South Africa's foreign policy criticised

By Norm Dixon
South Africa's foreign policy under the ANC-led government of national unity is coming under increasing criticism from sections of the liberation movement, human rights groups and the environmental movement. Critics accuse the new government of failing to provide the moral leadership many expected from a government propelled into office by a mass democratic movement. Concern has increased as the ANC-majority government has taken decisions sharply at odds with the sentiments of ANC supporters and often in contradiction with stated ANC policy. At a workshop in Cape Town in early June, the Foreign Affairs Department and its minister, ANC veteran Alfred Nzo — derisively dubbed "Alfred Nzzzz" by critics — were heavily criticised.
Spokesperson for the Congress of South African Trade Unions Neil Coleman commented that "South Africa can play a leading role in challenging global apartheid, and the department should be geared to doing so. But we have yet to see such policies emanating from the department."
According to University of Durban-Westville academic John Daniels, almost 90% of Foreign Affairs Department staff, including its director general, have been retained from the apartheid era. ANC members trained overseas to take over the department's tasks have found that they are not wanted. "Policy is made by a small elite who are determined to maintain the shroud of secrecy in the department", Daniels told the workshop.
Policies that have drawn criticism include the government's attitude to the Indonesian and Sudanese regimes, its failure to recognise the Sahrawi Republic (Western Sahara) and its stand on the recent extension of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and other international treaties on the environment.
President Nelson Mandela visited Indonesia in 1991 and again last year despite widespread support for the struggle of the East Timorese people. In late May, Mandela revealed that the ANC had received large donations from Indonesian President Suharto. Mandela did not publicly raise concerns about Indonesia's occupation of East Timor or the widespread human rights abuses. Presidential spokespeople say Mandela did raise these questions privately.
According to a report in the June 9 Weekly Mail and Guardian, ANC MP Raymond Suttner, also a senior member of the South African Communist Party, said that government's friendly relationship with Indonesia seems to stem from the fact that Indonesia's president made donations to the ANC.
Suttner added that there was little information about where most foreign policy originates in the government. Decision making in the department has not changed substantially, he is quoted as saying.
Similarly, South Africa's diplomatic and trade links with the reactionary Sudanese regime and its silence regarding the struggle of the people of southern Sudan is causing concern.
Human rights activist Simon Ratcliffe pointed out in the June 2 Weekly Mail and Guardian that the Department of Foreign Affairs supposedly has a unit which examines the human rights records of countries South Africa has diplomatic relations with. "What are their findings on Indonesia and Sudan? What is their bottom line?", he asked. "While in exile, the ANC demanded a moral stand from the international community against the apartheid government. It should apply similar principles in the application of South Africa's foreign policy."
During the era of the apartheid regime, the ANC was a firm supporter of the struggle of people of the Western Sahara, led by the Polisario Front, for the right to self-determination, which has been denied by the occupation forces of the brutal Moroccan regime. The Moroccan regime's war with the Sahrawi people was supported materially and politically by Pretoria. The Polisario Front donated captured South African-supplied weapons to the ANC to aid its armed struggle.
Yet, as an article in the SACP's African Communist points out, "The sad fact remains — over 12 months after our democratic elections, the South African government still does not recognise the [Sahrawi Republic] ... We are absolutely alone in this regard among all southern African states — even Malawi has recently accorded recognition ...
"The Department of Foreign Affairs' argument that we should wait for the [UN-supervised] referendum ... fails to recognise that there will be no free and fair referendum unless major pressure in now placed on Morocco. One simple and effective step would be for SA to accord diplomatic recognition to the Sahrawi Republic. Our present failure to move is simply contributing to Morocco's growing intransigence and the belief that it can get away with defying world opinion."
Another area where the new government has disappointed is international environmental questions. South African representatives have sided with the rich countries at the Berlin negotiations on climate change to shift the responsibility for the reduction of polluting gases from the First World to the Third World. South African officials are also working closely with the industrialised countries and the chemical industry to undermine international conventions against the export of toxic wastes for "recycling".
"It is becoming a regular pattern that central government is only listening to big money and purposely excluding trade unions, civics and NGOs in environmental decision making", commented David Mabilu of the Environmental Justice Networking Forum, the organisation that unites South Africa's environmental groups.
At the June meeting to review the NPT, South Africa sided with the US, rather than the OAU and other Third World countries, to support the indefinite extension of the NPT. Foreign Minister Nzo ignored arguments that the NPT does not bind the weapon states to disarm and that an indefinite extension would make that situation permanent.
David Fig of the Group for Environmental Monitoring, one of South Africa's leading environment groups, slammed Nzo: "Being the only country to give up its nuclear weapons, we are now abandoning our moral right to expect other weapons states to do the same. It is an opportunity lost."
South Africa's post-apartheid foreign policy has not been completely negative, however. South Africa has taken a strong stand against the US blockade of Cuba and voted against a politically motivated, US-sponsored motion in the UN for an investigation into human rights in Cuba. Mandela has also been a vocal critic of the British government's failure to support the peace process initiated by Sinn Fein in Ireland.