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