10 February 2003
Five days ago I was among a group of participants at the launch of a community empowerment programme that is joint initiative among two community projects, the engineering faculty at Stellenbosch University and a Dutch Foundation. The site was a well-known vineyard renowned for the quality of its wines.
The purpose of the consortium established that night is to stimulate entrepreneur ship among the historically disadvantaged communities in Stellenbosch and the Helderberg. This is one of many such small local initiatives stimulated into existence by your call, Comrade President, "Vuka uzenzele!".
The consortium was not established to deny the past. Its conception and establishment are rooted in recognition of the past, and the moral imperative today to undo the consequences of that past. The relationship between the Netherlands and the communities of the Western Cape, Black and White dates back to a time when African sovereignty was being chipped away piecemeal by increasingly aggressive European colonization. Three and a half centuries later African sovereignty has been re-established and the challenge facing the African continent is how to employ her sovereignty to empower Africa's children to survive and prosper in the twenty first century.
The central plank of South African Foreign Policy is creating the space for Africa, African countries and the peoples of Africa to define their own future by exploring and offering viable indigenously evolved alternative agendas to those imposed on our continent by former colonial powers and their allies.
The New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) is about addressing the principal challenge facing the African continent today: poverty. It is also a programme to secure the hard-won freedom of the peoples of Africa by equipping our continent for success during the 21st century. Political stability and peace remain very elusive objectives. We nonetheless have to pursue these with even greater tenacity precisely because there have been such disheartening reverses over the last three years.
The flickering flame of progress in the Sudan, Burundi and on the Horn of Africa indicates that our efforts are not fruitless.
From day one of your presidency Comrade President, you embarked on a bold foreign policy initiative in the Congo, where South Africa had become involved during the post-Mobutu interregnum. Former Mandela's attempts to arrange a relatively peaceful transfer of power had collapsed when Laurent Kabila assumed power in Kinshasa with the backing of two neighbouring countries.
South African diplomacy minimised the capacity of non-African powers to interfere in the Congo so as to give the Congolese and their neighbours a chance to resolve their problems. After three years of talks, interrupted by outbreaks of terrible bloodletting, the Congolese factions agreed to constitute a government of national unity. South Africa has invested millions of rands to keep hope in the Congo alive. South African forces are serving as peace-keepers in that country and South African investors have committed themselves to the rehabilitation of the Congolese economy. That might not be much, but it is a beginning!
Having nailed our colours to the mast of an African Rennaissance this vision has been further fleshed out by the actions of the ANC government. The arrival of the new millenium, six months after the 1999 elections offered a golden opportunity to mount Africa's most promising initiative.. Working at first with Algeria and Nigeria, we jointly crafted what was named the Millenium African Project or MAP. Map evolved into NEPAD. This ambitious programme for African economic growth and development is premised on good governance and rapid economic growth.
South Africa was given the honour of the leading the campaign to win support for EPA among the political leaders of the developed countries after being elected to chair the African Union. Commitments from two successive G8 summits, and undertakings made by ASEAN and Japan sustain our optimism. But we have at the same time insisted that Africans and African governments must assume first responsibility for the upliftment of our continent.
Under the stewardship of an extremely energetic Foreign Minister in the person of Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, South Africa has been recognised as a country punching way above its weight division.We have hosted a number of international conferences in which our country has been at the centre of crafting new policies with a significant bearing on future of our planet.
Africa has adopted new and far-reaching Human Rights instruments during the past four years. Though the rights contained in these charters are in the main aspirational, their adoption is indicative of and will reinforce the growing trend toward democratic governance on the continent. Though progress towards democratisation on the continent is still very uneven, the struggles of ordinary citizens and political activists are gaining momentum. During the course of last year employing the democratic space present in a number of African countries, the women of Africa, backed and supported by the women of the world, saved the life of Amina Lawal. The creation and extension of democratic space in Africa requires us to defend the gains of the liberation struggle, especially the civil liberties that every colonial and White minority regime on the continent suppressed.
As a poor, recently democratised developing country, South Africa is extremely jealous of her sovereignty. But we have recognised that our country cannot hope to prosper by having recourse to autarky. Given that globalisation is the reality of our modern world, South Africa has argued, multi-lateralism is preferable to unilateralism in addressing points of tension and potential conflict in the world. We have also asserted that the geo-political changes during the second part of the twentieth century required the reformation of the UNO, especially its Security Council.
Few Africans realize that there have been more Al Qaeda terrorist attacks on the African continent than anywhere else in the world. To our credit, African states have avoided the types of knee-jerk panic responses, with shades of xenophobia, we have seen in some parts of the world. South Africa has joined the international campaign against terrorism but has preserved the integrity of the democratic liberties in our Constitution.
Our presence in this chamber and today's debate testify to the fallaciousness of the claim that you can purchase security through repression.
Terrorism is the programme of action of desperate extremists who are totally lacking of a conscience. But the actions of such groups can strike resonances in societies experiencing the stress of rapid change. Collapsed and failed states have afforded terrorist networks opportunities to use their territory for training facilities and coordinating centres. This underlines the need for effective and resilient states that won't collapse at the first signs of stress and tension.
Mercenary activities, which could easily merge into terrorist networks continue to plague the world. Which is why South Africa has passed stringent legislation outlawing mercenaries. It is my view that the government should thoroughly investigate the South African mercenaries who are signing up to serve in Iraq.
When we were debating the US/UK sponsored war on Iraq, none of us realised how soon the threadbare causus belli would exposed for what it was so soon. It is extremely disturbing to hear the two heads of government, who less than 12 months ago were swearing by everything that is holy that Iraq possessed dangerous weapons of mass destruction now pronounce meally mouthed excuses that place the blame on their intelligence communities. We repeatedly drew public attention to the cynical manner in which these two governments tried to mislead the rest of the world with falsified intelligence reports, plagiarised theses and just outright lies. I trust that it is now clear to everyone that the war was not about weapons of mass destruction - they did not exist as Bush himself now admits! It was about a demonstration of US military power and served as a warning to the rest of us that the US has now adopted a new foreign policy doctrine - the doctrine of pre-emptive war, that arrogates unto it the right to attack any country the US suspects might in future be a threat to its security. The dangerous implication of such a policy thrust should be clear.
Madame Speaker,
The problem of Zimbabwe must continue to occupy our attention for reasons of altruism and of self-interest. Zimbabwe is our neighbour and the history of our two countries is intertwined. South Africa and the other SADC countries are already feeling the repercussions the economic decline of Zimbabwe. Self-interest dictates that we assist Zimbabwe back to its feet!
Helping a neighbour in trouble cannot be a pretext for imposing solutions from the outside, no matter how well-intentioned. The people of Zimbabwe must solve the problems of that country. The obligation of friends and neighbours is to assist them to reduce the high degree of polarization in that society and to be devise the means to draw the two sides of the quarrel closer. The promised national dialogue among the key players, civil society and other stakeholders is now set to take off.
What must be remembered is that none of the megaphone diplomacy and grand-standing South Africa was being advised to adopt moved the process forward. It was rather the slow, patient, low key diplomacy of South Africa that has nudged the two sides forward.
Regretably the bloodletting in the Middle East continues.The great tragedy of the Middle East is that Israel appears to feel no obligation to the enhance the credibility of the Palestinian authority. Those who tell us the conflict is not comparable to apartheid are absolutely right. I was shocked during a one week visit to Palestine last year by the concrete wall that is being erected through Palestinian territory in open defiance of international opinion. What we have in the middle east is the military occupation of other people's land by a regional mini-power. That is something far worse than apartheid was. The Spier Initiative was not an attempt to export a South African negotiating model to the Middle East. I do not think there is anyone amongst us so arrogant as to believe that ours is a model that fits all sizes and is appropriate for all situations of conflict. The joint Geneva declaration made by those committed to peace from amongst both the Israeli and Palestinian sides was a necessary confidence-building measure. It also demonstrates that there are Palestinians and Israelis who want to move beyond the cycle of mutual demonisation and are ready to explore homegrown initiatives that will replace the cul de sac of the US sponsored road map to Peace.
Madame Speaker, Comrade President,
Our optimism about the future must be tempered with a hard nonsed realism, that takes full account of the challenges that South Africa and the continent still face. On that score I must unreservedly endorse the view of the Honourable leader of the opposition, South Africa does deserve better. Our country deserves a better opposition party and a better leader of that opposition.
O yena mntu o ndothusileyo ngu Mntwana wakwa Phindangena! Ku cacile ukuba abanye bethu bayitya kamnandi le ngcinezelo sasi khala ngayo! Ade athi u Ndab'ezitha, "hayi, kwa kungcono kwase Jipetha"! Ewe, siyavuma into yokuba asikafiki kwiZweledinga. U-1994 wasibeka emazibukweni. Na ngoku, sisawela! Ukuba ke lomthwalo uya kusinda, wu beke phantsi Mntwan'omhle u ke uphumle. Uya kusifumana endleleni.
Even more alarming is the startling admission that this Alliance for Change is built on expediency, and not principle. Expediency is of course a necessary feature of politics. But let me tip Prince Buthelezi. Don't try to name any streets in Durban after Nkosi Albert Luthuli or after your uncle Pixley ka Isaka Seme. Your new alliance partners don't like the changing of street names!
We approach South Africa's third democratic elections with supreme confidence that the path the ANC is charting, Comrade President, will indeed push back the frontiers of poverty as we strive to create a better life for all our people within a better world.