ABSTRACT
South Africa returned to the international diplomatic stage only after the Apartheid regime fell. It has since then occupied an important position within SADC, and the AU and has been voted into the UN Security Council twice. Both SADC and the AU would not be the organisations they are today without South Africa. Indeed the return of South Africa to the international scene has chiefly facilitated the reform of these two organisations. As the Apartheid regime forcefully intervened in its neighbouring countries destabilising them in order to preserve a white minority rule in South Africa, Southern African nations grouped together as Frontline States (FLS), forming a political block against South Africa. In 1980 the FLS was converted into the Southern African Development and Co-ordination Conference (SADCC) which later on was followed up by the foundation of SADC. However, only after Mandela was elected president did SADC develop further. In the earlier years of South Africa’s return to African and international politics it went through a prolonged phase of reintegration. This phase can best be characterised as partly experimental, history cautious and invigorated by a new political vision for Africa. In other words, it is not free of seemingly erratic or contradictory moves. Especially in the 1990s, South Africa had a bumpy start in Africa. The first major international encounter was related to Nigeria and its military ruler General Abacha. Mandela’s anti-Abacha campaign within the OAU and Commonwealth received practically no resonance among African leaders. In the Congo conflict Mandela set the course for South African prerogatives in peace and security which henceforth followed the concept of quiet diplomacy. However, here again South Africa did not set the tune well with its neighbours in Southern Africa. In 1997 when Joseph Kabila
was struggling to win against Mobuto, most SADC countries agreed to militarily support Kabila while South African diplomacy was seen as aiding primarily Mobuto. In the end, the South African sponsored peace talks in Pretoria failed and a group of SADC countries under the leadership of Zimbabwe sent troops in support of Kabila who took the military advantage and ousted Mobuto. Certainly these events made South Africa more worried about its role and perception within Africa. Still, in the following years a preponderance of diplomacy, negotiations and power sharing became apparent. This strategy became most visible during the Zimbabwe crisis in which South Africa insisted on a quiet diplomacy approach despite increasing international pressure to tame Mugabe with a more proactive foreign policy. An exceptional case of unilateral South African intervention is operation Boleas in Lesotho in 1998.2 In order to prevent a mutiny of junior officials of the Lesotho army South Africa intervened militarily and without an explicit UN Security Council mandate. Rather visibly, economic interests guided the intervention as a multibillion water dam project was essential for the water supply of the industrial heartland in the northern provinces of South Africa.3 In order to revitalise South African foreign policy the concept of ‘African Renaissance’ was prominently promoted by the Mbeki government and has been influential for many years.4 For South Africa the concept functioned as a vehicle for continental leadership aspirations. The concept of African Renaissance was understood as a holistic approach that draws a connection between peace and security, good governance, and socio-economic development. South Africa’s imprint in the newly erected AU was initially more visible in the area of development and good governance than in questions of peacekeeping in which South Africa favoured a quiet diplomacy approach. Institutionally this orientation became clearly visible with South African support for the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) and the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) both located in South Africa.5
