| Issue 20 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| SOUTHERN AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT COMMUNITY:
The Role of The Ogan on Pollitics, Defense and Security (OPDS)
By Dr D.P Chimanikire
November 2002
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===================== The system of national political communities still persists, but it is articulated and re-articulated today with complex economic, organizational, administrative, legal and cultural process and structures that limit and check its efficacy. The operations of states in increasing complex global and regional systems affects both their autonomy and their sovereignty by altering the balance between national, regional and international legal frameworks and administrative practices. This paper seeks to demonstrate that Southern African Countries have a long history of political co-operation and high degree of solidarity. It is a solidarity and co-operation forged on the fields of battle against settler colonialism and apartheid in Zimbabwe, Namibia and South Africa. Thus the imperative and experience of co-operation in peace and security issues generally is not new to the current political leadership and the region. It is only the circumstances and the environment that have changed. In a nutshell, SADC developmental policies form the common struggles they have had. The paper deals with the emergence and evaluation of common foreign policies of the SADCC/SADC member states as, for example, the mobilization of resources to promote the implementation of international, inter-state and regional policies, which influenced common regional diplomacy in a big way. At the common security arrangement level in the SADC region, the paper deals at length with an example of the birth and functions of the SADC Organ on Politics, Defense and Security as one of the highest forms of regional co-operation. The Institute of Development Studies at the University of Zimbabwe in collaboration with Trade and Development Studies Centre, Harare have appreciated the need to revisit and reflect on the efforts being done by SADC in the area of common security, especially the operations of the Organ of Politics, Defense and Security. We believe that for normal trade to take place in the region, peace is an indispensable condition.
====================== 1.1 The Southern African Development Coordination Conference (SADCC)) SADCC grew Out of a political grouping, the Frontline States, whose objective was to brine about independence under majority rule in Zimbabwe, Namibia and South Africa. SADCC came into being at the Lusaka summit meeting in April 1980 with a membership of nine states Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe. It explicitly sought to reduce the member states’ economic independence on South Africa through cooperation on specific projects in priority areas such as transport and communications, food security, and energy. Taking into account the failings of the East African Community (EAC) and the Economic Organization for West African States (ECOWAS), SADCC tried to avoid the market integration approach and instead adopted an incremental, project-oriented, regional cooperation approach. Its relative success as a regional cooperation organization was partly due to its focus on actions rather than on institution — building. Indeed, one way in which SADCC differed from other African integration schemes was in the manner in which responsibility for particular sectoral programs was allocated to member states. Thus transport and communications responsibility was given to Mozambique, food security to Zimbabwe, industrial development to Tanzania. and mining development to Zambia. SADCC avoided the establishment of a dominant regional bureaucracy and in that sense it was a multinational, rather than supranational, organization. SADCC gave the area of transport and communications the highest priority. Other areas of cooperation which were part of the Conferences’ regional programme of action included: food security; industrial development; energy conservation; manpower training; forestry, fisheries and wildlife; mining development; and soil conservation and land utilization. Over 80 percent of SADCC programs and projects were financed through foreign aid; Annual meetings between SADCC and its international development cooperation partners bad therefore become a specific feature of SADCC’s mode of operation. However, the situation facing the SADCC states suddenly deteriorated in the years following its creation. Between 1981 and 1986, SADCC member states experienced economic recession. increased external financial dependence, severe drought, and intensified South African backed attacks on the rural population, transport and other facilities. In spite of SADCC’s programs and activities, the sub-region became more dependent on trade and transport links with South Africa. However, by 1988, the situation had substantially improved. In t988, the improved security situation led to the reopening and upgrading of the Zimbabwe-Maputo railway line. On 21th March 1990, Namibia’s independence raised SADCC’s membership to ten.’ The origin, norms, values and evolution of SADCC have to be understood in the context of time, as various factors shaped its design, objectives, norms, principles and decision-making structures. Among these are geographic contingency, common history, colonial experience, the corrosive force of apartheid and racism, the ideology of nationalism with its emphasis on the seizure and consolidation of own power, and its relationship to national independence, nation building and de-colonization, the proclivity towards personal in the cases of Zambia (Kaunda) ================= Zimbabwe, and the respective supporters of each. South Africa, with support mainly from Mozambique, Tanzania, Botswana and Zambia, is sometimes referred to as the “peace-making bloc” and Zimbabwe (and its allies, particularly Angola and Namibia) as the “defence treaty bloc.” These two labels to some extent summarize the different approaches to security with the region. The problem of friction surrounding the OPDS, its structure and its relationship to the SADC was finally resolved, at least on paper, at the August 2001 SADC Summit in Blantyre with the adoption of the OPDS Protocol, signed by all member states except Angola (due to a legal— technical matter that was soon to be resolved in the very near future). However, the adoption for the Protocol does not necessarily mean that the region will then be a functioning and effective security structure. First, the Protocol will only come into force once it has been ratified by two— thirds of the member states. Also, a number of problems may well persist Into the medium and long term, and these include: A crucial, principle that still needs to be clarified is whether the OPDS will be used by heads of state and government to protect each other, or whether, in the spirit of the SADC Treaty. it will be used to protect the people of the region. Decision-making within the OPDS is another matter that can have serious impact on the efficiency of the Organ in that if it is on the basis of consensus it may result in watered down or eyen no decisions in the case of contentious issues on the agenda. If a formula is found whereby member states will have to abide by majority decisions within the OPDS there might be more chance of success.5 2.5 Conclusion The study on SADC and the role of the Organ on Politics, Defence and Security has revealed that national self-determination during the colonial period and supra-nationalism of the PanAfricanism Movement promoted and still promotes unity and solidarity among SADC member states. Both forms of nationalism have combined to be potent mobilizing agents in the areas of economic development and common security. Regionalism perceived by SADC states advances the causes, freedom, and unity in their attempt to increase economies of scale. As noted in the study, the origins of SADCC/SADC and hence their common security arrangements approach are to be found in the military alliance of the Frontline States which was first organized in 1974 to assist in the liberation of Zimbabwe. |
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