Monograph 19: SADC and Sub-Regional Security: Unde Venis Et Quo Vadis, Mark Malan

During March 1997, an ISS Paper which suggested how the political and security dimension of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) might be structured, advocated an integrated approach to economic and security co-operation in Southern Africa. A model was proposed with one SADC summit at the apex, but with organisationally divergent structures below this level. Over the past year, however, regional security dynamics, and indeed, the tone of the regional security debate, have shifted to such an extent that there is a need for a reappraisal of this approach.

Last year bore witness to a number of events and processes which should sound a very clear wake up call for those concerned with the maintenance of peace and security in the Southern and Central African regions. The most dramatic of these was undoubtedly the eight-month military campaign to oust long-time dictator Mobutu Sese Seko in the former Zaire by Laurent Kabila`s Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo (ADFL). As the vanguard of his victorious army entered Kinshasa on 17 May, Laurent Kabila proclaimed himself President of the new Democratic Republic of Congo. Although this take-over was widely welcomed by the African and international communities, it fundamentally changed the balance of power in the Central and Southern African regions, and (as yet largely unpredicted) repercussions will be felt in the region for years to come.

Congo `Kinshasa` had barely been declared a Democratic Republic, when the civil war in the neighbouring Congo Republic threatened to engulf several more African nations in a regional conflict. The war started as a rebellion against the Congo Republic`s president, Pascal Lissouba (once a Mobutu ally), when he ordered the pre-election disarmament of the militia forces of former president Denis Sassou-Nguesso. Congo Republic soon became a battlefield on which Angolan antagonists, the Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), soldiers from the Democratic Republic of Congo, and various mercenary forces were all involved. With UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan still pleading with the Security Council to prepare to send a peacekeeping force, Brazzaville fell to the forces of General (now self-proclaimed President) Denis Sassou-Nguesso on 15 October 1997.

To the south, after involvement on the side of the victors in the wars for both Congos, the Angolan government began threatening military action against the beleaguered UNITA. Aside from the loss of key allies and rear bases, UNITA, which reportedly still has about 35 000 men under arms in violation of the 1994 Lusaka peace accords, also faced tough sanctions from the UN Security Council for non-compliance. However, there is no telling what a cornered UNITA will do, and prospects for sustaining the Angolan peace process look grim.

North of the Congos, in the Central African Republic, an 800-strong peacekeeping force of soldiers from Burkina Faso, Chad, Gabon, Mali, Senegal and Togo have been propping up the 25 January 1997 peace deal to end political and ethnic clashes between supporters and opponents of President Ange-Felix Patasse in the army. The precedent was set for stretching Chapter VIII of the UN Charter to its limits in Africa when, on 6 August 1997, the Security Council retrospectively authorised this Inter-African Mission to Monitor the Implementation of the Bangui Agreements (MISAB). Significantly, the Security Council provided MISAB with a Chapter VII mandate (which provides for the use of force), and UN member states will not be assessed for any portion of the mission costs, which must be borne by participating countries.

By 28 October 1997, the `Central African meltdown` seemed to have spread as far as Lusaka, when a junior army officer announced on national radio at dawn that the military had taken over the government. This had been preceded by weeks of political wrangling over an electoral law which, on the grounds of lineage, prevented former president Kenneth Kaunda from running for office. Within hours, Zambian President Frederick Chiluba was able to announce that the attempted overthrow had been crushed, and that he was in full control of the government. However, the incident led to the arrest of Kaunda and served to illustrate the contagious nature of regional conflict and to confirm the continued vulnerability of elected governments to armed challenge especially when the electoral process is widely perceived as being undemocratic.

On the eastern seaboard, Kenyan President Daniel arap Moi`s twenty-year hold on power has also come under siege, following waves of public protests to reform the Constitution in order to ensure that the end of year elections would be free and fair. Despite another electoral victory by Moi, ethnic violence was soon to erupt north of Nairobi between Kalenjin warriors and a Kikiyu community which had voted overwhelmingly in favour of the opposition. Opposition forces in Kenya will, no doubt, continue to push impatiently for a new regime.

The point to be made from this brief review is that there is little room for complacency, and that the time is ripe for revisiting the sometimes acrimonious debate on the future of SADC and its Organ for Politics, Defence and Security not for the purpose of inciting further animosity in the region, but in order to advance some new ideas on how to break what appears to be an impasse on the development of a suitable Southern African structure and mechanism for the prevention, management and resolution of conflict.

The aim of this monograph, therefore, is to take stock of the progress made in the structural development of SADC and the Organ, and, through a brief comparison with other regional security arrangements, to suggest an alternative course of action to the current stalemate in institutionalising security co-operation in the Southern African region.