Mills Soko Business Day 1st

SA's statement on US-Iraq standoff should lead to wider debate about policy challenge facing the continent

PRESIDENT Thabo Mbeki's statement last Friday on the standoff between the US and Iraq represents the first comprehensive explanation of the SA government's position on the unfolding events in the Middle East.

His letter, which appeared on the ANC Today website, should serve to initiate a wider debate regarding not only how the African continent will be affected by the US-led global offensive against terrorism, but also how it ought to respond to the challenges posed by international terror.

It is surprising that these questions have received such scant consideration from African analysts. Indeed, there are still numerous African commentators who dismiss the "war on terror" as irrelevant to the region.

This perception ignores the changed nature of the global context since the events of September 11 2001 brought sharply into focus by the recent attacks in Kenya. Global terrorism has elevated Africa to the top of US strategic priorities in the same way as the fear of communism did at the height of the cold war.

The indifference to Africa that marked the early months of the Bush administration has been supplanted by a determination to engage with it.

Although the nature of this engagement remains imprecise, it does raise a slew of questions that merit the attention of African pundits and decision makers.

Foremost among these is the issue of failed African states such as Somalia, Sudan, Liberia, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Sierra Leone.

In its national security strategy the US administration has identified state failure as a serious threat to global stability and US national security.

Arguing that failed states serve as attractive sanctuaries and springboards for terrorist organizations, it has sanctioned the launch of preemptive strikes against states suspected of harboring terrorists.

It would be interesting to see whether the US will enforce this doctrine against the governments of Liberia and Burkina Faso, which have been accused by European intelligence agencies of complicity in an Al-Qa’eda plot to channel diamonds and arms through West Africa prior to and after the September 11 attacks.

The US has also has endorsed the notion of nation building as a long-term antidote to terror. As was shown by the disastrous UN intervention in Somalia in 1992, nation building, while noble, is an inherently dangerous business, which has an ugly resonance in parts of Africa. It is not clear if the international community, and the US in particular, has learnt the right lessons from the Somalia fiasco.

Successful nation building requires more than military intervention. It also demands considerable spending on disarmament, the reintegration of communities ravaged by conflict, skills development, job creation, and the reconstruction of collapsed government institutions.

Crucially, nation building in Africa cannot be accomplished without the involvement of key continental actors such as the African Union and civil society organizations. Judging by the experience of Afghanistan, it is doubtful whether the US will commit substantial resources to underwrite the long-term rehabilitation of unstable African states. Still, the decision to set up a new military command centre in Djibouti not long ago presages a sustained if not permanent US strategic entanglement in the Horn of Africa.

Second, the US has designated SA, Kenya, Nigeria and Ethiopia as "anchors for regional engagement" that deserve special attention. It could be inferred from this that the US seeks to assign these countries a prominent role in its global security operations.

Courting regionally important states has been a long-standing US foreign policy goal. During the Cold War the US propped up African states such as the then Zaire under Mobutu and assigned them the role of bulwark against potential Soviet expansion.

US aid flowed freely to these countries in spite of their violations of their peoples' human rights. To his credit, when he toured Africa in 1998 former US president Bill Clinton expressed remorse for his country's backing of vicious African dictators.

The question now is what will Africa get in return for supporting the US in its anti-terror drive? And at what cost to African countries will such a reward, if any, accrue?

African states have a vital role to play in securing the physical safety of their citizens and in preventing acts of terror in their region. But it is important that in the course of performing this role they resist the dubious agendas propagated by sections of the present governing US elites.

Third, the battle against terrorism has placed African oil at the heart of US security concerns.

Uncertainty about Iraq's future has prompted US oil companies to look to Africa for their future oil supplies. Already Africa provides 18% of US crude oil, compared with 27% the US imports from the Persian Gulf. The expectation that oil production in Angola and Nigeria leading suppliers to the US will increase exponentially in the next five to 10 years will make Africa a major player in international oil politics.

But does obsession with African oil mean that the US administration and oil companies will continue to turn a blind eye to malfeasance within some African governments?

A case in point is the confidential International Monetary Fund report leaked recently, which shows $4,3bn has vanished from the Angolan public purse in the past five years as a result of irregular bookkeeping at Sonangol, Angola's state-owned oil corporation.

Failure to condemn such excesses reinforces the perception that US policy towards Angola is motivated exclusively by its interest in securing Angolan oil. It makes a mockery of the platitudes mouthed by the US and other developed nations about the need for good governance in Africa.

Lastly, there's a danger that the New Partnership for Africa's Development could be overshadowed by the international community's preoccupation with terrorism. The original Marshall Plan entailed the US channeling 1% of national income for five years more than $100bn at current prices to war-ravaged Europe.

Given the fragile state of the world economy, coupled with mounting domestic concerns within the US and the European Union, it is unlikely the same amount of largesse will be lavished on Africa.

Indeed, the failure of African leaders at the Group of Eight summit in Kananaskis to convince western leaders to buy into Nepad has cast doubts on the latter's commitment to the plan.

Perversely, it is not the exhortations of the champions of Nepad but the dread of terrorism that might persuade the industrialized countries to take it more seriously. Historical accounts of the Marshall Plan show it was mainly geo-strategic calculations that led the US to aid Europe.

Even so, African governments would be better served if they ensured that the drive to attract external resources was under-girded by a massive mobilisation of indigenous resources.

Soko is a Doctoral Candidate in the Department of Politics and International Studies at the University of Warwick, UK. This article is based on a paper presented recently before the Africanist Researchers Seminar Network at the same university.

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