STEPHANE DE SAKUTIN/AFP/Getty Images
New Chairman of the SADC and Angolan President Jose Eduardo dos Santos in Luanda, Angola, on Aug. 18
Summary
The Southern African Development Community summit concluded Aug. 18 in Angola. Angola’s president, who chaired the summit, said South African President Jacob Zuma would remain as mediator for Zimbabwe’s coalition government, to the frustration of Zimbabwe’s ruling party. It was also announced that the region would oppose early Zimbabwean elections unless certain preconditions are met. At the same time, Angola warned the government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) about its political strife. In essence, it appears Luanda and Pretoria agreed to allow each other to continue their respective dominance in the DRC and Zimbabwe.
Analysis
Angola hosted the Southern African Development Community (SADC) summit Aug. 16-18, where a couple of significant developments emerged. The first was that Angolan President Jose Eduardo dos Santos, as chair of the summit, said South African President Jacob Zuma would continue to mediate for Zimbabwe’s coalition government. Dos Santos also said Zimbabwean elections would only be supported once the country introduced a new constitution and convened a national referendum on the status of the coalition government. The second was that the SADC noted its concern regarding political strife not only in Zimbabwe and Madagascar — another country whose government is receiving SADC mediation — but also in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
The most powerful member of the 15-member regional group, South Africa, likely made a trade with Angola at the SADC in which Pretoria ensures its dominance over the Zimbabwean government while Angola retains influence over the government in the DRC.
Putting the Brakes on ZANU-PF
Zuma’s role as mediator of Zimbabwe’s coalition government has faced some opposition from hard-liners within the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF). Zuma has held political negotiations with all parties to Zimbabwe’s coalition government, including factions of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). ZANU-PF hard-liners likely fear that Zuma will interfere with their ability to engineer an elections victory that ignores opposition interests or that foists a faction of ZANU-PF resistant to South African influence.
Those concerns are not unfounded, as South Africa would likely prefer a more pliant government in Zimbabwe that would concede to South African influence. Members of the government of President Robert Mugabe, including Mugabe himself, are antagonistic toward the South Africans. This is partly because they see themselves as the true defenders of the region’s liberation struggle against apartheid, while seeing the African National Congress as young upstarts at the least and, on a more subtle level, no different from their apartheid predecessors as a predatory regime intent on ensuring de facto control over Zimbabwe. The SADC, by reaffirming Zuma’s position as mediator, has ignored the ZANU-PF’s ambitions and given Pretoria the opportunity to pursue its own.
The SADC further applied the brakes on ZANU-PF’s elections plans by stating that it would only support elections after a new constitution is passed and a referendum on the coalition government is held. Concerned about the health of 87-year-old President Robert Mugabe, whose five-year term will expire in 2013,
ZANU-PF has wanted to hold elections as early as 2011. Another election victory would guarantee another term in office for the ruling party, while it would only be guaranteed the remainder of the current presidential term should Mugabe die in office.
The SADC move does not mean that ZANU-PF is finished atop the Zimbabwean government or that the region is throwing its support behind Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai of the MDC. Defense Minister Emmerson Mnangagwa is still the factional leader in the top position to succeed Mugabe, thanks to the
death of his top rival within ZANU-PF, Solomon Mujuru. (Mnangagwa will, however, have to moderate his interactions and be less antagonistic with the South Africans should he or his faction want to stay in power for long.) But the move does make it highly unlikely that ZANU-PF will be able to force through early elections; it certainly will not be able to do so in 2011.
Angola and South Africa have competed for Zimbabwe, with its mineral and agricultural wealth, in their quests to extend their regional ambitions and counter one another. By reaffirming Zuma’s role as mediator and creating serious obstacles to an early presidential election in Zimbabwe, Angola has given South Africa unencumbered control of the Zimbabwean political process. In return, Angola has received backing to assert strong influence over the Joseph Kabila government in the DRC.
A Warning to the DRC Government
The DRC is less an immediate regional concern than it is a concern for neighboring Angola. Luanda has traditionally seen the DRC, and especially its capital region around the city of Kinshasa, as within Angola’s sphere of influence. The countries have a strained history, as both served as proxy battlegrounds against each other during the Cold War.
Though Angola defeated its Cold War domestic enemy, the opposition National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), it remains deeply distrustful of the DRC, which was a staunch backer of UNITA and still holds pro-UNITA elements. Even if the DRC government is not intently involved in undermining the Angolan government, anti-Angolan forces can use DRC territory. Because of this, Luanda is interested in ensuring that the government in Kinshasa is proactive in protecting Angolan interests and not merely relaxed about how Congolese territory might be used by anti-Angolan agents.
Additionally, Angola harbors concerns about illegal Congolese residents in its territory who are involved in alluvial diamond mining and smuggling. This population, the largest foreign population in Angola, is a body the Angolan government instinctively fears, whether or not the Congolese government is active in shaping what that diaspora is doing.
Angola and the DRC also have an ongoing and unresolved dispute over their offshore maritime boundary, an area of lucrative crude oil deposits that Kinshasa would like to get control over. Amid these concerns, the ruling People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) wants to ensure that any government in the DRC is under Luanda’s thumb, not supporting rebel groups or engaging in activities that threaten Angola’s security or economic interests. It appears South Africa, which has significant mining links to the DRC and also could support UNITA — as it did during the Cold War — has granted Angola’s wish.
By voicing concerns about the government of DRC President Joseph Kabila — who abruptly left the SADC summit after the opening welcome session — the Angolan government is warning Kabila that his government is vulnerable. The DRC is set to hold national elections in November, and while Kabila might be the favorite right now, political support could shift, and Angola might go so far as to intervene to protect its favored candidate. (The
Angolans readied some 10,000 troops to intervene in Kinshasaduring the last DRC elections, held in 2006.)
Kabila has been aware of this risk and has been making subtle moves to protect himself in the event he loses his grip on power. (Kabila is surely also mindful on a personal level of what can happen if one crosses Angola, as MPLA agents were likely involved in organizing the 2001 assassination of his father, Laurent Kabila, whom Joseph succeeded.) On Aug. 19, he oversaw the sale of two government stakes in copper mines in the country for $30 million, an amount reported to be worth 3 percent of the mines’ free market value. The two mines, one of which, Frontier mine, is the third-highest producing mine in the country, were seized by the government in early 2011. It is possible Kabila is trying to dump government controlling stakes at whatever price he can and then receive money from the deals under the table to be redirected into an offshore bank account for a post-presidency “retirement” account.
The SADC summit concluded with two parties, ZANU-PF hard-liners and Kabila, displeased. ZANU-PF will be forced to work with Zuma and the MDC and will need to wait for at least a while before holding new elections. Kabila will have to protect his own position with the threat of ouster by Angola hanging over him. Angola and South Africa, on the other hand, were able to work out an agreement to preserve their influence in countries within their respective spheres.
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