by David Martin
The Frontline States (FLS) grouping of leaders of eight southern African countries, formed to pursue independence and majority rule, has adopted a new mandate to deal with civil conflict.
The end of the Cold War, attainment of majority rule in South Africa, and the need to protect and nurture fledgling democracies, lay at the heart of the decision of southern Africa’s leaders to perpetuate their collective custodial role.
The FLS was initiated almost 20 years ago as a strategic forum to spearhead the process of decolonization in southern Africa and to mobilize political and material support for liberation movements.
Its original objective has been successfully completed with the end of apartheid in South
Africa.
In view of the increasing civil conflicts in Africa (and elsewhere), the FLS leaders have decided to maintain a profile as a meeting place to deal with conflict-management and prevention.
The decision to maintain and expand the grouping was adopted in Harare at a historic one-day summit called to discuss the future of the FLS and confer on the conflict in Rwanda.
The summit, in early June, was attended by Nelson Mandela as the first democratically elected president of South Africa. In his first trip abroad since his inauguration in May, Mandela marked his country’s association as the eighth member of this powerful but informal grouping.
The FLS — now comprising Angola, Botswana, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe — faced either dissolution or definition of a new agenda.
Many uninformed observers, unaware of the powerful and positive history of the FLS over the last 20 years, expected its leaders to dismantle the forum when they gathered in Harare shortly after South Africa’s first democratic government took office.
This blinkered vision held that the role of the FLS had been simply that of a rhetorical group of leaders who met occasionally to pontificate whilst the “democratic” North was the driving force for regional change.
Nothing could be further from the truth. From its inception in December 1974 the FLS was motivated by a firm principle: the necessity to replace white minority regimes in Angola, Mozambique, Namibia, Southern Rhodesia and South Africa with representative governments.
The three founding fathers of the FLS were Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere who chaired the loose grouping, Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia and Sir Seretse Khama of Botswana. It is a noteworthy point about these three men that Nyerere retired from office, Kaunda accepted electoral defeat and Botswana had a smooth transition after Khama died in office.
As the last bastions of white supremacy fell, new names joined the group. First there was Samora Machel of Mozambique and Agostinhoneto of Angola in 1975. Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, now the chairman, followed in 1980, then Sam Nujoma of Namibia in 1990. Finally, Nelson Mandela joined the group last month for what many thought would be the last meeting of the FLS.
No matter the rhetoric emanating from them personally, their governments and their media, they had a great deal more in common than they were ever given credit for. They were, at heart, nationalists who were totally opposed to racialism (elected non-black Africans often occupied key posts in their governments).
From the outset, the voice of the FLS and particularly its chairman, was the voice that had to be listened to — as illustrated by the 1976 forays into southern Africa by the United States Secretary of State, Dr Henry Kissinger.
It was Nyerere whom Kissinger called on, first and last, on his African shuttles. The two men fought fierce mind duels as they sought to outfox each other, both realizing the different imperatives of the other.
Kissinger was obsessed by the US perception of Soviet influence, Nyerere by the seemingly less complex principle of majority rule. Whilst Kissinger demanded secrecy, Nyerere sought to out-manoeuvre him through transparency. Neither man trusted the other, but the skills and differing agendas of both were apparent and respected.
The positions taken by the FLS on southern African issues were to become the policies of the
Organization of African Unity (OAU), the Non- Aligned Movement (NAM), the Commonwealth and the United Nations. No one, no matter how rich and powerful, could afford to ignore them.
Apart from this international influence which derived its moral authority from principles rather than the significance of individual countries, the FLS played other fundamental roles.
They provided rear bases for the guerrilla wars against minority regimes, which were launched only after all peaceful attempts at change had been rebuffed — whilst many others paid lip service to principles or openly collaborated with very undemocratic racist regimes out of self-interest.
The FLS countries were to pay a terrible human and economic price for their support. War-related deaths in the FLS, primarily in Angola and Mozambique, are estimated by UN agencies at over 1.5 million and the economic costs rose to over US$100 billion, vastly exceeding the state’s external debts.
Botswana was compelled to create an army, which it had not intended to have, because of Rhodesian raids. Angola, Mozambique and Zambia were all attacked by the Rhodesian security forces and it will take them decades to recover from the devastation left by South Africa’s total onslaught.
A further important factor to recall about the FLS is the regional role it played from the late 1970s, a role which is very much a part of the one it will play in the future.
When Ugandan dictator Idi Amin invaded Tanzania, Nyerere’s army chased his forces out of the country and finally out of Uganda into exile-in Saudi Arabia. Machel quietly sent a Mozambican artillery battalion to Uganda to support the Tanzanian troops.
In the case of the Seychelles, Tanzania again sent in troops to support the elected government when South African mercenaries tried to topple it. Mozambique, Malawi, Tanzania and Zimbabwe all committed troops to protect their communications routes to the sea from attacks by South African-sponsored rebels.
It is noteworthy that the FLS states, along with North America, has been the only region in the world free of military coups d’etat in the past 30 years — and that includes Europe where the military took over in Greece and Portugal!
In 1980, just after Zimbabwe’s independence, the FLS began formalizing its agenda for a future southern Africa after apartheid. First, the Southern African Development Coordination Conference (SADCC) was created to reduce economic dependence on South Africa and elsewhere. This has now given way to the Southern African Development Community (SADC) created in August 1992 to further economic integration. But independence and majority rule, including the fall of the last white regime and the acceptance by all the countries of the FLS of political plurality, does not guarantee or institutionalize democracy.
Lesotho starkly illustrates this point. In the last elections the government was defeated, with the incoming party winning all the Parliamentary seats.
The army was aligned to the old regime and the victors, unwisely, chose to ignore the soldiers’ grievances, genuine or otherwise.
The result was military unrest and the probability of a coup d’etat. Botswana, Zimbabwe and South
Africa (then still under President FW de Klerk) met hurriedly and sent a clear signal to the Lesotho forces that they would not tolerate them overthrowing a democratically elected government in the region.
As a result, an uneasy truce prevails in Lesotho and a coup d’etat has been prevented. Were one to take place in the future the probability is that the FLS would spearhead an international drive to deny the new regime diplomatic recognition and impose sanctions.
This was a clear case of conflict containment rather than conflict management. –Angola poses a different challenge, one more akin to management after years of conflict. In this case Mandela has become the mediator. Joint military patrols from the region have been suggested along the 1,700 km Angola-Zaire border to prevent resupply to the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA). Unita’s leader, Dr Jonas Savimbi, refused to accept defeat in the 1992 elections which were monitored and approved by the international community.
Elsewhere in Africa, FLS troops have been committed to UN peace-keeping missions. Troops from Botswana and Zambia are serving quietly and efficiently in Mozambique. One battalion from
Botswana and two from Zimbabwe are serving in Somalia where their political understanding and grassroots rapport has proved to be far more enduring than that of now withdrawn US and European troops. Fourteen African countries have offered troops for the 5,SOO UN contingent proposed for Rwanda.
Military intervention in any neighbouring state is a delicate and controversial matter. In theory, Nyerere’s troops should have stopped at their own border once they had driven Amin’s forces out.
But major Northern powers privately expressed the view that Tanzania should hurry up and finish the job.
When the Tanzanians finally did rid Uganda of Amin, the world breathed a collective sigh of relief.
That was of little comfort to ordinary Tanzanians, among the world’s poorest people, who paid the
US$8OOmillion bill to oust Amin.
After the recent FLS summit in Harare, Mugabe noted that the group would be setting a “very dangerous precedent” if they allowed the reversal of democracy in any southern African country.
He argued that “if a country that has some democratic order is experiencing a situation where that order is being threatened by forces beyond its control, and that country appeals to its neighbours to assist, that’s not a reversal of democracy.”
Further, southern Africa is aware of the abject failure and indecisiveness of the Northern nations to contain or manage crises in their own backyards, in countries such as Haiti and Yugoslavia.
Whether the new FLS body will have a military component or not is yet to be decided. This is one of the points for discussion at a planned follow up meeting of foreign ministers.
The former Tanzanian president who was first chairman of the FLS, Julius Nyerere, was present during the summit. In support of a new role for the group of which he was a founding father, he urged member countries to adopt a new agenda for the preservation of political stability in the region.
He advocated the maintenance of a strong political wing to ensure economic development in the region — and suggested that Lesotho, Malawi and Swaziland be attracted into the group.
An economic community such as SADC still needs strong and decisive political leadership if democratic institutions are to evolve. In this regard, the FLS leaders have sent a very clear signal to all those who may think or behave otherwise in southern Africa.
Instead of wishing the demise of the FLS it would be more positive and thoughtful to reflect upon its achievements and the new objectives it is setting itself. That way everyone might learn some useful lessons. (SADC)
