Rene Vollgraaff and Mike Cohen
SOUTH Africa’s hosting of a summit of African leaders will give it a chance to repair relations with the rest of the continent after an outbreak of xenophobic attacks left seven dead.
President Jacob Zuma deployed the army to halt attacks on African migrants in Johannesburg and Durban in March and April, but South Africa faced criticism for not responding quickly enough. The AU, Nigeria and Zimbabwe condemned the violence.
Though the issue was not on the agenda of the summit, which takes place in Johannesburg on Sunday and Monday, the government needed to show it was not brushing it aside, said Razia Khan, the head of Africa research at Standard Chartered.
“There’s no denying South Africa’s reputation in the region would have been tarnished,” she said on Tuesday. “This summit is a good way for South Africa to reach out to the rest of Africa.”
The violence erupted because some South Africans see Somalis, Ethiopians, Malawians and Pakistanis as rivals for jobs and businesses. The country has 26 percent unemployment. One in five of its 54 million people survive on less than R335 a month.
The 54-nation AU replaced the Organisation of African Unity in 2002 to promote continental unity, integration and development. Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe is the chairman, and former South African foreign minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma heads the commission.
“Our future is inherently linked to that of the rest of the African continent,” Minister of International Relations and Cooperation Maite Nkoana-Mashabane said on Monday.
The summit will focus on ensuring women play a bigger role in Africa’s economy and on the continent’s security challenges. Those include upheaval in Burundi, where President Pierre Nkurunziza wants a third term and insurrections by Boko Haram in Nigeria and al-Shabaab in Somalia and Kenya.
Free trade zone
The leaders will also discuss efforts to establish a free trade zone on the continent to create a market with a combined gross domestic product of $2 trillion (R23 trillion).
The first steps were taken this month when three trading groups – the Common Market for East and Southern Africa, the East African Community and the Southern African Development Community – agreed to a free trade accord.
The summit “is a wonderful opportunity for South Africa to lead plans to form a new trade bloc”, said SA Institute of Race Relations chief economist Ian Cruickshanks. – Bloomberg