Peace and Security in SADC region; Structural Bilateral Mechanism with DRC

Meeting report

Chairperson’s opening remarks

The Chairperson said that the Minister of the Department of International Relations and Cooperation (DIRCO) could not attend the meeting because she was in West Africa with the President, and the Deputy Minister unfortunately had a bereavement in his family.

He had been given a mandate to speak to the Minister about the possibility of a physical meeting, and she would be available for a meeting in Cape Town next Tuesday. This meant that if the Portfolio Committee agreed to have the meeting with the Minister on that day, the Committee would have to make a special application to the person responsible for programmes in Parliament and the Office of the Speaker. The Committee was supposed to discuss the outstanding issues with the Minister, including matters that had been raised in the Auditor-General's (AG's) report and the consequence management report, as well as other outstanding reports which the Committee had agreed upon.

He asked if Members of the Portfolio Committee agreed to meet with the Minister on Tuesday, and said that if they did not agree, they would have to meet with the Minister early next year when Parliament reopened.

Mr M Chetty (DA) agreed that the Committee should meet with the Minister on Tuesday.

Mr T Mpanza (ANC) also agreed to meet with the Minister on Tuesday, and wanted to know if there was a possibility of the meeting being hybrid.

The Chairperson said that it could be possible to have a hybrid meeting, but the Committee had initially asked to have a physical meeting with the Minister.

Mr Chetty said that it would defeat the purpose to go back into a hybrid meeting and that if Members were not available, the meeting should be postponed.

Mr B Nkosi (ANC) agreed with Mr Chetty.

The Chairperson said that the other variable might be the possibility of the President’s address on Sunday evening, and that the Committee should hope that there would be no strict COVID-19 regulations implemented after the address. He said the meeting on Tuesday would happen, depending on the availability of the Members of the Portfolio Committee and the outcome of the President’s address on Sunday. If Members were not available for a physical meeting, it could be held virtually.

Briefing by DIRCO

Mr Clayson Monyela, Deputy Director-General: Public Diplomacy, DIRCO, said that the two agenda items for discussion related to Southern Africa, which was the focus of South Africa’s foreign policy -- to promote political and socio-economic integration among its neighbours and to achieve peace, security and sustainable economic development. DIRCO drove this policy bilaterally. 

Mr Nkosi interjected to say that in his understanding, the Minister was supposed to lead the discussion, and in her absence, the Director-General (DG) was supposed to lead. He wanted to know the position in which Mr Monyela was acting, and why the DG was not in the meeting.

Mr Monyela said that the position of Director-General was currently vacant, and whoever the Minister appointed to act in an engagement took the responsibility. He said that Ambassador Losi was currently out of the country, so he had been given the responsibility by the Minister to act on her behalf.  

Mr Nkosi accepted Mr Monyela’s response, but commented that he was supposed to mention that before he started with the presentation, to avoid confusion.

Mr Chetty wanted to know whether Mr Monyela was acting on behalf of the DG, or if the DG was no longer in the position and Mr Monyela was appointed in the acting position for a certain period. He said that if the DG was accompanying the Minister on the trip to West Africa, then an apology should have been sent to the Committee on her behalf.

Mr Monyela said that because the position of DG was vacant, the Minister may appoint different officials at the level of Deputy Director-General to act in the position from time to time. Ambassador Losi would be the acting DG when she returned to the country.

The Chairperson said that the Committee would have appreciated a letter notifying them of the absence of the acting DG and who would be acting on her behalf, to avoid the confusion. He accepted the explanation and allowed Mr Monyela to continue.

Mr Monyela said that DIRCO drove SA’s foreign policy bilaterally through different instruments, including through structural bilateral mechanisms as well as the Southern African Development Community (SADC). Regarding the structural bilateral mechanism with the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), it was important to recall that South Africa’s relations with the DRC were historic and fraternal. South Africa’s efforts in pursuit of peace and stability in the DRC and the entire Great Lakes region were well documented. The former South African President, Nelson Mandela, had made a groundbreaking effort in 1997 when he facilitated a meeting between the late President Laurent Kabila and Mobutu Sese Seko on the South African Navy ship in Pointe-Noire, Congo Brazzaville. Since this historic development, the country had been involved in the DRC, including in post-conflict reconstruction and development programmes. The Bi-National Commission (BNC) between the two countries was established in 2004 through the signing of the general cooperation agreement. The BNC was currently presided over by the two heads of state and its scope was very broad, as demonstrated by over 37 agreements that had been signed between the two countries. It was imperative to also underscore that the BNC provided a platform not only to discuss bilateral cooperation issues, but also to discuss regional, continental and international issues of common interest.

Mr Monyela said that the original vision of SADC was premised on a future in a regional community that would ensure the well-being, improvement in the living standards and quality of life, freedom, social justice, as well as peace and security, for the people of the region. This vision continued to be the beacon for the work and future strategies of SADC. The SADC vision 2015, as well as the Regional Indicative Strategic Development Plan (RISDP 2020-2030) vision, which was adopted by the SADC summit in 2020, were premised on this vision. This meeting took place in the context where South Africa had assumed the chairpersonship of the SADC organ on politics, defence and security cooperation, and this was for the period August 2021 to August 2022. Therefore, when there were the recent challenges in the Kingdom of Eswatini, the ministerial team went there, led by Minister Naledi Pandor, and later by President Ramaphosa. This was an effort to engage the King and all the other role players and stakeholders, state and non-state actors, including civil society, to try and march them towards having meaningful dialogue that was all inclusive to try and resolve the challenges. South Africa firmly believed in the principle that political challenges were best resolved through dialogue to produce a solution that was durable. The attainment of peace and security was a critical enabler and the foundation for socio-economic development of the region.

BNC between SA and DRC

Ms Linda Shongwe, Chief Director: SADC, presented on the Bi-National Commission between South Africa and the DRC. The presentation detailed the SA-DRC cooperation agenda, the agreements and Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs), as well as the objectives for convening the 12th Session of the BNC.

She said that South Africa’s cooperation with the DRC was anchored on technical and institutional capacity building, economic cooperation, and security sector reform. This was aimed at realising the DRC’s post-conflict reconstruction and development. There had been a noticeable increase in the South African investment in the DRC economy. SA and the DRC signed the Grand Inga Hydropower Treaty in 2013, which was due for renewal in 2023. The INGA 3 project was expected to generate 11 500 megawatts of electricity. 

She said that the main objectives of the BNC were as follows:

To review progress in the implementation of agreed projects and decisions of the 11th BNC; 
To enhance existing bilateral relations and cooperation, and identify areas for future cooperation; and
To exchange views on national, regional and international matters of common interest.

Ms Shongwe also presented on SADC and its mandate implications for peace and security in the region. The presentation detailed the SADC mandate, the SADC blueprints, the RISDP 2020-2030 priorities, as well as details on SA’s chairpersonship of the SADC organisation. She said SADC’s mandate was to promote sustainable and equitable economic growth and socio-economic development through efficient, productive systems, deeper co-operation and integration, good governance, and durable peace and security, so that the region emerged as a competitive and effective player in international relations and the world economy. SADC member states were guided by the principles of sovereign equality of all member states; solidarity, peace, and security; human rights, democracy, and the rule of law; equity, balance, and mutual benefit; and peaceful settlement of disputes.

Ms Shongwe said that the key SADC blueprints for implementing regional, political, and economic integration included the SADC vision 2050, which envisages a peaceful, inclusive, competitive, middle- to-high-income industrialised region, where all citizens enjoy sustainable economic well-being, justice and freedom. This was also aligned with the African Union (AU) agenda 2063 and the United Nation 2030 Sustainable Development Goals(SDGs). The SADC blueprints also included the RISDP 2020-2030, which draws from Vision 2050 and sets out a comprehensive ten-year development agenda for addressing social, economic, political and governance issues in the region.

Discussion

Mr D Bergman (DA) said that the presentation could be summed up as stability, growth, and peace. However, these were just words, as in the last two years there had been a threat to security, a threat to stability, and it was something that South African citizens were glad was not happening in South Africa. The fact was that Mozambique was just a hop, skip and a jump away from South Africa, and what happened in Mozambique was foreseen and did not come as a surprise, as the country had not been safe for the past four years. Outside interference was invited into the region because of the instability that was taking place in Mozambique that was not being handled by SADC. “The truth is that SADC has been a glorified talk shop and a league of gentlemen for a long time, and that is where things are failing”, he said.

He said that if the Minister were to send a message from South Africa to the SADC, he would give her three key areas to send to SADC. Firstly, in Eswatini there were two Members of Parliament (MPs) who were in prison because of the current situation with the King, and the SADC needed to free them before they get to the negotiating table, because it was a political infringement. Secondly, in the DRC, there were two governments -- the democratically elected government and the government that was rising in the east. South Africa, as the Chair of SADC, needed to make sure that this was stopped before it became an embarrassment to democracy and SADC. Thirdly, on a positive note, in Zimbabwe there was an opportunity for SADC to bring all the parties together around the table and create a new constitution, get a new buy in, and start to push the reset button and start a new interim government, instead of having an election. Maybe that would generate new foreign investment and the sanctions against the people could be lifted. He said that when it came to Mozambique, SADC needed to be careful of where the cells were and where they were operating, and the intelligence needed to be a bit swifter. The SADC chair rotations should happen over three or four years so that the chair country had an opportunity to get their teeth into the situation and provide a solution to the problem.  

Mr Nkosi said it was important that a proper security analysis was presented to the Committee on the threat to security caused by ISIS in Mozambique. He welcomed the progress that had been made in Lesotho, as it demonstrated the importance of engaging in dialogue and intervening in a way that brought together different views to the table. The threat remained active, however, and SADC should not lower its guard, but continuously engage in ensuring that there was cooperation among the parties involved. Once there was stability in the northern region of Mozambique, it should be buttressed by the Mozambique government, acting in a manner that ensures integration or reintegration of the north and the entire country through specific economic programmes.

The issue of improved regional maritime security required urgent attention in South Africa, but with its long coastline stretching from north of the Atlantic seabed to the north of the Indian seabed, he was concerned about whether the Department was aware of the South African National Defence Force's (SANDF's) defence capabilities to offer security for the coast.

He said that the relationship between SA and the DRC had not yielded the desired results as planned. SA’s presence in the DRC through economic security provision and the building of state capacity must be assessed, to understand the extent to which SA had been able to play a role in creating political stability through military intervention. The second issue that required attention and assessment was economic bilateral cooperation, because when SA reestablished relations with the DRC, there had been optimism in the agricultural sector in the country, as well as a variety of business interests. This had waned a lot because of the conditions of trade in the DRC, where people felt that their mining interests were being reversed and taken over without due process being followed. There was a need for a multifaceted approach from DIRCO and the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) to assess the impact of their earlier interventions before moving towards additional responsibilities. Regarding the INGA, he said that when constructing and building dams, the economic multiplier effects were enormous, and the opportunities provided gave an indication of the possible economic direction of the region where the dams were built. He said that he was concerned that the process was waning, as South Africa had prioritised the construction of the dam because of the possibility of providing energy and relieving Eskom. This required an independent assessment not only by DIRCO, but also by the relevant departments directly involved to ensure that the project was implemented.

Ms T Msane (EFF) said that the reaction of SADC was very slow, and in many of their treaties and protocols, certain clauses provide for it to act in a speedy manner. The SADC body allowed too much latitude in countries without invoking certain clauses which would allow it to act speedily, for example with what happened in Mozambique. Article 61 of the SADC mutual defence pact states that an attack against a state party shall be considered a threat to regional peace and security, and to have such clauses in pacts and not be able to invoke them and keep peace and security in the region, made the body redundant and useless. SADC needed to be given more teeth so that it could be decisive and able to act in a manner that could stop an insurgency just as it begins, because it meant the early warning system was useless. “Looking at the history of the African continent, insurgencies seem to be our bread and butter, and for countries to have a choice of hiring a private military company, it renders all our defence useless”, she said. She wanted to know when SADC would review its 2011 strategy for countering piracy in the Western Indian Ocean, because in most of the insurgencies that happened, maritime security could not be used as a form of intervention because of the piracy strategy.

Referring to Eswatini, she said there had been assistance talks to promote democracy, and the protocol provided for means of resolving disputes should there be no peaceful way of resolving the conflict. In the protocol on politics and defence and security, it states that where there was no peaceful means of resolving conflict, the chairperson, acting on the advice of the Ministerial Committee, may recommend to the summit that enforcement action could be taken. She wanted to know the type of enforcement action being used by SADC in Eswatini, and why the chairperson of the Peace Committee had not made any recommendation, because it could be seen that peaceful means were not working in the country and people were dying. She also wanted to know what use the South African Police Chiefs Cooperation Organisation was, and whether it still existed. How could it seek to assist in conflicts in the SADC region?

She wanted to know if there were any infrastructure projects in the DRC such as roads and railways, seeing that the African continent had signed the African continental free trade agreement. Were there any flagship infrastructure projects that one could say were linking the SADC region? She said that the insurgency in the DRC was a continental problem, and wanted to know whether the African Union (AU) and South Africa were looking at finding a permanent defence force to stop the reliance on the United Nations (UN).  

Ms B Swarts (ANC) wanted to know how the SADC organisation worked, and whether it was incapacitated. She said the region must be able to solve issues and make its own decisions so that it did not appear as if it did not know what it was doing. SA had a long relationship with the DRC, starting from 1997, and she wanted to know the benefit of this relationship. What had been the economic benefits, as the country seemed to enter into agreements but never benefited from them? SA needed to focus on the INGA project because it was pumping resources into it, but the benefits were not visible as it seemed as if the project was dying.

The Chairperson said that South Africa was in the process of building a non-racial society, which also needed to be visible in the economy of the country. The reality was that the country was far from reaching the stage of building a truly non-racial South Africa, where most of the citizens who were African and black were in total control and had ownership of the economy. He said the country was said to be exporting almost $900 billion to the DRC, and asked for a breakdown in terms of the progress on non-racialism produced by this investment.

Referring to the INGA project, he said that the World Bank was pulling out, and he wanted to know the reasons for this because it impacted on multilateralism. Lastly, he wanted to know whether the Department was satisfied that SADC was capacitated enough to deal with issues of peace and security whenever issues arose.

DIRCO's response

Mr Monyela said that at the time when the insurgence in northern Mozambique occurred, Mozambique was the Chair of the SADC, so questions on the speed with which the regional leadership had been convened to discuss and respond could be viewed within that context. Another country could not arrive at a sovereign country to resolve security matters without the authorisation or invitation from that country. He said one of the former DIRCO Ministers had referred to South Africa as "the uncle with a wet blanket." because if there were political flames or challenges on the continent, South Africa was called upon to go and put out the flames, and once the flames had been successfully extinguished, other people arrived and signed deals and benefited from the peace that had been restored, because peace and development were two sides of the same coin. In the case of the DRC, there had been talks that SA had hosted and facilitated with political actors from the DRC for weeks and months at Sun City, and some semblance of calm had returned, although there were still challenges in the eastern DRC.

Ms Shongwe said that they appreciated the comments of Mr Bergman and Mr Nkosi, and would need to present them to the Minister, because they were guiding steps for the Department to raise with the SADC, and would be beneficial. One of the proposals they would need to bring back to Parliament was about a security analysis of the region. This went beyond the SADC and would have to be a complete assessment that covered the continent, because some of the issues also came up in other parts of Africa.

She said it was the Department of Defence (DOD) that leads on the issues of maritime security, but it was an important matter to raise with the DOD for it to also understand DIRCO’s capabilities.

DIRCO would have to convene a departmental meeting so that they could do the necessary assessment on the economic benefits that South Africa was deriving from its relationship with the DRC and their internal and security departments. This also applied to an assessment of the INGA project.

She appreciated Ms Msane’s comments and accepted her constructive criticism, and said they would investigate how they resolved conflict in the region. They would do a follow-up on the question regarding the review of the SADC strategy on the Indian Ocean, and would channel the response through the Minister's office. They would have to take the role of the police back to the broader coordination mechanism. As South Africa was chairing the SADC on politics, defence and security cooperation, DIRCO had also formed an interdepartmental coordination mechanism that brings together all the departments that contribute to the organisation.

She said that the Mozambique insurgence was an issue that continued to be reflected upon. It was raised at the SADC summit in August 2021 because a SADC component of all these deployments tended to be invited, and they also end up becoming support staff instead of leading, given that the conflicts are in the region.

Regarding the exports to the DRC, she said that they did not have a racial breakdown of the economic actors in the DRC, but would get the information from the DTI.

Referring to the peacekeeping capacity in the region, she said that DIRCO assisted in training peacekeepers and mediators, with a special focus of mediation that involves women, because they had identified the need to bring women into the ambit of peace and security.

Mr Khazamula Chabane, DIRCO Representative in the DRC, said that in February 2020 they had submitted a re-engagement strategy to the Minister with some recommendations on how the re-engagement with the DRC should happen. It was true that the DRC somehow seemed to be drifting away, and one of the things that they realised at the time was that the DRC was starting to move towards the East African Community (EAC), and they were proven right because in a few months after that, the DRC applied for membership. In July this year, the assessment machine went to the DRC and came back with a recommendation in September for the heads of the EAC to endorse that the DRC should join the EAC. It was still up to the heads of that body to decide. DIRCO had also realised that after the outbreak of the pandemic, the implementation of its strategy could be complicated and delayed. One of the recommendations was that they needed to convene an interdepartmental seminar or meeting with key departments to discuss the re-engagement, and that would assist the SADC to map out how far they had come regarding the DRC. The creation of an African defence force was also considered, and a recommendation was made that there was a need to resuscitate the role of a special envoy, not only to the DRC, but to the rest of the Great Lakes region so that they had access to real time information about developments.

With regard to the INGA project, the recommendation that was made was that they needed to take deliberate action to strengthen their participation in the project for their mutual benefit. When the World Bank withdrew, the Chinese had come in at about 80%, and then there was a Spanish company that came in at about 20% to complete 100% of that construction project. However, when the Minister met with the former Minister of Foreign Affairs of the DRC before the pandemic, they had said that the doors were still open for South Africa to participate in the project. The DRC had major problems, as after the 2019 elections, the country went for almost seven or eight months without a government, and when they finally had a government, because they used coalitions, there were several disagreements within the coalitions. He said that doing an assessment would also mean foreign involvement.

As far as economic relations with the DRC were concerned, he said the SA embassy in the DRC had identified the potential on 9 April, and in September the DRC’s Director-General of Agriculture had visited South Africa to have a further discussion on how both countries could cooperate to form a task team to take the work forward. He did not know if the DRC had any infrastructure projects, as it had massive challenges, and infrastructure like roads and rail remained a serious problem.

Mr Monyela said that there were many players in the DRC who benefited from the instability of the country and were heavily invested in sustaining the instability, because it allowed them to exploit the mineral resources of that country without paying taxes and other things. It was not just external players from outside the continent, as there were also players from within the continent in that region who benefited from that instability.

He said that South Africa was one of the first countries to respond to the insurgency in Mozambique, and Mozambique had been the chair of SADC at the time. The initial response was that the insurgency was a domestic internal security issue which the government felt they could handle, but the insurgency escalated to a point where help was needed, and the regional body was convinced to meet and take the decisions that were taken.

The Chairperson said that it would be important for the Department to racially profile the export portfolio as far as the rest of the world was concerned to see how South Africa was doing, so that the progress that the country was making towards a prosperous and non-racial society could be quantified.

Ms Msane wanted to know if South Africa was going to be an observer in the upcoming elections in Afghanistan.

Mr Monyela said that he was unaware if the country had been invited by Afghanistan or the regional body, but would double check because it was usually through the neighboring countries and regional bodies that South Africa was invited to elections in countries across the world.

The Chairperson thanked the delegation from DIRCO for attending the meeting and their participation in the engagement, as well as the Members of the Portfolio Committee for their inputs.

The meeting was adjourned.