Calls to impeach Zuma ignore a simple rule in international relations – the national interest comes first, writes Dumisani Hlophe.
Johannesburg - The then-president of the ANC, Albert Luthuli, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1960. He presided over the ANC from 1952 until his death in 1967. The apartheid regime was becoming more brutal in this period, as evidenced by the infamous Sharpeville Massacre in 1960.
In 1984, Desmond Tutu, who was to become Anglican archbishop, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. This was the period when the violent repressive apartheid regime introduced the state of emergency, and deployed troops in the township with unlimited use of force against democratic forces.
The last racist apartheid government president, FW de Klerk, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993. In a historical anomaly, he shared the prize with Struggle icon Nelson Mandela.
De Klerk presided over a government that had unleashed violence through the Third Force. This will for ever be symbolised by the Boipatong Massacre in 1992. It is a historical anomaly that four individuals were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in a society presided over by a racist regime whose apartheid policy had been dubbed a “crime against humanity” by the UN.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee justifies the awarding of the peace prize as a means of encouraging the resolution of conflict through peaceful means. South Africa’s transition to democracy, despite the violence that marked it, was largely hailed as peaceful.
The apartheid security cluster ministers and their generals have not been arrested, prosecuted and possibly jailed. It is the price that had to be paid for peace.
There is an interesting contrast between the Norwegian Nobel Committee, responsible for the Nobel Peace Prize, and the International Criminal Court (ICC).
The former promotes peace initiatives through encouraging peaceful initiatives to resolve conflict.
The Nobel committee is not an international organisation or a product of treaties.
However, it has had a major influence and impact on the pursuit of conflict resolution across the world.
Meanwhile, the ICC is prosecutorial and punitive. It prosecutes individuals accused of heinous crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. It investigates and prosecute individuals referred to it by nation states, or the UN Security Council. It prosecutes without necessarily contextualising the impact on any possible conflict resolution initiatives.
The presence of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir in South Africa in June could trigger an international review of the ICC’s workings – in particular, the impact of its work in conflict-ridden societies where peace initiatives are under way.
The government was confronted with the need for a balancing act: be idealistic and honour the ICC’s founding Rome Statute obligation by arresting Bashir; be realistic and consider the effect of arresting Bashir on peace initiatives under way in Sudan and South Sudan; and consider South Africa’s role and presence in Africa.
This is the context that DA leader Mmusi Maimane missed in calling for the impeachment of President Jacob Zuma for the failure to arrest Bashir.
There is an unwritten rule in international relations: governments make international decisions based on what is in the best interests of that country. Reduced to an individual level, the question that informs an international relations decision is: “What’s in it for me?”
Given the hostility of African leaders, under the AU umbrella, to the ICC, South Africa would have signed its isolation from the African continent. Add to this the xenophobic incidents in South Africa, and arresting Bashir at an AU event would simply have made the Afrophobic xenophobia official.
This would have undermined all the efforts at peace invested by South Africa and the AU in Sudan. The AU appointed former president Thabo Mbeki, as the head of the African Union High-Level Implementation Panel, as its lead mediator between Sudan and South Sudan.
Therefore, had South Africa arrested Bashir, this would have gone against its peace role in Sudan and South Sudan.
In the insatiable desire to get rid of Zuma, the DA leader missed the simple basic in international relations – national interest! Even if the DA had been the ruling party, it would not have arrested Bashir. Alternatively, the AU summit would not have taken place in South Africa.
Either way, South Africa’s role on the continent would have taken a knock. This is what sets politicians apart from statesmen – the naked pursuit of political power, regardless of what is in the best interests of the country.
International laws and treaties are important, but they are not the primary drivers of why countries engage with each other in the manner they do. The US and Britain violated all international laws and UN resolutions in invading Iraq because of their national elite interests. But there were no international warrants of arrest hanging over George Bush and Tony Blair.
When the Southern African Litigation Centre pursued a vigorous drive against the South African government to arrest Bashir, it clearly did not act in the best of South Africa’s national interests on the continent.
It is worth noting that the AU, including South Africa, is not opposed to the work of the ICC on the continent. But African leaders are concerned that, in its operation, it disregards the impact on peace initiatives in areas where peace or conflict resolution initiative are under way.
In October 2013, the AU special summit convened to decide on a mass African withdrawal from the ICC overwhelmingly rejected this proposal.
African states would like to see adjustments in the way the ICC operates. These include addressing the perception of bias against Africans, and the expert observation that it lacks internal checks and balances and therefore has unfettered powers.
In the final analysis, South Africa’s policy on conflict resolution in Africa seeks to export its own version of peaceful conflict resolution and democratisation.
This also applies to the conflict in Sudan and South Sudan. Bashir is not Nobel Peace laureate material, but a central figure in the peace initiatives.
In South Africa, rather than the national interest, it has been a generic mistrust of Zuma that has determined the criticism and narrative of how the South African government has managed the Bashir matter.
Consider South Africa’s national interest in the context of the continent. You may also come to the conclusion that the Zuma government is right.
* Dumisani Hlophe is faculty associate at the Albert Luthuli Centre for Responsible Leadership Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences, University of Pretoria. Twitter: @KunjaloD
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.
The Sunday Independent