South Africa's foreign policy: Human rights and national interests
At the Auckland conference of
Commonwealth Heads of Government, President Mandela took a powerful
position of principle over the abuse of human rights and denial of
democracy by the Nigerian military government. All South Africans had
cause to feel proud of the way in which Mandela not only shaped but led
the response to the crisis occasioned by the execution of Ken Saro-Wiwa
and his fellow dissidents. G7 states like Britain and Canada accepted
Mandela's lead and he was hailed as perhaps the only world leader of
truly international moral stature.
This stand was pregnant with promise within our own region too, for
South Africa is in a strong position to influence events in a
democratic direction in countries far closer to home than Nigeria, as
its successful attempts to exercise moral suasion in Lesotho and
Swaziland have already demonstrated. It seemed possible that the new
South Africa would carry its moral message to the world in the shape of
a foreign policy based on human rights. The international prestige of
South Africa's democratic revolution was further reinforced by the
enthusiasm this stand provoked.
A UN Security Council
seat?
At this point an enormous diplomatic opportunity beckoned. There has
long been discussion of the broadening of the permanent membership of
the UN Security Council from its present Big Five to include Germany
and representatives of Asia [Japan], Latin America [Brazil] and Africa,
but there has never been an African representative the big powers could
agree on. Suddenly, the jigsaw seemed complete: Mandela's South Africa,
proudly bearing the flag of racial reconciliation and human rights,
could become one of the new Big Nine - a place in the comity of nations
that even ]an Smuts in his heyday had never dreamed of.
In only a few months this prodigious promise has been comprehensively
squandered. No sooner had Mandela returned home than mutterings were
heard that South Africa was now isolated in Africa, that it had been
somehow "manipulated" into taking up an anti-Nigerian position by "the
forces of British and American imperialism".
It soon became clear that key members of the government regretted
Mandela's stand and were determined to effect a rapprochement with the
Abacha regime in Lagos. We had soon to endure the humiliating sight of
South Africa's Foreign Minister, Alfred Nzo, working hard to water down
a UN resolution condemning Abacha's atrocity-strewn rule. Worse still,
when the Commonwealth Foreign Ministers met it was the reliable
Commonwealth liberals, Canada and Australia, who had lent such doughty
support to the anti-apartheid struggle, who were now loudest in their
demand for stronger action against Lagos while South Africa shuffled
its feet: an embarrassed Nzo tried hard to dodge questions about
Nigeria.
For the truth was that we now had a Nigerian policy which even the
government was ashamed of owning up to. just how shameful only became
apparent when the exiled Nigerian democratic movement led by the Nobel
Laureate, Wole Soyinka, attempted to hold a conference in Johannesburg
on 29 March, with the objective of setting up headquarters for a united
Nigerian democratic movement here on African soil. The Helen Suzman
Foundation gave the Nigerians all the support we could, finding
speakers for them and offering our hospitality and support. But the
conference was sabotaged.
In the six weeks before the conference South African embassies all
over the world, on orders from the Foreign Ministry in Pretoria,
refused to grant visas for Nigerian democrats to enter South Africa
and, just a week before the conference, the ANC National Working Party
[NWP] called for the conference to be cancelled.
Betrayal of Nigeria's
democrats
It went ahead, though in tragically diminished form: quite shamefully,
Soyinka was unable to set up his headquarters on South African soil and
the only Nigerians able to attend were those travelling on Canadian and
American passports who did not need visas.
At the door of the conference one NWP member put out the word that the
reason why attendance was so low was that it was so difficult for
Nigerian dissidents to leave Nigeria, although he must have known this
was a lie: the dissidents left Nigeria easily
enough but, unable to meet in South Africa, met in Oslo.
In a cynical touch reminiscent of the PW Botha days, the Nigerians
were told on the day of the conference itself - far too late - that
entry visas to South Africa could now be granted. Meanwhile, the
promise that the ANC and government would help pay for the conference
evaporated and the Nigerians were left holding a large bill. These
Nigerian democrats were shamefully treated.
Nigeria is the largest country in Africa, the world's biggest black
nation and they had looked to South Africa to stand up for democracy
there. They had believed what Mandela had said in Auckland but Pretoria
had stealthily embarked on a policy of appeasement towards Abacha, a
policy which would have been threatened had the Nigerians been allowed
to set up their exile HQ in Johannesburg.
There is now talk of a Mandela-Abacha meeting, though Nigerian
dissidents treat with derision the idea that it might achieve anything
and Mandela himself sounds distinctly reluctant to meet Abacha.
Meanwhile South Africa has incurred considerable criticism over the
way it has sought to nurture relations with Cuba and Libya, both of
whom have appalling human rights records and do not tolerate free
elections or a free press.
Most damaging of all, Nzo put his name to a communiqué which was
widely seen as taking Libya's side in the Lockerbie bomb affair. This
was the most expensive document Nzo has ever signed, for with this one
gesture all hope of a seat on the UN Security Council vanished. There
is simply no way that the major powers will allocate such a thing to a
country that aligns itself with Libya.
It is naive to imagine that South Africa can have a selfless foreign
policy based solely on human rights. The promotion of national interest
is the inevitable and entirely proper heart of every country's foreign
policy - indeed, it could be argued that it is any government's moral
duty to its citizens to promote that interest. So it would not be
surprising if South Africa wished to modify a purist human rights stand
to stay on side with states with whom its trade, investment or defence
links are particularly strong.
But South Africa has no such links with Nigeria, Libya or Cuba: it has
compromised its principles for nothing. Indeed, the situation is
actually worse, for its behaviour has unnerved precisely those
countries and milieux on which South Africa depends economically, with
results in the money markets that we all know.
Return to Mandela's
policy
When South Africa first announced its strong line against the Abacha
regime, the Helen Suzman Foundation wrote to Alfred Nzo, warmly
congratulating him on this principled and humanitarian policy and
expressing the wish that South Africa would exercise similar pressures
in favour of democracy elsewhere in Africa. In fact, it is now clear,
we were supporting President Mandela whose unerring instinct and
initiative in this matter have been sadly unsupported by his own
Foreign Ministry. We would now enjoin Nzo to return to the Mandela line
not only because it is profoundly sad to have betrayed Soyinka and
Nigeria's democratic opposition but because when humanitarian principle
and national interest lead in the same direction, it is foolish, if not
immoral, to choose the opposite path.