risk that what it had hoped would be temporary becomes a perennial problem. Perhaps the case of Cyprus would be a good example of this. On the other hand, it is clear that by "depoliticising" issues, and taking the passion out of them, this approach facilitates the creation and functioning of systems that lead to a significant decline in death and destruction - and this is always a fundamental goal.

This article will attempt a strategic and holistic vision, which starts from a socio-political analysis of conflicts and of the resulting instability, and allows us to understand the challenges and possibilities placed before our societies.

The first part seeks to define the current protagonists in the conflict, to understand the reasons for confrontation, and to sense the influences that the polarised world which existed until recently had upon the conflict. This part is also concerned with envisaging the possible emergence of new contradictions, both those that may result from solutions to the previous frictions, and those already existing in a latent state, but which could only rise to the surface in a new context. The second part looks for possible and desirable spaces for stabilisation, starting from common interests at the internal and regional levels, and building from these the solidarity and mutual benefits that are the final guarantees of peace and consensus.

However great the desire to be impartial in the treatment of these questions, it must be understood that, since the author himself is also part of the object under discussion, sometimes subjective factors may condition what he is trying to outline objectively.

THE CLASH OF ANTAGONISMS: OPPRESSION, LIBERATION

Notwithstanding myths to the contrary, there was no meeting of cultures between Africa and Europe at the time of the so-called discoveries, and the period that followed. Regardless of the speeches, European expansion in the 15th century was aimed at subjugating peoples, and exploiting their resources to the profit of the monarchies and the businessmen of Spain and Portugal. This is not a matter of rewriting history, or of exchanging acts of contrition about events that happened centuries ago. The effort is aimed at present action and shaping the future. To be effective, it is important to look at reality.

Since the 15th century, and up until recently, the historical relationship between Europe and Africa, and the relationship between communities of European and African origin, were based on discrimination and subjugation. The discrimination against, and the subjugation of other people is, in itself, ethically and in practice, an act of violence. It is no less so merely because it is not always exercised through physical coercion, or when at certain moments, because of the climate of fear and apprehension created, it is affirmed only through rules, written or unwritten.

Southern Africa is a concept that means different things to different people. For the analysis that interests us here, it is an initially empirical concept, derived from the alliance established between ruling powers and elites, and the counter-alliance this give rise to.

Formally or informally, links and complicities were forged between Lisbon, Pretoria and Salisbury, in order to freeze the process of liberation. This was how most states and peoples on the continent understood it. The positions taken by the white governments led them to act thus, even in processes unfolding outside of the region, such as the case of the attempted break-up of Nigeria in the 1960s, or even before this, in their support for the balkanization of Congo (l), now Zaire.

Against this network, the liberation movements in their first phase set up PAFMECSA (Pan African Freedom Movement for East, Central and Southern Africa). This was the embryo of the cooperation that would be established in the future between states and liberation movements in the processes of struggle in the Portuguese colonies, Namibia, Rhodesia and South Africa.

As from the end of the 1960s, with a dynamic of their own that was to be internationally recognised in the 1970s, the Front Line States arose. They maintained themselves as a political unit, and gave birth to SADCC in 1980, giving this body a vocation for economic collaboration.

The term Southern Africa is thus perceived in the region as referring to a series of states, with a variety of interconnections, and inter-determinant factors, that result from their historical and cultural heritage, and which lead to a certain community of political, social, economic and even military and strategic goals. To some extent, during this relationship similar positions were forged on conflicts, which allowed for regional solutions.

Included in this definition of Southern Africa are Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe and South Africa itself.

With the exception of Tanganyika (now Tanzania), whose liberation process was relatively peaceful and ended at the start of the 1960s, all the other states acceded to independence rather later than the rest of Africa, and in the cases of the Portuguese colonies of Angola and Mozambique, of Zimbabwe, of Namibia, and of South Africa itself, it is certainly true that the process of liberation was forced to resort to armed struggle, to violence, in varying degrees.

the internal roots of the conflict and the bipolar atmosphere

The dissolution of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, the first element of the colonial complex at the southern cone of the continent, met with opposition from the white population, which culminated in 1965 with the Rhodesian rebellion. This was only terminated in 1980, after a very violent process.

The obstinacy of the Salazar and Caetano regimes in trying to preserve the Portuguese empire led to liberation struggles in the colonies, which resulted finally in the collapse of the system in Portugal, and in the emergence of new states in Angola and Mozambique. These states were born with congenital defects due to the ruptures and the exodus caused by armed confrontation.

The emancipation of Namibia was no less complex, and here too violence was the midwife of independence, just as today, and most unfortunately, violence continues to play this role in the birth of a post-apartheid South Africa.

Without doubt the regimes of Salisbury, up to 1980, and of Pretoria bore grave responsibilities for regional violence. It must be recognised, factually, that all the states of the region were the targets of aggression and violence, open to covert, ordered by the Rhodesian and South African governments. The fall of the Smith regime strengthened the myth of a state of siege and an Afro-communist onslaught against the white bastion of the sub-continent. It thus led to a brutal escalation in armed activity, declared or secret, against South Africa's neighbours. It also led factions of various services to carry out acts that are regarded as state terrorism in the light of international law and ethics.

The Front Line States and the international community as a whole had a legitimate basis for identifying Pretoria as principally responsible for the violence prevailing in the sub-continent during the 1980s.

This accusation became even more pertinent with South Africa's violations of the Nkomati Accord. These were so systematic, complete and overarching as to demonstrate an undeclared intention of not complying with what had been agreed. The events which followed the Lusaka Understanding with the Angolan government, the simultaneous attacks against several neighbouring states during the visit of the Commonwealth Eminent Persons Group to South Africa, also strengthened the double conviction that South Africa was opting for the path of war, and that it had no hesitation in disregarding promises it had made.

Fortunately the subsequent evolution of the Namibian independence process helped rebuild some of the confidence, which Pretoria had been so lacking, though once again we now feel an erosion of this gain.

Political, economic and social systems, as well as international alignments, in the regional micro-cosmos, reflected the diversity of the planet itself. In the 1980s we find feudal-style monarchies, and regimes of people's democracy, we find one party states and multi-party systems (although these do have hegemonic parties), we find liberal economies and centrally planned economies.

With the exception of Lesotho, where foreign manipulation played a greater role, all changes of system and of government in the region have taken place in the formal framework of respect for the constitution and the law.

Paradoxical though it may be, the fact is that, taken as a whole, the regimes of the region have shown extraordinary stability during the decades following independence.

The reading of the international positions taken by the states cannot be dissociated from the process of their national liberation and from the violence that they suffered. Greater or lesser alignment with the Eastern bloc paralleled the posture struck by the holders of power, regarded as foreign and dominating.

Generally speaking, the former British colonies in the region did not open alliances with the east, in the initial period. It was the Rhodesian rebellion and the threat this posed to Zambia's stability which forced this country to take up a position distancing itself from the West and from Great Britain. It was Pretoria's threats, and even acts of aggression against Lesotho and Botswana, that led these countries to establish diplomatic and even military relations with the East. This was also the case with the liberation movements in Mozambique, Angola, Zimbabwe and Namibia. Rather than an initial ideological affinity, it was the imperatives of the armed liberation struggle that pushed them closer to the only forces willing to provide material and military assistance for the winning of independence or, in the South African case, for the overthrow of apartheid.

The Afrikaner community itself, one of the regional pioneers in armed opposition to rule by European metropoles, once it was in power, allied itself to the West, and presented itself as guardian of Western interests in Africa in an attempt to preserve its own hegemony, nationally and regionally.

The cold war context provided the starting point which determined Western positions; since Portugal was a member of NATO, it was forgiven all the sins committed by an oppressive internal regime, and by an obsolete and repressive colonial policy, in exchange for the strategic facilities it offered. Similarly, in the name of the interests involved in the Cape route, and the access to strategic minerals, for a long period the Rhodesian rebellion, as well as the occupation of Namibia and the racist system of apartheid, suffered little more than verbal and ritual condemnations.

For the liberation movements, it was obvious that Western discourse on freedom and democracy was hypocritical and solely designed to disguise imperialist interests.

If, when observing the reality of the East, the existence of forms of repression was noted, the argument of the imperative of solidarity against a western conspiracy, and the need to distinguish the shortcomings of friends from the crimes of the enemy, led to collaborative silence, and sometimes even to justification and public support for acts that should have been condemned, such as the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia.

But the fact remains that during the 1980s all Pretoria's neighbours, regardless of their international positions, suffered a wide variety of forms of oppression and terrorist action.

The decline in the cohesiveness of the USSR and of Eastern Europe as from the second half of the 1980s, and the gradual subordination of Soviet foreign policy to American priorities framed a less cramped international climate. Above all, these factors depolarised the conflicts in Southern Africa. They came to be understood in their real dimensions, and not as mere appendices to the global rivalries between the superpowers. The resolution of the Angolan and Namibian conflicts benefited from the new climate.

As major problems there remain the situations in Mozambique and in South Africa.

The official position of the South African government towards Renamo is well known: it says it is no longer associated in manipulating Renamo, and certainly the Mozambican government has abstained from implicating Pretoria in the continuing violence. However, there is a wealth of testimony from Mozambican soldiers and civilians indicating that Renamo continues to receive logistical support from South Africa. The predominant feeling is that South Africa is persisting in its old policy, with the difference that the channels for destabilising activity have been, with the support of those in power, privatised to some extent. This impression is strengthened by the signs that South Africa's domestic violence, in one way or another, is commanded or fueled by important figures in the security apparatus.

The reading made of these events is that the elite in power, wishing to preserve its hegemony once the juridical framework of apartheid has been scrapped, is persisting in violence, albeit covertly, as an instrument to weaken its supposed adversary, so that the elite may be able to impose its final interests. We are dealing here with the so-called double agenda.

The extinction of the international role of the Eastern Bloc, and the international euphoria that followed the freeing of political prisoners, the legalisation of banned parties, the abolition of the main discriminatory legal measures, and the desperate search for peace in the region, all favour a climate of international tolerance towards South Africa. This makes it difficult to denounce and isolate the radical forces among the securocrats, and the extremism of the civilian right.

the contradictions of survival, or the seeds of new conflicts

Despite the interminable rounds of talks in Rome between the Mozambican government and Renamo, or the successive ruptures in trust among the participants at CODESA, it may be assumed that the phase of restoring peace will be reached in a relatively short term in these last two countries where death has been trivialised.

Outbreaks of inter-state conflict are not likely. Generally speaking, the existing frontiers have been peacefully accepted. The relationships among people living in border areas is friendly, and often the same family is on both sides of the frontier. With the exception of Dr Banda, at the start of the 1960s, there have been no pretensions to territorial expansion. It is true that, in the 1980s, contacts were made between the South African government, still gambling on its bantustan policy, and the government of Swaziland, aimed at integrating into the Swazi kingdom people of Swazi origin but South African nationality. Discreet action by Africa, and good sense prevailed over this dangerous transaction.

The new seeds of conflict are internal to each country. The main danger lies in the possibility that contradictions will degenerate, become violent, and flow over the borders.

In Angola pacification is advancing, but the country is still a long way from having formed its national army, or from demobilising and integrating into civil society, the vast numbers of surplus troops from both the government forces and from UNITA. Since it is unlikely that this gigantic task will be carried out by September, there remains a risk that, faced with electoral results not to their liking, those political forces with guns may try to correct their displeasure at the number of votes they received with the same number of bullets. Urban and rural misery and the proliferation of guns outside of any control consolidate the paths of instability. Lack of control over the guns circulating in the country, and extremes of poverty in both rural areas and in towns may also keep open the space for instability and violence in Mozambique. Within this scenario, the countries that border on Angola and Mozambique also run risks.

Repressive modes of rule in some countries in the region, notably Malawi, also point to seeds of violence that are in danger of affecting neighbouring countries. But in any case, it is South Africa where everyone believes that the greatest risks of instability and violence prevail.

Numerous doubts arise about the security apparatus in South Africa and its ability to respect legality. The revelations about the non-compliance with obligations internationally and domestically have been sufficiently important for us not to passively accept that this time the securocrats will act in accordance with the law and with agreements that are reached. It is legitimate to envisage a possible link-up between the military and the civilian right, which could generate a phenomenon larger in scale than that of the OAS in France and Algeria.

Apart from these dangers to the transition, structural issues that threaten future stability should be considered.

The democratization of South African society cannot be reduced to the mere establishment of political parties and the extension of the suffrage to all citizens, regardless of their race. If the imbalances imposed by systematic racial discrimination are to be corrected through positive action, this requires some redistribution of property and benefits.

With all sincerity, nobody can state that the fact that white South Africans, as a group, enjoy a standard of living much higher than that of similar strata in more prosperous countries, results merely from a greater aptitude and love for work.

The access of the non-white strata of the population to the use of fertile land, the alteration of the ethnic composition of the civil service and the security apparatus, the end of the de facto segregation that still exists in the better-off residential areas, in educational institutions and other socio-economic sectors, may rationally appear to us as quite logical. But it is emotionally complex and will not necessarily be peaceful.

Ethnic tensions, knowingly manipulated in the past, are now degenerating with the risk of institutionalising destabilisation. The sorcerers' apprentices who are searching for political space and social bases of support, may be opening a fearful Pandora's box.

Many states in the region have wrongly created expectations that a post-apartheid South Africa will be a kind of Santa Claus, distributing presents. The reality is that South African industry is not very competitive in terms of world markets, and the prices of its agricultural products are even higher than those of other markets. The dependence of the country on the foreign exchange earned through the sale of gold, other minerals and semi-manufactured goods point to vulnerabilities which affect the national economy as a whole. Persistent unemployment in South African society could lead to a decline in migrant labour, affecting the interests of several neighbouring states, and generating regional tensions.

Certainly neither the business community, nor statesmen and public opinion, inside or outside South Africa and the region, are banking on pessimistic scenarios. The common concern will always be to establish conditions more favourable to stability and progress.

COOPERATION AND INTERDEPENDENCE AS THE CREATIVE SPACE FOR STABILITY

At the end of the last century, the vision of Rhodes and of British colonialism conceived of the south of the continent as forming an economic unit. German defeat in World War I, Portuguese subordination to London, the geographic position of Mozambique as providing rail and port services for the hinterland, gradually drew the economies together, but in a perspective of subordination and dependence in relation to Salisbury and particularly to Pretoria. To some extent the northern and central regions of Angola remained marginal to this process, though the commercial relationship of the south of the country with Namibia was of particular importance.

The break with colonial processes, however, did not succeed in putting an end to the existing dependence, despite the political will for this. In 1980, as one of the main objectives in the foundation of SADCC, there emerged a concern to transform the regional relationship of dependence on South Africa into a relationship of complementarity and interdependence. It should be noted that this declaration was addressed to a future South Africa, free of apartheid. However, the economic crisis which ravaged all the SADCC countries, with the exception of Botswana, for very specific, unique reasons, and the devastation suffered by Mozambique an Angola as a result of three decades of successive wars, led to minimising the goal of transforming the type of relationship with South Africa in favour of a real, or imaginary, immediate dividend.

It might then happen that disillusion at frustrated expectations causes a retreat in the necessary and desirable cooperation project.

In search of a southern Africa

If it intends to repeat or imitate the history of others, then the sub-continent risks mere exercises in caricature. But it is obviously true that the experiences and knowledge of human beings are integrated into a single common heritage of wisdom.

The model of European integration is a point of reference at various levels. The edifice of unity has been built on the ambitious project of overcoming fratricidal and devastating disputes, in the name of a common ideal of civilization, and resting on very specific interests and mutual advantages. It started out from coal and steel, to eventually cover all of Europe's affairs.

In Southern Africa, the people broadly share the same cultural and historical roots. The contributions of Europe, an Asia, of Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Judaism were gradually added to the original patrimony. Successive decades of violence, and repeated cycles of repression have made peace, stability, freedom and equality the most essential longings of the human mass of the region. Overcoming legitimate fears and ingrained prejudices presupposes a joint exercise in cooperation.

There exist interests based on the common needs of the more than 120 million people living in the region. The basic cornerstones in the edifice of cooperation are the exploitation and management of fossil fuel resources and hydroelectric power, and the maximisation of communications ensuring access of the hinterland to the coast. Water, energy and transport are the foundations to bring us closer together.

Despite serious limitations, the exercise undertaken by SADCC remains one of the most efficient ever carried out on the continent. From the political point of view, it is relatively uncontroversial for a new South Africa to be able to join the existing family.

But SADCC is conditioned by the serious limitations of its own resources, so that it presently tends to become more a project of donors and financiers than an indigenous project. South African membership, bearing in mind the country's hegemonic past, and the enormous inertia of such phenomena, could further compromise the future of a project which, from the outset, was viewed as resting on solidarity.

The space of SADCC, with around 100 million inhabitants (a sixth of the continent's population), could provide a breath of oxygen for the exports of South African industries and services looking for foreign markets. South African industries and services could easily feel tempted to suffocate their nascent competitors, particularly in Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Angola, Zambia and Tanzania. Certain tendencies to privatise industrial sectors in SADCC countries could mean in practice a strengthened position of South African capital in the region, and further obstacles to the formation and consolidation of national business communities. It cannot even be excluded that, in certain cases, privatisation may lead, purely and simply, to the closure of the units acquired by the more powerful capitals, which will thus be able to maximise the use of installed capacity elsewhere, as has already been seen with the behaviour of some German businesses towards the agricultural or industrial units of the so-called new states.

SADCC remains isolated from civil society. It has developed as an exercise of government bureaucracies, with few links to the academic, business, trade union, political, cultural and social communities. The recent SADCC information and culture meeting in Maputo was more a meeting of ministers and bureaucrats than of people working in the media, in science and in culture. The building of a solid edifice of cooperation requires the involvement of the real agents and of those to whom this cooperation is really destined in order to prevent the danger of weakening the goals.

Despite these negative considerations, to bet on a Southern Africa moving towards economic and financial integration, a SADCC plus a South Africa representing a market of over 120 million people, is certainly the bet of the future. The Cahora Bassa hydroelectric scheme alone, once the north bank power station is built, will generate about 4,500 megawatts. The area that can potentially be irrigated is a million hectares, in a Southern Africa suffering from drought and waste of water.

It is both possible and desirable to make investments in agriculture, industry and services viable. But it is important that the people be lifted up from the extreme levels of misery in which they vegetate today. Beggars do not constitute a market; beggars do not behave as citizens.

External solidarity

Southern Africa will need support from the developed north, not in an eternal relationship between donors and recipients of aid, but in a dynamic vision of development, in a perspective of mutual advantage.

Following World War II, the United States gambled in particular on supporting Europe and Japan. The recovery of the old continent and of Japan contributed to the progress of the American economy and to better protection for American strategic interests in the global confrontation that followed. Today the sub-continent lacks this kind of rapid and massive injection of capital and technology.

The relationship of the region with the world should be expanded in the various circles that now exist. The ACP system, despite extreme limitations, is still the best framework for relationships with Europe. A renewed SADCC, including South Africa, could be in a better negotiating position, and could thus promote the region's interests. With the exception of South Africa and Angola, all the countries of the region meet each other in the Commonwealth (where Mozambique has observer status). Mozambique and Angola are also linked to the francophone bloc, and are members of the group of Portuguese speaking countries. Tanzania and Mozambique are associated with the Islamic Conference Organisation.

To sum up, the insertion of the states of the region in various spaces for cooperation and international harmonization promotes their negotiating capacity, and increases their still limited influence in the world's decision making centres.

Efficient action at these levels presupposes greater reconciliation and harmonisation of the policies of the 11 states, as well as a greater participation by civil society.

The truth is that the international conjuncture is not very favourable. In the framework of bipolarity, importance used to be granted to the zones that were regarded as under dispute, but today's prevailing unipolarity has made this drop right down the agenda of the main powers. The imperative of consolidating the transformation of Eastern Europe, with its societies destabilised, has changed the priorities for investment and aid.

It is with this context in mind that Southern Africa has to position itself with its human and material resources, projecting an image of real stability and efficiency, and of competitiveness in a world hungry for investment.

CONCLUSION

Out of the long past derived from the conflicts generated by colonialism and apartheid, the peoples of the region are now reaching a crossroads in their destiny.

They are moving into the new millennium bearing recent wounds and scars, and after their economic foundations have suffered huge devastation.

But they are reaching this moment in History well aware of the futility of conflicts that are based on the search for supremacies other than those that result from the different talents of people as individuals.

Men and women have accumulated experiences and knowledge, and the economies have generated efforts, but this potential was often diverted towards the adventures of war and destruction. It is important to seek out that potential again, and channel this impetuous current towards the exercise of life and construction.

South Africa has already given to the continent and to the region two Nobel Peace Prize winners, and more recently a winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature. In a moment of fresh awakening into life, it is marvelous that your country should bear the combined message of peace and culture.

For men of the region such as myself, who have lived through half a century, and carry with them three or more decades of personal experience of war and imprisonment, the hope for peace and cooperation, the desire to bring the countries and the region into the new millennium, where prosperity must arise, is now the raison d'etre of struggle and of existence.