Superpower or Neocolonialist?: South Africa in Africa

South Africa in Africa

SUPERPOWER

or

Neocolonialist?

Liesl Louw-Vaudran

Tafelberg

Acronyms and abbreviations

ACIRC    African Capacity for Immediate Response to Crises

ANC    African National Congress

APRM    African Peer Review Mechanism

AU    African Union

CAR    Central African Republic

DRC    Democratic Republic of the Congo

ECCAS    Economic Community of Central African States

ECOWAS    Economic Community of West African States

ICC    International Criminal Court

MDC    Movement for Democratic Change

NEPAD    New Partnership for Africa’s Development

NGO    Non-governmental organisation

OAU    Organisation of African Unity

PSC    Peace and Security Council

SAA    South African Airways

SABC    South African Broadcasting Corporation

SADC    Southern African Development Community

SANDF    South African National Defence Force

SWAPO    South West Africa People’s Organization

UN    United Nations

Introduction

There are few places in Africa as remote as the vast desert region of Niger. Or so I thought. It was a scorching day and everyone was sweating as we headed north from the town of Diffa on a day trip to the Ténéré Desert, where we were attending the wedding of a friend. The idea was to go as far as the desert town of N’guigmi in a minibus – with no aircon – to see the beautiful sand dunes our hosts had been eager for us to see.

We had stopped to stretch our legs under a clump of thorn trees when a Touareg, wearing the traditional tribal cheche and dressed in white robes, appeared on horseback. He was one of les hommes bleus – the ‘blue men’ of the Sahara, known for their indigo-dyed headdresses and rich cultural traditions. He asked where we were from. Niger, France and one from South Africa, we told him.

‘Oh really,’ he said. ‘There was a South African here just last week to put up a cellphone tower.’

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

It was 2004 and my job as an Africa correspondent had taken me to many parts of the continent to report on conflicts, elections and peace talks, and on South African businesses that had invested in countries across Africa. I soon discovered that since the end of apartheid South African businesses had been expanding across the continent and setting up shop at a rapid pace: from hotels on the shores of Mozambique to furniture stores in Ghana. South Africans were running the gold mines in Mali, piloting planes for the UN and leading peacekeeping operations in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

But surely they hadn’t reached the Ténéré Desert yet? I was under the firm impression that the new wave of South African pioneers would not yet have reached that stretch of earth on the border between Niger, Nigeria and Chad, next to what was once the flourishing Lake Chad Basin and home to the rare Kuri cattle.¹

But I was wrong.

Since the opening up of relations between South Africa and the rest of the continent after the first democratic elections in 1994, South Africans had been playing a major part in the development of the continent. They had become involved in business, diplomacy, training, university exchanges, military assistance, development aid and many other areas. The man rigging up that cellphone tower near Diffa was one of them.

South Africa has come a long way since 1994. In the apartheid years it was a pariah state – condemned for its policies and shunned by most African countries. The national carrier, South African Airways (SAA), wasn’t even allowed to fly over the continent.

But after 1994 the newly elected government of Nelson Mandela was welcomed back to the continent with open arms. Having campaigned for decades to bring an end to apartheid and for Mandela’s release, African countries jostled for the position to be the first to invite him for a state visit. Very soon South Africa sent envoys and opened new embassies across the continent. Today, almost every African country claims to have hosted Mandela and supported the ANC.

As an Africa correspondent I was very privileged to witness how this extraordinary story of South Africa’s growing presence on the continent unfolded and how the country started to play an increasingly important role in Africa’s development. In many ways, this was symbolised by then vice-president Thabo Mbeki’s African Renaissance campaign, which would later define his term of office as president.

In the early 1990s companies such as MultiChoice ventured into Nigeria and Kenya, even before all the sanctions against South Africa had been lifted. By the end of that decade, a number of big local companies, including cellphone giants MTN and Vodacom, and Standard Bank and retail group Shoprite had already established businesses on the continent.

The role and activities of the South African military in places like Burundi and the DRC have also been hailed as good examples of finding ‘African solutions to African problems’, a phrase coined by those African decision-makers and members of the African Union (AU) who support African-led peacekeeping. It is also seen as driving the African Agenda, a notion that has become synonymous with a South African foreign-policy direction that favours solidarity with the AU members’ positions rather than that of Western nations.

Sadly, though, a shadow was cast over South Africa’s involvement by the way in which some South African soldiers behaved in their barracks in Bujumbura and by the questionable motives behind South Africa’s involvement in the Central African Republic (CAR). It has been asked whether some of South Africa’s peacekeeping efforts mask a search for lucrative mining deals.

But despite these setbacks, it cannot be denied that during these past two decades South Africa has been an agent for change in Africa. The question is, has it mostly been for good or for bad?

South Africa’s National Development Plan, a strategy that was drawn up after lengthy consultations by a team led by former finance minister Trevor Manuel, makes a harsh judgement of South Africa’s role in southern Africa when it says that ‘within the southern African region, there is the perception that South Africa is acting as a bully, a self-interested hegemon that acts in bad faith among the five neighbouring countries. As such, South Africa enjoys less support in the region than it did in the period immediately after 1994, when the country held pride of place among world leaders.’²

Academics and analysts use the word ‘hegemon’ in various ways. Sometimes it is used in a negative sense, to mean a country that throws its weight around and imposes its will on other countries: a regional bully, in other words. Others, however, see a hegemonic country as one that ‘plays a firm, strong and credible leadership role’.³

The term ‘superpower’ – which I use in the title of this book and in my analysis – has a similar meaning: a respected country that has clout and can influence events, one that is listened to at international forums. A superpower is also a country that has the financial and military means to back up this influence – it can put its money where its mouth is.

Often, the distinction is made between a state’s so-called soft power and hard power. South Africa’s leadership role on the continent depends a lot on its soft power – in other words, its commitment to human rights, and its search for peace and prosperity on the continent. It also depends on its diplomatic influence, the strength of its think tanks and universities, and its investments across the continent.

A global superpower like the United States has both hard and soft power. It influences world affairs not only because of its economic and military might, but also thanks to its cultural influence and its powerful role in international organisations. Of course, these are complex labels and a superpower can very easily lose its credibility when it starts abusing its power. The US is often accused of doing this on the world stage.

In the early years after apartheid, South Africa enjoyed immense support and drew the world’s admiration thanks to Mandela’s stature and its successful transition to becoming a democracy. The country was expected to be a positive force on the continent. But has it managed to fulfil these expectations? In many ways, South Africa today acts like a continental superpower because of its role in peacekeeping missions and its strong economic influence. But it has also been accused of behaving much like the former colonial powers.

It is sometimes seen as being neocolonialist by bullying other countries into taking certain decisions in multilateral institutions like the AU. Business people are also described as neocolonialist when they set up shop in African countries with huge marketing campaigns, clearly branded as South African, with little regard for local sensitivities.

A diplomat stationed in a southern African country told me recently: ‘You know, South Africans are revered here.’ The statement reflects a certain blind belief among some South Africans that they are a cut above other African countries because of their nation’s strong economy and superior infrastructure. What it also reveals is how unaware many South Africans are about the resentment that is felt towards them in many African countries.

This sentiment came to the fore during the xenophobic attacks in 2015 in the Durban area, Gauteng and elsewhere, the worst violence against foreigners since the bloody attacks of 2008, in which 67 people died. These attacks sparked a strong reaction from the rest of Africa. Heads of state denounced South Africa for its inaction towards the perpetrators, and in some African countries South African businesses were threatened with boycotts. Some even called for the AU summit to be moved to another country.

Ordinary Africans accused South Africans of being hateful towards their African brothers. Writers and well-known personalities pointed to another important sentiment when they blamed South Africans for not returning the kind of support they had received from Africa during the struggle against apartheid.

If South Africa is seemingly bent on doing good and helping the continent, why all this resentment?

This book takes a critical look at the impact of South African foreign policy in Africa. It tells the story of South Africa’s changing role in the continent over the past few decades and how it is perceived by other African countries.

What role do we really play on the continent? Is South Africa a superpower or a neocolonialist?

CHAPTER 1

Searching for the ANC in exile

Lusaka is a fast-growing, sprawling African city. The downtown area is made up of a narrow strip of run-down high-rises, while a few newer buildings point upwards from behind the trees lining the Zambian capital’s central avenue.

As is the case in many African capitals, traffic jams are a major headache and people travelling by bicycle have to find their way along hazardously narrow sections at the side of the road. The overall impression is of a city that has grown too fast, with far too many 4×4s clogging the roads and polluting the environment.

If you take a right turn out of Cairo Avenue coming into town, you will find yourself in a busy area called Soweto Market. Here you can find anything, from sneakers and cellphone accessories to pots and vegetables. These street-market stalls stand in sharp contrast to the shiny new shopping malls that have sprung up in the suburbs. There, South African retailers, such as Shoprite, Pick n Pay, Woolworths, Mr Price, and Mugg & Bean, dominate. These malls look so similar to the shopping centres down south that you could be forgiven for thinking you were in Randburg or Benoni.

But the street names in Lusaka are different, though. They evoke Africa’s liberation from colonial rule. Freedom Way runs parallel to Lumumba Road, which forms a T-junction with Ben Bella Road. The latter runs into Independence Avenue and eventually into Haile Selassie Avenue.

Former ANC president Oliver Tambo described Lusaka as ‘a city that will surely be remembered in the annals of the struggle for freedom and independence in this region of Africa, as the second home of all the liberation movements that have wrought such immense change in our subcontinent during the past two decades’.⁴

From the 1960s to the 1980s, the Zambian government and the president, Kenneth Kaunda, played a key role in supporting the ANC in exile. According to Hugh Macmillan, former activist and writer, who lived in Zambia from 1978 to 1992, there were around 4 000 ANC exiles living in Zambia at the height of the struggle in the late 1980s. After the Nkomati Accord was signed between the apartheid government and Mozambique in 1982, the movement of exiles in Mozambique and Swaziland was severely restricted.⁵ Many therefore left for Zambia, which meant that the country soon housed the largest ANC group in the world, Macmillan writes.

Mandela visited Lusaka just two weeks after his release in 1990. At the time, the ANC’s official mouthpiece, Sechaba, published a story from which the following is taken: ‘When he emerged from the airplane at Lusaka international airport on February 27th, a day declared a national holiday by the Government of the Republic of Zambia, every well-wisher and supporter among the more than 50 000 who were there to meet him, was overwhelmed by the very enormousness of the event.’⁶

Mandela explained to the crowd the reasons behind his negotiations with the apartheid government and promised that arrangements would be made for the exiles’ return to South Africa.

I was in Lusaka for a very specific reason: I had come in search here for remnants of this episode of South Africa’s struggle history. To try to understand South Africa’s role in Africa and how it is perceived on the continent, it is imperative to look back at the time when the ANC was in exile.

I was curious to know to what extent the legacy of the anti-apartheid movement in exile had been honoured. Surely there would be monuments and gravesites, I thought, or perhaps the house where Oliver Tambo had lived, and which once served as the headquarters of the anti-apartheid movement in Africa, had been transformed into a museum?

My first stop would be the South African Embassy.

Driving out of the city centre, I passed the State House and various official government buildings, which all have neatly trimmed lawns and clean sidewalks. Outside the city centre are leafy suburbs where expats live behind high walls, each house with its own sleepy guard to open a wide gate that leads to lush gardens, pools and spacious homes.

The British High Commission is in an older building close to State House; it also houses the British Department for International Development’s office in Zambia. On the other side of town, a very impressive-looking bunker – a landmark in many African capitals – serves as the American Embassy.

The South African High Commission is much more discreet, though, tucked behind a low wall in a side street in the suburb of Kabulonga. The long row of cars parked uncomfortably on the sidewalk in front of the embassy and the washed-out South African flag are the only signs that this is now the headquarters of the country that once had such close links with Zambia and which remains one of the biggest investors in the country.

‘No, I actually can’t help you,’ was the response from a hesitant South African Embassy official when I enquired about memorials to the ANC in Lusaka. She wasn’t even sure whether she was allowed to talk to a journalist without authorisation from the government communications department in Pretoria.

‘We are working on a historical project, intended to be part of the liberation routes, and that should be up and running soon,’ she explained. The liberation heritage routes, announced in 2011, are set to connect a number of monuments and memorials to highlight the struggle against apartheid. These are supposed to include monuments in neighbouring countries, such as the Matola Monument in Mozambique, which commemorates the raid by South African security forces on the ANC in 1981, in which 13 members of Umkhonto we Sizwe, the ANC’s armed wing, were killed. The monument and interpretive centre were unveiled by President Jacob Zuma at a ceremony in September 2015.⁷

I was about to discover that the embassy official was not being vague on purpose, but merely truthful. A search downtown on the strip between Cha Cha Cha and Cairo roads, where the ANC used to have its headquarters, revealed only some run-down buildings with shops selling cheap goods. There was no sign of any museum, or even a plaque.

The Lusaka National Museum, a Soviet-style building containing a photo exhibition dominated by pictures of Kaunda as a young president and some cultural displays that are clearly works in progress, also proved to be a dead end. There was no information there about the ANC’s exile in Zambia.

One should keep in mind, though, that the development of museums and the erection of monuments generally don’t get given much priority in most African cities. After independence Zambia certainly had other priorities than to build monuments to historical figures, let alone foreign ones.

In my search for a tribute to the ANC, my helpful driver and guide in Lusaka made a stop at the small house in Chilenje