Lake Malawi dispute: no agreement on mediation process

After talks between Malawi and Tanzania on the Lake Malawi dispute came to a halt, Dodoma announced on Saturday 6 October that it would propose an international mediator. Tanzania’s Foreign Affairs Minister Bernard Membe stated that the country would prefer the mediator to be a former president from the Southern African Development Community (SADC). Even though both Malawi and Tanzania are members of the regional trade bloc, Malawi has indicated that it wishes for the dispute to be taken to the International Court of Justice (ICJ). Currently, Malawi is claiming sovereignty over the entire lake, while Tanzania is claiming half (See CPRA Daily Briefing, Friday, 5 October 2012).

The Tanzanian mediation plan raises questions over how President Joyce Banda will respond, as she is a relatively new leader who may not have determined her allies within SADC yet. If the two countries cannot even agree over who should mediate the process, it is likely that the dispute will become an even more protracted affair.

Dodoma’s suggestion of having a former SADC head of state mediate the dispute resonates with regional tradition and may enjoy the benefits of proximity. However, this betrays a structural flaw in SADC, namely its lack of a standing regional mediation architecture, which has only recently become the focus of remedial action. Over the years, the regional body’s mediation has been on an ad hoc basis, with eminent Southern African leaders, including Nelson Mandela, Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma of South Africa, Frederick Chiluba of Zambia, Eduardo dos Santos of Angola, Ketumile Masire of Botswana, and Joaquim Chissano of Mozambique, being called upon to intervene in troubled countries like the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Lesotho, Madagascar and Zimbabwe. Tanzania’s proposal also raises questions over SADC’s competence to deal with such trans-boundary resource disputes. The dispute over Lake Malawi will eventually have to be addressed from a legal angle, but it may be problematic for SADC to accommodate the case, as the regional tribunal, which could possibly have decided inter-governmental disputes, was suspended in 2010 and has not yet been revived. Set against this backdrop it is crucial that SADC speedily completes the establishment of the regional mediation mechanisms to more efficiently and effectively address potential intra- and inter-state conflict.

Like many disputes on the continent, the dispute over Lake Malawi is essentially over the control of natural resources, as it has been rumoured that the lake may contain vast oil and gas deposits. Friction similar to that between Malawi and Tanzania may very well start materialising elsewhere, such as between Uganda and South Sudan or Uganda and the DRC, where similar geographical realities could influence the peace and security situation. This makes it imperative for regional economic communities to put in place mechanisms to mediate border conflicts. Ultimately, however, the outcome of any intervention, by either a regional or an international body, would not necessarily be self-implementing and enforcing, but would depend on the related political will of the parties involved.

Compiled by the Conflict Prevention and Risk Analysis Division