African Unification Front
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See Military Reorganization
SPEECH BY THE MINISTER OF DEFENCE, MOSIUOA LEKOTA, ON THE NEW PARTNERSHIP FOR AFRICA'S DEVELOPMENT
SA Parliament, 31 October 2001
In 1996, 14 of Africa's 53 states were afflicted by armed conflict. These accounted for more than half of all war related deaths world-wide. Because of this insecurity, military budgets remain high across Africa.
Until peace is secured in Africa, military expenditures will continue to take a large slice out of the continent's public spending.
Securing peace will thus release resources to be redeployed to social needs.
What we need are well-defined priorities to guide resource use; in particular, to ensure that poverty reduction is achieved. Hard choices must be made.
The legacy of war has to be faced. Soldiers have to be demobilised, weapons have to be decommissioned and refugees, mainly women and children, have to be resettled.
War means destruction. But the rebuilding of infrastructure could provide Africa with a golden opportunity to overcome geo-economic colonial patterns of interaction between African states. Road and rail infrastructure was set up to serve colonial interests. British colonies for example could interact with each other, but not with French or Portuguese colonies. These colonial patterns can by replaced by a new infrastructure which can lead to development and prosperity.
Demobilisation and the creation of a smaller and professional military are both expensive. The establishment of a peacetime defence force is also expensive.
African leaders, adopting The Constitutive Act of the African Union in July this year stated that:
"We are conscious... of the fact that the scourge of conflicts in Africa constitutes a major impediment to the socio-economic development of the continent and of the need to promote peace, security and stability as a prerequisite for the implementation of our development and integration agenda."
It states as one of its objectives the promotion of peace, security and stability on the continent.
Amongst its principles are:
* The establishment of a common defence policy for the African Continent;
* Peaceful resolution of conflicts among member states of the Union; and
* The prohibition of the use of force or threat to use force among member states of the Union.
The New African Initiative - now referred to as NEPAD - the New Partnership for Africa's Development states that:
"To achieve these objectives, African leaders will take joint responsibility to strengthen mechanism for conflict prevention, management and resolution at the regional and continental levels, and to ensure that these mechanisms are used to restore and maintain peace."
NEPAD states that targeted capacity building should be given a high priority. It further states that efforts to build Africa's capacity to manage all aspects of conflict focus on the means necessary to strengthen existing continental and regional institutions and should concentrate on four key areas:
a. Prevention, management and resolution of conflict;
b. Peacemaking, peacekeeping and peace enforcement;
c. Post conflict reconciliation, rehabilitation and reconstruction; and
d. Combating the illicit proliferation of small arms, light weapons and anti personnel landmines and bomblets.
In relation to SADC, the emphasis has been placed squarely on the need for peace, stability and security in our region and within the borders of our respective states.
The Inter State Defence and Security Committee (ISDSC) of SADC is working towards a regional partnership. We have just held a joint bilateral with Namibia; we will be holding one with Botswana in the near future. This is within the framework of regional co-operation.
The ISDSC has agreed on a Mutual Defence Pact which aims to prevent conflict in the region and reflects a collective approach to security.
The sharing of intelligence is another milestone.
Our defence training institutions are now accommodating and training officers at all levels, from both the region and the continent. This will ensure a common security understanding.
We have agreed with our Angolan and Malawian counterparts earlier this year to make available South African military medical facilities.
Another priority agreed on by the ISDSC is the building of capacity of African institutions for early warning.
Further to the above, how does defence envisage operationalising NEPAD?
Peace and stability are strategic issues and throw up the main challenges.
The key is to ensure defence efforts are put behind NEPAD.
We must build the capacity of regional organisations to manage security organisations and processes.
We must build the capacity of national governments to improve security processes. This entails a common understanding on the continent, of the need for strong civil military relations as fundamental to the working of a democratic state.
Demobilisation - the release of military people into civilian life is a common problem.
How do we utilise their skills?
Can we turn the situation upside down and empower soldiers to become agents of transformation, so that when they demobilise, they enter civil society with skills? They are trained as engineers, communications and IT specialists, health workers etc.?
Our medical services can and are fighting disease - we can work on joint programmes with other militaries in this field.
Small arms proliferation has been identified as a major problem. Defence supports the police in terms of operational capability and intelligence capabilities.
We can learn from the Joint Policing Commission with Mozambique on successfully tracking arms caches and destroying them. South Africa has the capacity to destroy large amounts of small weapons.
What is the way forward?
We must complete our transformation.
The New Partnership for Africa's Development will release the energies of the African continent if Africa as a whole buys into it and takes ownership of it. South Africans must take ownership in the same way as they did in the formulation of the White Paper on Defence and the Defence Review.
We are embarking on a consultative process. We intend to engage with other African countries in conferences and symposiums to take this process forward. These will be organised together with Foreign Affairs and will involve representatives from the country's armed forces and from civil society.
It is in that spirit that we would like to advise the House that we have asked the churches and other religious formations, to devote this weekend's services to praying for the peace missions in which South Africa is involved.
We hope that members will join those services to pray for the success of the missions and the safety of our troops.
I thank you.
Contact: Mr Sam Mkhwanazi 083 628 0858/(021) 469 6008
Issued by: Ministry of Defence, 31 October 2001
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