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Diplomatic doldrums for Pretoria?

24th February 2017

By: Keith Campbell

Creamer Media Senior Deputy Editor

     

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While much local media attention has been devoted to US President Donald Trump, there has been something that, from a South African perspective, was much more important. This was the outcome of the African Union summit at the end of January. It appears to have been pretty much a diplomatic disaster for President Jacob Zuma and his administration.

What is very clear is that the readmission of Morocco to the African Union (AU), without preconditions, was a severe defeat for Pretoria. (Morocco had left the then Organisation of African Unity in 1984 when it had admitted Western Sahara, which Rabat regards as part of its historical territory.) Of the 54 AU member States, 39 voted for Morocco and only nine against. Reportedly, Zuma boycotted the AU session at which Morocco’s King Mohammed VI addressed the AU – if so, a petulant and foolish display, given the widespread support Morocco obviously now enjoys across the continent, also demonstrated by the fact that most African leaders gave the king a standing ovation. (The other African leaders who opposed Morocco’s re-entry apparently attended the session, but did not join in the ovation.)

Most of the territory of Western Sahara is controlled by Morocco, delineated by a 2 700-km- long set of earthen defence works. The movement demanding full independence for the territory is known by the name Polisario Front (Polisario being a Spanish-language acronym: until 1975 the territory had been ruled by Spain), and its official name for the land is the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR). Although it controls some 25% of the territory, the SADR government remains based in Algeria. But the SADR has won only limited international recognition. (To digress a little, it seems none of South Africa’s Brics partners – Brazil, Russia, India and China – recognise the SADR.)

“South African officials were saying until recently that the return of Morocco was too big an issue to be dealt with this [summit] week, and would require a special dedicated summit during the next few months,” wrote respected journalist Peter Fabricius for the Pretoria-based Institute of Security Studies at the start of this month. “That would have given Algeria – Polisario’s greatest ally, and Morocco’s implacable rival over the issue – South Africa and several other countries time to build their case that Morocco should give guarantees that it would withdraw from Western Sahara and recognise the SADR before it rejoined.”

If so, this, of course, raises the point: How could South Africa’s Department of International Relations and Cooperation have been so out of contact with diplomatic realities on the continent that it failed to grasp the scale of support for Morocco, and thought Pretoria’s ‘special summit’ plan was credible? True, Morocco had to drop its previous demand that the SADR be expelled from the AU. But that was clearly a tactical withdrawal to win a strategic victory. Rabat is now actually better placed to agitate for the SADR’s expulsion. It would need the support of 66% of the AU’s member States, or 38 countries, to do this. And, it seems, as of last year, it has won the agreement of 28; it just needs ten more, and the SADR will be out of the AU.

But Pretoria may have suffered an even bigger defeat over the International Criminal Court (ICC). Pretoria, of course, intends to leave the ICC – a step that is highly controversial in South Africa. And it was reported that the AU summit had passed a resolution calling for a mass withdrawal of African States from the ICC. This would look like a victory for the Zuma administration. But the approval of the resolution took place behind closed doors, and things have proved to be not as clear cut as first seemed.

Nongovernmental organisation Coalition for the International Criminal Court has published online a “restricted circulation” AU paper, ‘Withdrawal Strategy Document Draft 2’, dated January 12 this year. I am presuming it is genuine because, if it were not, it would surely have been denounced as a fake by now. This document noted that “the idea of collective withdrawal [is] a concept that has not yet been recognised by international law” and thus needs “[f]urther research”. It also listed Botswana, Côte d’ Ivoire, Malawi, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Zambia as “among the African States . . . pledging continued support for the ICC.” What the strategy document was actually focused on was amending the Rome Statute (which set up the ICC), reforming the United Nations Security Council (UNSC, which has a key role with regard to the ICC), increasing African representation on the ICC and reducing the need for the ICC to become involved in African cases by strengthening national and regional legal and judicial mechanisms. To these ends, the AU should politically engage with key players regarding the ICC, such as the UNSC (and, within the UNSC, the five permanent members), the Assembly of State Parties of the ICC, and others. In other words, it was not about withdrawal at all.

In fact, raising the issue at the AU seems to have triggered a “push-back”. Nigerian Foreign Minister Geoffrey Onyeama told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) that his country and others believed the ICC was important to keep leaders accountable. “Nigeria is not the only voice agitating against [ICC withdrawal]; in fact, Senegal is very strongly speaking against it and Cape Verde and other countries are also against it. What [the AU] do (sic) was to set up a committee to elaborate a strategy for collective withdrawal. After that, Senegal took the floor, Nigeria took the floor, [and] Cape Verde and some other countries made it clear that they were not going to subscribe to that decision.” According to the NAN, he identified the other countries opposed to leaving the ICC as Botswana, Liberia, Tanzania and Zambia, plus (in the words of the news agency) “a host of others”.

One gets the impression that Pretoria expected that, in announcing its decision to leave the ICC, it would lead a pan-African rejection of the body. Instead, the result is a divided continent. Worse, South Africa may, as with the Morocco issue, be in the minority faction. However you evaluate the situation, it has not been a success for Pretoria. Strikingly, in the foreign affairs section of his recent State of the Nation address, Zuma made no reference at all to the ICC or to African States withdrawing from it. As for Morocco, he stated: “We hope the readmission of Morocco to the AU should serve as a catalyst to resolve the Western Sahara issue.” So, Pretoria’s policy on this matter is reduced to “hope”. Given this dark diplomatic picture, Zuma must have been very glad indeed to receive a phone call from Trump, even if Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari was apparently called first and, unlike Zuma, invited to Washington.

Edited by Martin Zhuwakinyu
Creamer Media Senior Deputy Editor

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