Title page
|| Preface
Contents
1.
Introduction
2.
Aim and Scope
3.
South Africa’s Post-Apartheid Foreign Policy
5.
Issues in the Foreign Policy Towards Africa
1. Introduction
Two principal factors have shaped South Africa’s post-apartheid
foreign policy towards Africa. First, the termination of apartheid in 1994
allowed South Africa, for the first time in the country’s history, to establish
and maintain contacts with African states on equal terms. Second, the end
of the Cold War at the end of the 1980s led to a retreat of the West from
Africa, particularly in the economic sphere. Consequently, closer cooperation
among all African states has become more pertinent to finding “African
solutions to African problems”. Given South Africa’s status as the leading
African country in terms of economic prosperity, political stability, and
military strength, other African states have placed considerable hope on
South Africa’s contribution to socioeconomic and political betterment of
the continent. South Africa has consequently become a more attractive partner
for African states than ever before.
2. Aim and Scope
South Africa has always held a predominant position
in the Southern African region. Under Prime Minister and State President
Pieter Willem Botha (1978-89), the country even pursued a policy of dominance
and coercive hegemony. Further north, there were contacts with a few African
countries outside the region. But the existing literature gives the impression
that South Africa had no such relations anymore once the policies of dialogue
and détente had failed in the mid-1970s. Those two initiatives
were launched under Prime Minister Balthazar Johannes Vorster (1966-78)
to break through South Africa’s international isolation in Africa and internationally.
They came to nothing for two reasons: South Africa’s indecisive role in
resolving the Rhodesia/Zimbabwe issue, and its military engagement in Angola
after that country’s independence in 1975. However, recent research at
various South African archives – Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA), Department
of Defence and National Archives – shows that South Africa had contacts
with many African states far beyond the region, even after the mid-1970s.[1]
The 1994 democratic
elections in South Africa changed South African politics tremendously.
Since its inception, the new government declared as main aim the creation
of new domestic political and socioeconomic structures, but it also initiated
changes in the area of foreign policy. Regarding Pretoria’s Africa policy,
confrontation could finally be replaced by cooperation. Such cooperation
became possible once South Africa had abolished its apartheid policy. It
was further enhanced once the Cold War had ended.
This
contribution has two parts. Part I contains an essay focusing on South
Africa’s post-apartheid foreign policy in general, the impact of the ANC’s
foreign policy as a liberation movement on Pretoria’s current foreign policy,
and the issues that have dominated South African-African relations since
1994. Part II contains the bibliography that is organized around the issues
identified in Part I.
3. South Africa’s Post-Apartheid
Foreign Policy
The end of apartheid allowed Pretoria to normalize its
relations with the international community. It has returned to international
organizations such as the United Nations and its various bodies, as well
as the Commonwealth. For the first time ever, it has become a member of
the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) and the Non-Aligned Movement. Together
with President Nelson Mandela’s charismatic personality, this led to a
“honeymoon period” in South Africa’s foreign policy. However, many cautious
voices could be heard over the extent to which South Africa’s post-apartheid
foreign policy could really be altered (entries 59, 75, 76, 83, 84, 111,
143, 165, 166, 167, 169, 170, 256).
After decades of
white minority rule, domestic as well as foreign policy could not change
overnight. The new government had to be careful not to try to effect change
in one arena to the detriment of the other. South Africa was rightly described
as a “middle power” with limited capacities (entries 137, 144, 145, 172).
Despite these reservations, several authors suggest that South Africa could
take a leading role in the promotion of democracy and human rights (entries
92, 139, 140, 152, 153, 161, 163, 253, 285, 296, 300).
With regard to
foreign policy making, the State President and the Department of Foreign
Affairs (DFA) have the most influence (entries 15-18, 122). On the part
of Parliament, a Portfolio Committee on Foreign Affairs was established.
Its relevance is discussed in several articles (entries 133, 155, 156,
159, 177, 178, 180). Compared to the apartheid period, the media and the
public now take a more active part in the foreign policy formulation debate
(entries 128, 129, 130, 175, 403). The role of the provinces is another
issue debated in the literature (entries 69, 81, 179).
4. ANC Foreign Policy as a Liberation
Movement and Its Implications
When the ANC was banned in 1960, it took the struggle
against apartheid to the international arena and the international dimension
of its struggle has subsequently become very important.
At the United Nations, for instance, it enjoyed an observer status
between 1974 and 1994. It was allowed to participate at meetings on apartheid
convened by the Special Committee against Apartheid and by the Special
Political Committee of the General Assembly. Since 1976, it was even allowed
to participate in General Assembly meetings when apartheid was considered.
The ANC’s relations
with African states during the exile period are of particular interest
here. Out of its 28 exile missions existent in 1985, 10 were in Africa
and 12 in Europe. When assuming power in 1994, the ANC government increased
the number of embassies on the African continent from 4 to 21, while retaining
the 16 in Europe.
Of the 67 South African embassies and high commissions in 1999, 24 were
in Africa and 22 in Europe (entry 5, pp.817-844). This is an indication
that the ANC’s diplomatic priority continues to be on the African continent.
However, it is also an expression of the ANC’s dilemma to choose “between
old loyalties and new responsibilities” (entry 63): on the one hand the
loyalty towards the African countries that supported the ANC as a liberation
movement, on the other hand the responsibility to run a country and therefore
promote different priorities, such as closer contact with economically
important Western nations that previously supported apartheid.
Early post-apartheid
pronouncements by former President Nelson Mandela (1994-99) and Thabo Mbeki
– Head of the ANC’s Department of International Affairs (1989-93), First
Deputy President (1994-99), and President since 1999 –, reflect the government’s
loyalty towards the African continent and towards Southern Africa in particular
(entries 23, pp.89f.; 27, pp.234; 28, pp.1). Publications by the ANC Department
of International Affairs point in the same direction (entries 8, pp.10-15,
and 9, pp.10-15). The concept of an “African Renaissance”, developed by
Thabo Mbeki, has been an outflow thereof (entries 30-34).
Relatively
little has been written on the ANC’s foreign policy while in exile (entries
187-194). An informed debate has been difficult given the lack of primary
sources on the ANC’s international activities in exile. Regarding the documents
from its exile missions, the situation is unclear. The ANC Archives at
Fort Hare University in Alice, Eastern Cape, were opened in 1996 and they
now house the documents of 22 ANC exile missions http://www.ufh.ac.za/collections/anc.html.
But its collections are not complete. The Mayibuye Centre at the University
of the Western Cape http://www.museums.org.za/mayibuye
also houses some documents from the London and Lusaka Missions[2] and a
lot of material is still held at Luthuli House, the ANC Headquarters in
Johannesburg http://www.anc-archives.org
where it is mostly unprocessed and inaccessible to researchers.
5. Issues in the Foreign Policy Towards
Africa
Like the various apartheid governments before it, the
current ANC government must distinguish between Southern Africa and the
rest of the continent. Given the geographic proximity to and the economic
dependence on South Africa, countries in the region are more exposed to
the consequences of their powerful neighbor’s foreign policy. The further
north on the continent one gets, the less the impact of South Africa’s
foreign policy is felt.
Because of South
Africa’s past foreign policy, the ANC first had to reassure African states,
particularly its neighbors, of the government’s non-hegemonic intentions
(e.g. entry 9, pp.11). In practice, Pretoria sought trade and security
cooperation with the countries in the region.
Trade. Cooperation
takes place in three multilateral bodies: the Southern African Development
Community (SADC)
http://www.sadc.int ;
the Southern African Customs Union (SACU) and Common Monetary Area (CMA
);
and the Preferential Trade Area for Eastern and Southern African States
(PTA) and Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA)
http://www.comesa.int. The literature
on economic cooperation is compiled in the section entitled “South Africa
in the Region” (entries 195-266).
Security.
Compared to economic cooperation, the intentions in the area of security
are more ambitious, since it means bringing together former enemies. It
is therefore not surprising that progress here is lagging behind. Plans
for the establishment of a Conference for Security and Cooperation in Southern
Africa (CSCSA) have not materialized. The SADC Organ on Politics, Defence
and Security is the only progress worth mentioning.
Socioeconomic development
and military stability are two sides of the same coin. It is therefore
important that the security aspect no further be neglected in comparison
to the economic dimension. In December 1994, the ANC itself argued that
“Security is not only limited to military matters; it has important political,
economic, social and environmental dimensions. Additionally, the security
of the state is dependent on meeting the social, cultural, political, economic
and human rights needs of its people” (entry 9, pp.23). However,
in 1998 South African troops
made their way into Lesotho after a political crisis there. This brought
back memories of South Africa’s apartheid regional foreign policy. It made
international headlines and provoked a debate among scholars. The
entries 333-385 compile theliterature
on security cooperation in Southern
Africa in general, while the entries 408, 409, 413, 415, 416, 418 list
the works on South Africa’s role in Lesotho.
Two
issues did and still do dominate South Africa’s post-apartheid relations
with African states outside the Southern African region: (1) cooperation
in the economic sphere (entries 267-317), and (2)South
Africa’s military capacity as a peacekeeper on the African continent (entries
386-407). A number of contributions have been published on South Africa’s
position vis-à-vis the military conflict in Central Africa, comprising
the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and the Great Lakes region (entries
409-412, 414, 417). Relatively little attention has been given to its place
within the
OAU (entries
318-320).
A separate section
contains the works on South Africa’s bilateral relations with African states
inside and outside Southern Africa (entries 321-332). It is striking to
note that eight of the twelve contributions focus on South African-Nigerian
relations. This reflects the significance that closer contacts between
these two heavyweight nations have for the future of the African continent
(entries 321, 323-325, 328, 329, 330, 332).
Top