The SADC Organ on Politics, Defence and Security

The resolutions and recommendations of the SADC Workshop on Democracy, Peace and Security, which was held in Windhoek from 11 to 16 July 1994, set SADC on a course towards formal involvement in security co-ordination, conflict mediation, and even military co-operation at heads of state level.

Importantly, one of the Windhoek working groups on conflict resolution, recommended that "... Conflict Resolution and Political Co-operation become a ‘Sector’, the responsibility for which would be allocated to a SADC member state", and that a Protocol on Peace, Security and Conflict Resolution should be drawn up. The Windhoek proposals were subsequently referred to the next meeting of the Council of Ministers in Botswana. At this meeting, it was decided rather to establish a wing for conflict mediation and prevention, as opposed to a sector.

At the next meeting of SADC Foreign ministers, convened in Harare on 3 March 1995, the creation of an Association of Southern African States (ASAS), under Chapter 7, Article 21(3) (g) of the SADC Treaty, was recommended. It was envisaged that ASAS would function independently of the SADC Secretariat, and that it would report directly to the SADC Heads of State and Government. It was also envisaged that ASAS would incorporate two specialised SADC sectors, one dealing with political affairs and the other with military security.

ASAS would be guided by the principles set out in the July 1994 Windhoek document, which included the following:40

The Ministers further proposed that the terms of reference of ASAS should include the following objectives:41

ASAS would be independent from the SADC Secretariat, and report directly to the SADC Summit, i.e. the heads of state. The ASAS proposal was therefore a deliberate attempt to preserve the key features of the previous FLS arrangement, namely an informal and flexible modus operandi with unimpeded access to the SADC heads of state, while keeping bureaucracy to a minimum. Speaking in parliament on the Foreign Affairs budget vote on 18 May 1995, South African Minister of Foreign Affairs, Alfred Nzo would confirm that "... the Foreign Ministers of SADC have proposed that the former Front-line States be turned into a new political and security arm of the SADC."42

These recommendations were duly considered by the August 1995 SADC Summit which was held in Johannesburg. However, the Foreign ministers’ proposals had not been based on consultations with the various ministers of defence and police, nor with the intelligence community. Moreover, some of the delegates were uncomfortable with the name of ASAS and the idea that such sensitive sectors would be assigned to individual member states on a permanent basis as was the practice with the various economic sectors.

The first sign that the ASAS proposal was going to run into problems at the Johannesburg Summit came from Nzo, who told a press briefing that the Foreign ministers of SADC would have to look at the name ASAS again and decide whether it would be an association or a sector. To many commentators the decision to delay the creation of ASAS was rooted in a disgruntled President Robert Mugabe who felt that Zimbabwe had a right to a commanding position in any new grouping, similar to the role it had played in the FLS and was piqued at the increased dominance of South Africa. Zimbabwe had apparently insisted that the permanent chairmanship of ASAS should be given to the longest serving SADC head of state (i.e. Mugabe), but it was Namibia’s proposal that a two-yearly revolving chairmanship would be more appropriate which had won the day.43 In fact, the chair of the FLS had rotated only twice during its existence, passed on from Nyerere to Kaunda to Mugabe.44 In retrospect, a two-yearly revolving chairmanship appeared to err on the side of excessive caution, for it would imply that it would be a quarter of a century before any single country would again chair the sector.

The final communiqué issued in Johannesburg would eventually omit any mention of the name ASAS, but simply state that:

"The Summit reviewed its decision of Gaborone in August 1994, to establish the sector on Political Co-operation, Democracy, Peace and Security. The Summit considered and granted the request of the Foreign Ministers of SADC, that the allocation of the sector to any Member State be deferred and that they be given more time for consultations among themselves and with Ministers responsible for Defence and Security and SADC Matters, on the structures, terms of reference, and operational procedures, for the sector."45

This challenge was taken up on 18 January 1996 at a meeting in Gaborone of the SADC ministers of Foreign Affairs, Defence and Security who met with the task to

"... make recommendations on how best to merge the decisions of the SADC Council to establish a Sector for Politics, Diplomacy, Defence and Security with the proposal of Foreign Ministers of the Front-line States to establish an Association of Southern African States (ASAS)."46

The subsequent press statement recorded the recommendation to the SADC Summit in favour of

"... the establishment of a SADC Organ for Politics, Defence and Security which would allow more flexibility and timely response, at the highest level, to sensitive and potentially explosive situations. Modalities of how the proposed SADC Organ could be structured and operationalised would be determined by Summit."47

A sector had now become an ‘organ’ in an obvious copy of the rather strange terminology adopted by the OAU.

In a subsequent letter to his colleagues in the rest of SADC dated 14 May, President Ketumile Masire of Botswana, as the chairperson of SADC, declared the Organ on Politics, Defence and Security officially established and that it "... should now begin to operate." The letter further stated that Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe would serve as the interim chairperson of the Organ until the next Summit meeting in August that year. A subsequent letter from President Masire, dated 18 June 1996, indicated that, after consultation with President Mugabe, an extraordinary Summit meeting would be hosted in Botswana on 28 June to launch the Organ officially.

The Summit did not deviate from the recommendations that had been made by the ministers earlier in the year. To all intents and purposes, the Organ on Politics, Defence and Security had been legitimised by SADC.48

Apart from reiterating the five principles of SADC itself (listed earlier in this monograph), the heads of state agreed to add the following two additional principles as reflected in the proposed principles for ASAS:

"Respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of each State and for its inalienable right to independent existence;

Military intervention of whatever nature shall be decided upon only after all possible political remedies have been exhausted in accordance with the Charter of the OAU and the United Nations."49

Both principles are well established in international law, but their application would arguably be broken by the intervention in Lesotho and the one in support of Laurent Kabila in the Congo. In both instances, military intervention by neighbours would not occur with a proper SADC mandate.50

The manner in which the Botswana communiqué was drafted and the subsequent interpretation of the communiqué would result in endless problems. Over time, the chairpersonship of the Organ, the permanency of this position and the Organ’s status vis-à-vis SADC became hotly contested, particularly between South Africa and Zimbabwe.

While South Africa argued that the SADC Treaty did not provide for a SADC Organ Summit that was separately constituted under a separate chair and with a mandate separate from that of SADC, the position of Zimbabwe, the chair of the Organ, was different. The Zimbabwean interpretation of the independence of the Organ essentially drew from paragraph 4.3.1 of the 1996 Gaborone communiqué which reads as follows: "The SADC Organ on Politics, Defence and Security shall operate at the Summit level, and shall function independently of other SADC structures."51 The South African position did not appear to reject the concept of a SADC chair and a chair for the Organ, both at heads of state level, but was rather concerned with the fact that the SADC chair had to take clear precedence over the chair of the Organ, since the Organ was part of SADC.52 In a legal opinion prepared for the Department of Foreign Affairs the previous year, South African government law advisors warned that if the Organ was to deal with political matters, the SADC Summit would eventually play second fiddle, indeed "... that the Chairpersonship of the Organ wields the most influential position in the region."53 Since both the chair of the Organ and that of SADC were to rotate, the South African position could not have been directed at Zimbabwe, but was apparently motivated by a desire for a single, integrated regional co-operation mechanism.

For its part, Zimbabwe argued that the Organ should not only function under a separate chair, but that it should also operate on the same ‘flexible and informal’ basis as the FLS operated prior to the end of apartheid rule in South Africa. This implied that the Organ would, in fact, operate parallel to SADC, but will be a nominal part of the Community.

It would also appear as if neither the Zimbabweans nor the South Africans had at that stage adequately considered the establishment of an entirely separate structure dealing with political and security issues in the region.

In retrospect, these differences appear to draw more than a little on the changed power relationships evident in the region following the presidency of Nelson Mandela in South Africa — they also reflected the fundamental differences in political values and practices between SADC member countries. It would also become evident that, to some extent, officials were much more intransigent and radical in their interpretation of the communiqué — probably because they had little real idea of what had actually been agreed to in Botswana, or for that matter, at other Summits where no minutes where kept and officials were excluded from the most important deliberations.

It is possible to group the sixteen objectives of the Organ as listed in the June 1996 communiqué into seven clusters as depicted in Figure 3: those dealing with strictly military/defence issues, peacekeeping, conflict prevention, crime prevention, intelligence, foreign policy and human rights.54

The Organ objectives included a commitment that

"... where conflict does occur, to seek to end this as quickly as possible through diplomatic means. Only where such means fail would the Organ recommend that the Summit should consider punitive measures. These responses would be agreed in a Protocol on Peace, Security and Conflict Resolution."55

A further commitment was to

"... develop a collective security capacity and conclude a Mutual Defence Pact for responding to external threats, and a regional peacekeeping capacity within national armies that could be called upon within the region, or elsewhere on the continent."56

The Gaborone communiqué included the following guidelines pertaining to the institutional framework of the Organ:

A series of meetings between officials followed to work out the modalities of the Organ, based on three documents:58

The differences between the South African and Zimbabwean positions became evident at the second of these meetings held on 25 June 1997 and were to be captured in the third draft of the proposed Protocol on Politics, Defence and Security.

The third meeting of officials was held in Harare on 13 and 14 August 1997 and chaired by Zimbabwe’s director-general of Foreign Affairs. The three documents were discussed and endorsed at the SADC Ministerial Meeting held the next day59 that, in turn, recommended them to the Summit scheduled for Malawi in September. The recommendations by the ministers, however, were subject to a resolution of the single/dual Summit issue.

The third and, until now, final draft Protocol on Politics, Defence and Security in (as opposed to ‘of’) SADC reiterated the objectives of the Organ as listed in the Gaborone communiqué, but omitted two objectives, one of which is to "... give political support to the organs and institutions of SADC."60 The draft protocol also refers to a ‘Summit’ as "... the Meeting of the Heads of State and Government of the SADC Organ"61 — as opposed to the Summit of SADC as prescribed in the SADC Treaty. It is therefore clearly an attempt to create distance between the Organ and SADC. The draft protocol made no mention of a permanent secretariat, or the chairpersonship of the Organ, among other issues, since these were contained in a separate document entitled Draft rules of procedure of the SADC Organ on Politics, Defence and Security.

The draft protocol proposed

"... a Ministerial Committee comprising Ministers of Foreign Affairs, Defence and Security on which each Member State shall enjoy equal representation. The Ministerial Committee shall meet at least once a year or as circumstances may warrant in furtherance of the objectives of the Protocol ..."62

The sum effect of this clause would be to create a ministerial structure at a level above that of the ISDSC.63

The protocol provides for regional intervention in the case of intrastate conflict, but only for purposes of mediation, and does not provide for military assistance.64 Therefore, a situation such as military intervention to forestall a coup d’état in Lesotho by other SADC member states would technically fall outside the provisions of the protocol, although such intervention would not necessarily be illegal in terms of international law.65

In the case of interstate conflict, the protocol reinforced the decision already evident in the Gaborone communiqué of 1996 by providing for the following: "External threats to the region would be addressed through collective security arrangements to be agreed upon in a Mutual Defence Pact among the SADC Organ Member States."66

The document on the proposed structure of the Organ recommended the following:67

The majority of these recommendations reflected, in truth, the manner in which the ISDSC was already operating.

The accompanyingDraft Rules of Procedure of the SADC Organ on Politics, Defence and Security recommended that two-thirds of the member states of the SADC Organ would constitute a quorum and that decisions of the Committee would occur by consensus.

Prior to the Blantyre Summit meeting of 8 September, Mandela wrote to his Zimbabwean counterpart and others to inform them that, while he would abide by a majority decision, South Africa would resign as SADC chair if the Summit agreed to a separate SADC Organ Summit.

The differences between the South African and Zimbabwean positions that had been simmering since the Gaborone communiqué on the Organ came to a head in Blantyre. After a report in plenary on the ministerial meeting that was held in Harare the previous month, South Africa asked that the Summit go into closed session where Mandela again registered his strong objection to a separate Organ Summit in parallel to the SADC Summit.68 According to subsequent newspaper reports, presidents Mandela and Mugabe clashed personally on the status of the Organ. In the subsequent communiqué, the Blantyre Summit limply "reaffirmed the importance of the Organ as a vehicle for strengthening democracy in the region and co-operation in defence and security matters", without any further reference to the way in which it should be organised and structured. Excluded from the debate on principles and without any formal record of the discussions and decisions at that level, officials had to rely upon the interpretation of events that they would subsequently receive from their respective heads of state.

The Blantyre Summit decided to convene an extraordinary meeting of SADC leaders to resolve the embarrassing public spat between South Africa and Zimbabwe. This meeting was scheduled to be held in Luanda on 25 September 1997, but was cancelled since the war in Angola, by then, had restarted and the Angolan government was awaiting the decision of the UN Security Council on sanctions against UNITA.69

The issue of the Organ was raised once again during an extraordinary meeting of the SADC heads of state held in Maputo on 2 March 1998. Again, no decision was taken. Mozambican President Joaquim Chissano (then deputy chairperson of SADC) stated that the meeting had avoided taking any decision, as a thorough study of the matter was required. He announced that a working group comprising the leaders of three SADC states (Mozambique, Malawi and Namibia) would discuss in detail how better to "... define the very concept of a defence and security organ and its relationship with SADC."70

In pursuit of this objective, Mozambique convened a SADC Organ Ministerial Meeting on 8 May 1998, which was held at Pequenos Libombos Dam outside Maputo. The purpose of the meeting was for Foreign ministers of Mozambique, Malawi and Namibia to "... put forward some recommendations on the proposed form and structure of the SADC Organ."71 The meeting "... took into account the fact that the creation of the SADC Organ had been delayed for almost two years since a decision to create one was made by the Gaborone SADC Summit on 28 June 1996."72

The Pequenos Libombos recommendations amounted to an uneasy attempt at steering a middle road between the positions of South Africa and Zimbabwe, most evident in the convoluted recommendation regarding the chairing of the Organ. This recommendation reads as follows:

"It is proposed that the Chairman of the SADC Summit should be the Chairman of the Organ. The SADC Summit will elect the Chairman. The Chairman of the Organ shall report to the Summit, and in case he is different from the SADC Summit Chairman, then the Chairmanship should rotate once every year. In the later [sic] scenario the SADC Chairman and the Chairman of the Organ would have to consult regularly."73

Like the proverbial horse designed by a committee, the result was somewhere between a camel and a reindeer. In fact, the committee concluded with a statement that their proposals "... largely represent a compromise between the different perspectives held by member states of SADC."74

The most important recommendation of the Libombos meeting was that "... the SADC Organ on Politics, Defence and Security should be created as a Committee comprising five SADC member states,"75 and that this committee "... would be given full mandate to intervene in all conflicts arising within the region."76 The ministers went on to reason that

"... a small committee would operate more efficiently because it would be flexible and could easily meet at short notice to take appropriate decisions. Second, it would be possible to keep such sensitive information confidential to avoid leakage."77

The members of the committee would be "... selected by the SADC Summit and ... two members of the Committee shall be retired and replaced every year."78 The existing SADC Summit of Heads of State and Government, in effect, would be subordinated to an Organ whose decisions, according to the ministers’ recommendations, will "... not be vetoed upon but could be modified or improved by the SADC Summit to facilitate quick resolution of any conflict or tension. In this regard, a link would be established between the SADC Summit and the SADC Organ."79 The danger was, of course, that the SADC Summit would end up merely providing a ‘rubber stamp’ for decisions taken by the executive clique of five in the Organ.

The Libombos meeting only touched on the potential role of Foreign ministers within the Organ structures, suggesting that,

"The role of Ministers of Foreign Affairs in the SADC Treaty ... should ... be clearly defined. The Ministers of Defense, Home Affairs and Security should continue to operate as the Inter State Defense and Security Committee (ISDSC). The Organ may ask the ministers of Foreign Affairs to assist in its activities when the need arises."80

Foreign ministers further recommended that there "... shall be no permanent secretariat for the SADC Organ."81 If there is no permanent secretariat, there can be no secretary-general, no multinational staff, no continuity, and no means of effectively following up on the implementation of decisions.

Apparently the recommendations were not approved by the committee of three heads of state and government in anticipation of the September 1998 SADC Summit in Mauritius. It matters little anyway, for discussions focused on the emerging crisis in the DRC, whose president attended for the first time as SADC member. Indicative of the sensitivities around the Organ, the Mauritius communiqué did not even mention the issue. By the end of 1999, the Libombos recommendations appear to have fallen by the wayside.

Recent events have been more promising. By the time of the August 1999 SADC Summit of Heads of State or Government in Maputo, events in the DRC and Lesotho had made it apparent to all parties that a compromise arrangement on the Organ was urgently required. The subsequent communiqué clearly recognised a chairperson for both SADC and the Organ on Politics, Defence and Security.82

"The Summit decided that the Council of Ministers should review the operations of all SADC institutions, including the Organ on Defence, Politics and Security [sic], and report to the Summit within six months. The summit further agreed that that the Organ on Defence, Politics and Security [sic] should continue to operate and be chaired by President Mugabe of Zimbabwe."83

What the communiqué omitted, was a decision that the ongoing operation of the Organ had to occur in consultation with the outgoing, present and incoming chair of SADC, namely South Africa, Mozambique and Namibia. A promising compromise had therefore been reached that, in time, may serve to resolve the paralysing difference on the ‘two summits’ issue. In return for the recognition of Mugabe as chair and the continued operation of the Organ — albeit for a limited period — other countries had extracted a commitment that, in theory, would halt unilateral action by any single SADC member state.

For South Africa, who had long pushed for the implementation of the SADC rationalisation programme discussed earlier, the Maputo communiqué also linked the future of the Organ to the review of the existing structure. This was, obviously, not a view shared by Zimbabwe. The Zimbabwean official tasked with this issue would later plaintively write: "... why review all SADC structures, including those whose status has never been disputed, when only the SADC Organ is the subject of contestation."84

The August Summit followed shortly after elections in South Africa that had installed a new president and allowed new blood to be brought into the South African cabinet. Newly appointed South African Minister of Defence, Mosiuoa Lekota, allowed little time to pass. The following month, he initiated consultations with his counterparts in Zimbabwe and Namibia, to the consternation of desk officers within the South African Department of Foreign Affairs who were unaware of the developments. In sharp contrast to the cutting criticism expressed by Mandela of the Zimbabwean intervention in the DRC, Lekota’s utterances were now broadly supportive of these events.85

Lekota publicly welcomed the idea of a regional Southern Africa defence pact to protect countries from foreign aggression and stated that it was no longer appropriate for the region to have an ad hoc response to threats to national sovereignty in the region. "Without an instrument that provides guidelines to protect legitimate governments in the region from foreign armed aggression, peace cannot be guaranteed."86 Lekota added that a regional defence effort could come into being before the SADC Heads of State and Government Summit in 2000. Having established a common understanding with both Zimbabwe and Namibia — the two countries most hostile to the South African position — Lekota approached Swaziland in its capacity as chairperson of the ISDSC with a request to host an Extraordinary Ministerial Conference of SADC ministers of Foreign Affairs, Defence, State Security and Public Security for the third week in October 1999. In preparation, talks were held in Pretoria on Monday 20 September between the Defence ministers of South Africa and Zimbabwe, and Swaziland’s Foreign minister. This meeting was followed, on 22 September, by two days of talks in Swaziland by SADC defence chiefs to develop a protocol governing SADC’s reaction to "... situations that require intervention, peacekeeping or peace enforcement" according to Swaziland’s Foreign Minister Albert Shabangu.87

In preparation for the Extraordinary Ministerial meeting, a working session of officials from Swaziland, South Africa and Zimbabwe assembled in Pretoria from 29 September to 1 October to:

The Pretoria meeting agreed to ‘revisit’ the three documents that were adopted at the ministerial meeting of the Organ in Harare on 15 August 1997.

The most important recommendation to emanate from the working session was that

"SADC Heads of State and Government should decide and clarify whether the Organ should operate as part of the existing SADC Summit or as a separate and parallel entity to the Economic and Development Forum. In the event of the former, the SADC Treaty would have to be amended in order to accommodate a Ministerial Committee comprising Ministers of Foreign Affairs, Defence and Security. The latter would require a separate Treaty/Charter to legitimise such a separate structure as envisaged in the Gaborone Communiqué of 28 June 1996 ... SADC Heads of State and Government need to prudently appoint the other two members of the Troika, as an interim measure, until there have been three changes of Chairmanship, after which the Troika will function automatically by logical procession."88

The working session further recommended that the Harare draft Protocol on Politics, Defence and Security "... would require serious reconsideration by a working group of legal, security and diplomatic experts"89 and that a regional mutual defence pact could only be considered once a decision on the status of the Organ vis-à-vis the SADC Treaty had been taken.90 The officials also expressed themselves in favour of a permanent secretariat for the Organ.91

The subsequent communiqué that was issued by the extraordinary ministerial meeting of the ISDSC and SADC ministers of Foreign Affairs on 27 October stated that:

"It was agreed that the Organ is part of SADC and should report to the SADC summit. Consensus was reached on all issues relating to the structure of the Organ, the composition and chairpersonship of these structures, and lines of reporting to the SADC Summit. Consensus was also reached in terms of a process for refining a draft Protocol on Politics, Defence and Security and a draft Defence Pact. The consensus reached on these matters will now be submitted as recommendations to the SADC Heads of State and Government for their consideration."92

How President Mugabe will react to these recommendations remains to be seen.

It would later become apparent that the ministers had agreed that there would be a committee of ministers below the Organ. This committee will be composed of the ministers responsible for Foreign Affairs, Defence, State Security/Intelligence and Public Security/Police and chaired by Foreign Affairs. The primacy of Foreign Affairs at this level is an important corrective step in the future development of the Organ. Two additional ministerial level committees would exist below this committee, namely the ISDSC and a new ministerial committee on Politics and Diplomacy. A total of three layers of ministerial committees would therefore function as part of the Organ. The country that chaired the Organ would also chair the subsidiary structures of the Organ and, as an interim arrangement, would also provide the secretariat. Swaziland, as chair of the ISDSC, would initiate and facilitate the formulation of a new draft Protocol on Politics, Defence and Security — a process to be completed by December 1999.93

Regarding the mutual defence pact, the ministers had agreed to study the Defence Agreement signed between Angola, Namibia, Zimbabwe and the DRC, as well as a draft mutual defence pact submitted by Zambia as a basis to develop a pact for SADC — also to be done by December 1999.94

By the end of 1999, the difference between the South African and Zimbabwean positions had become more symbolic than real, since these revolved more around the technical relationship between SADC and the Organ than around matters of principle. By focusing on structure rather than content and process, the further development of the Organ had been unnecessarily delayed for some time.

A number of technical questions remain unclear, however. For example, is the joint Committee of Ministers below the Organ and that referred to as the Council of Ministers in the SADC Treaty one and the same? If not, it may be assumed that SADC has indeed developed a two-legged approach to security and development. Conspicuously absent from any discussion thus far is room for the involvement of non-government actors or a clearer commitment to minimum standards of human rights and good governance.

All chairs rotate annually, but the SADC chair and the Organ chair need not be the same. In fact, Mozambique chaired SADC and Zimbabwe chaired the Organ in 1999, while Swaziland was the chair of the ISDSC.