SIMON MAINA/AFP/Getty Images
South African President Jacob Zuma (L) with African Union Commissioner for Peace and Security Ramtane Lamamra
Summary
Many governments in Southern and East Africa, as well as the African Union, have refused to recognize the political legitimacy of Libya’s National Transitional Council. Western interventions in Libya, and previously in Ivory Coast, have confirmed to these longstanding regimes that the West will not desist from materially securing its political interests or comply with the incumbent interests in African states facing political upheaval. Eventually, in the case of Libya, they will have to recognize the new government, but cooperation with Western countries when political conflicts arise will be more strained and circumspect.
Analysis
South African President Jacob Zuma, representing the African Union, boycotted the Sept. 1 “Friends of Libya” conference in Paris. South Africa is one of several southern or East African countries, including Angola, Kenya, Mozambique and Uganda, to refuse to recognize the National Transitional Council as the legitimate government in Libya. Pretoria has instead supported the African Union in calling for an end to the Libyan war and the formation of an inclusive government in Tripoli, which necessarily would include members of the former regime of Moammar Gadhafi. The West ignored these calls in Libya, just as it did previously in its
intervention in Ivory Coast.
These developments in Ivory Coast and Libya have confirmed to Southern and East African countries that they cannot trust the West to desist from intervening or to comply with African Union or other pro-incumbent African interests in states undergoing political upheaval. These states already were distrustful of Western interests and behavior, especially when U.S. Africa Command is acting in the region. As a result, these counties will be even less cooperative with the West than before in addressing future political disputes in Africa — least in the southern and eastern regions. Eventually, in the case of Libya, they will have to recognize the new government, but cooperation with Western countries when political conflicts arise will be more circumspect.
Unlike Southern and East Africa, West African governments are relatively confident in their current relations with the West. The United States has positive relations with Nigeria and Liberia, and U.S. President Barack Obama has recently met with the presidents of Benin, Gabon,
Guinea, Ivory Coast, Niger and Nigeria. France also maintains extensive diplomatic and commercial relations throughout West Africa, and Paris and Washington cooperate with West African governments on counterterrorism exercises. Western diplomatic support and a French and U.N. military intervention in Ivory Coast also enabled
President Alassane Ouattara to assume power there earlier in 2011.
Alternatively, the Southern and East African countries now seeking a peaceful resolution and broad-based government in Libya were doing the same in Ivory Coast. These countries are dissimilar in political orientation, but they share commonalities in having political parties that came to power during or were shaped by Cold War struggles and that have tensions with the West. South Africa’s ruling African National Congress (ANC) received support from the Soviet Union and others, such as China (while its nemesis, the National Party, which ruled the apartheid state, was a client of the United States), relations between Western governments and Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) are antagonistic, and the United States has sought to improve relations with the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola because
Angola’s domestic security concerns — both contemporary and historical — led them to diversify political risk and view all relations with a degree of suspicion.
In 2008, the West gave political support to the leading opposition parties in the Kenyan and Zimbabwean elections. Those instances of Western involvement failed to bring about leadership change, but after the cases of Ivory Coast and Libya — where political support was followed by unyielding recognition and military intervention — the Southern and East African countries must be aware of the possibility that the West’s approach to the longstanding African regimes has changed. Western political support for opposition parties in Zimbabwe, Kenya and elsewhere is likely, but a military intervention is not (STRATFOR has previously to show why intervention is improbable). Nevertheless, the longtime regimes in these countries cannot base their policy decisions on that assumption.
Angola,
Zimbabwe,
South Africa and
Kenya all will hold elections in 2012, and Uganda recently held elections and continues to see low-level political protests. In the near term, Zimbabwe is perhaps the most vulnerable of these countries to Western influence. Zimbabwean Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s
Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) made significant headway in the last elections, thanks in part to Western political support. Zimbabwe’s neighbors, especially South Africa, already are distrustful of the MDC and now will be even more so. (Tsvangirai’s recent visits to Nigeria on Aug. 31 and Ivory Coast on Sept. 1 will redouble ZANU-PF fears of Western interference, as they see Abuja and Abidjan as proxies for Western interests.) The primary fear for Southern and East African regimes is of a pro-West Zimbabwean government serving as a beachhead for Western interference in the region. The absence of a friendly homeport or a government providing overflight privileges has made it difficult for the West to intervene as it did in Libya and Ivory Coast. But if Tsvangirai overcame the odds and, with Western backing, took power in Harare, it could change that. Consequently, the countries in the region, particularly
South Africa, can be expected to be even less cooperative with the West in resolving a potential political crisis following possible 2012 Zimbabwean elections.
The governments in Southern and East Africa cannot control events in Libya any more than they could in Ivory Coast. Once Western troops are on the ground, it is too late. Therefore, the political cooperation that occurs between
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