Notes from Africa

Two countries, two presidents and a Mac
(This column appears weekly in Leadership magazine's online bulletin.)

Tuesday 12 July 2011

By Stef Terblanche
A tale of two countries – and two presidents, mind you - has been unfolding in the far north of the African continent this week. In both cases the continent’s southernmost country, South Africa, has played and continues to play, a leading role.

This weekend South Sudan formally achieved its hard-won independence after a 22-year long bloody conflict, making it the world’s newest and Africa’s 54th state. It also ends Sudan’s reign as Africa’s largest state, a distinction that now falls to Algeria, with the Democratic Republic of Congo moving into second place.

A leading figure in achieving South Sudan’s “peaceful” transition to statehood has been former South African president Thabo Mbeki.

Meanwhile, civil war compounded by foreign intervention, continues in (northern) Sudan’s north-western neighbour, Libya. This past week saw Russia looking for a speedy end to the conflict when it engaged in discussions with NATO – whom it accuses of overstepping the UN mandate for international intervention to protect Libyan civilians – and South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma.

President Zuma has made it his mission to seek an African solution for the Libyan conflict. Although his government supported the UN mandate for aerial intervention, he now says the Western allies have misinterpreted it and are abusing it. He has subsequently been hard at work trying to get the African Union’s road map for peace in Libya adopted and implemented.
But while the NATO allies are arrogantly thumbing their noses at Zuma and the AU, Russia last week importantly promised him support. China, with ever-growing vested interests in Africa, already has questioned the NATO campaign and is also likely to back Zuma and the AU.

Ironic it is that these two peace missions are being led by two South African presidents who not long ago could themselves have done with an international peace mission to resolve their own political conflict when Zuma replaced Mbeki in something just short of a palace revolt. Could it be that international conflict resolution is the new stage for their ongoing political brinkmanship?

The story of South Sudan does not end here though. Among the many issues still confronting it is the spill over impact of the conflict in the Darfur region in northern Sudan (in which South Africa is also playing a peace-seeking role); the threat to regional peace created by the growing international Nile River dispute over access to one of the region’s scarcest resources, water; the tensions between northern Sudan and South Sudan over border disputes which already led to violence; the obligation on South Sudan to share oil revenue with the north as part of their secession agreement and which could create future tensions; the possible impact of Africa’s worst drought in 60 years in the Horn of Africa region which threatens famine for 10 million people; having to deal with northern Sudan’s President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, who has been indicted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide; transforming South Sudan’s liberation movement into a political party that will move away from past abuses and atrocities to embracing an inclusive democratic state model; and many more.

Mbeki has played an impressive role in ending the 22-year old armed conflict here and securing a largely peaceful transition to the formation of the new state. As the leader of the AU’s High-Level Implementation Panel on Sudan, Mbeki also intervened successfully when the north recently militarily attacked the disputed border town of Abyei.

Mbeki’s passion for peace in Africa is understandable: it is a precondition for his much cherished dream of an African Renaissance.

Whether Zuma will enjoy the same success in Libya, remains to be seen. This nut may be a bit harder to crack, mainly because of the Western allies’ disingenuous interference here. One suspects it is driven by oil greed on the allies’ part and French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s rather dubious agenda (he has armed Libyan rebels in contravention of the UN mandate among other things).

However, NATO’s military intervention has been dressed up as concern for Libyan lives threatened by that mean old shade-wearing rock star dictator, Muammar Gaddafi (the furthest thing from a military colonel I’ve ever seen). It was left to Russia last week to tell the NATO allies that their cynical bombing campaign is costing as many Libyan civilian lives as Gaddafi’s forces may have taken.

One certain victim of the current Libyan conflict has been the credibility of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague. While it openly admits it has yet to find evidence on which to base charges, it has already just about found Gaddafi guilty of all sorts of atrocities, lynched him publicly through the media, almost effectively condemned him to death and issued a warrant for his arrest. Shades of Saddam Hussein and the weapons of mass destruction?
Meanwhile the issue of Gaddafi’s arrest warrant is another distinction Libya shares with Sudan. It is only the second arrest warrant ever issued by the ICC for a sitting head of state – the other being for northern Sudan’s al-Bashir.

The Libyan conflict has all the makings of being part genuine civil war, part covert insurrection by dubious rebels armed and motivated by Western nations with questionable interests. With the conflict being largely between its western and eastern regions, the Sudan option may be a solution. But whether Zuma and the AU will have Mbeki’s stomach for that one is another question.

Finally, talking of Zuma brings to mind another rather quirky matter: in Africa, it seems, one can’t put a good Mac down.

There are many kinds of Macs in Africa, of course. There’s the beloved raincoat brought here by the British and that American burger Mac. And then of course there’s that other Mac, the one and only Mac Maharaj.

After a short silence following a somewhat bloodied nose in the Bulelani Ngcuka “apartheid spy” saga, the former liberation trench fighter, Robben Island prisoner, transport minister and political Jack of all trades has bounced back onto centre stage – this time as Zuma’s newly appointed spokesman.

It may be remembered that it was the inimitable Mac and Mo Shaik who falsely accused the then chief prosecutor Ngcuka of having been an apartheid spy. Of course, Ngcuka at the time was investigating Zuma for arms deal corruption.

In a maccy twist to the tale, it seems now both Mac and Mo have been handsomely rewarded by Zuma: Mo by being made Zuma’s spy chief, and Mac by becoming Zuma’s voice. Let’s hope it helps him achieve peace in Libya.

Copyright 2011 Stef Terblanche