SEATINI BULLETIN
Southern and Eastern African Trade, Information and Negotiations Initiative
Strengthening Africa in World Trade
Volume 3 No. 17&18, 15 & 30 September 2000
IN THIS ISSUE:
1. SEATINI 3 ON REGIONAL ARRANGEMENTS
2. HIGHLIGHTS OF THE SADC TRADE PROTOCOL
Clemence Mugura
3. THE ROAD MAP TO THE SADC TRADE PROTOCOL IMPLEMENTATION
Carlson Mbegabolawe
5. DIRECTOR'S COMMENT: THE POLITICAL ROLE OF SADC
[SEATINI III, which was held in Harare, Zimbabwe, 27-31 March 2000, had made the following declaration on the matter of Regional Arrangements. It is important that the issues then raised are constantly kept in mind while moving on the road of regional integration within the SADC/COMESA region. Editor]
“Regional integration and cooperation are an important tool and strategy for trade and economic development of developing countries especially in Africa. In this respect, the multilateral framework of the WTO should serve to support the achievement of these broader objectives, not undermine them. African regional integration agreements should not be subject to restrictive WTO provisions but rather they should be consistent with developmental objectives and goals of these regional agreements.
“The recently concluded agreement to prolong the ACP-EU Lome Convention up to year 2008 demonstrated the need for an effective regional strategy among the weaker countries. It also signalled that African countries would face increased external pressures to give up their non-reciprocity rights in negotiations for a new trading arrangement with the European Union. In addition, it also showed that the EU will use its Lome leverage to push African countries to accept those WTO issues which are still under discussion or contentious.
“Recommendations
“It is therefore necessary to:
(a) Re-evaluate regional strategies and adopt more effective joint approaches;
(b) Take a more proactive role both in pursuing regional integration among African countries and in discussions of these issues within the WTO including establishing the necessity for time frames on national agreements to be decided through negotiations and according to criteria set within regional processes rather than determined a priori and arbitrarily and imposed from without; and
(c) Analyse the implications of these issues and prepare effectively for the forthcoming negotiations. In this regard, all available options for a successor arrangement of the Lome Convention should be pursued. A vital factor in this regard will be the strengthening of regional solidarity and cooperation between and among the different ACP countries.” Ì
2. HIGHLIGHTS OF THE SADC TRADE PROTOCOL
Clemence Mugura *
Background to the SADC trade protocol.
By 1990 the political developments that took place within the region led to the process of transition within Southern African Development Coordination Conference (SADCC), South Africa was in transition to democracy and Namibia had gained independence and as a result SADCC was transformed into Southern African Development Community (SADC) in 1992. SADC moved the member states beyond loosely structured networks of projects and functions into an organization with specific long term objectives and orientation. SADC was not only to focus on trade but on other issues like investment and policy, and the governments of the region were supposed to take the lead in implementing integration. Countries had to focus on removing trade barriers in the region. This movement towards free trade led to the signing of the of the Maseru protocol on 24 August 1996. According to the Maseru protocol, SADC was to become a free trade area by 2008.
Objectives of the SADC trade protocol.
Key areas of action in the trade protocol are:
When the protocol was signed in 1996 it contained five annexes elaborating the salient provisions of the protocol. To make the protocol fully operational some annexes needed development, such as the tariff reduction schedules, rules of origin, customs cooperation and dispute settlement mechanisms.
The main provisions of the protocol are put into seven clusters which are as follows,
· Objectives and mandatory undertakings,
· General Exceptions,
· Customs procedures and trade facilitation,
· Trade laws
· Other substantive provisions
· Trade relations.
· Institutional arrangements.
On the mandatory undertakings the SADC FTA should be operational within a period of eight years, countries are supposed to remove both tariff and non tariff barriers.
The SADC trade protocol.also provides for general exceptions to the concept of free trade on selected measures for the following reasons,
· measures necessary to protect public morals and public order;
· measures necessary to protect intellectual property rights or to prevent deceptive trade practices;
· measures imposed in the interest of national security or the maintenance of peace in general
· measures imposed for the protection of national treasures
· measures necessary to ensure compliance with existing international agreements obligations.
The free trade rules must not prevent member states from enforcing measures which they consider necessary to protect public morals, human, animal, and plant life or to maintain public order.
Under the customs procedures, the rules of origin provide a criteria for conferring originating status to products traded under the protocol. The product must be wholly produced or obtained in the member states such as minerals, timber, fish, foodstuffs, etc. E.g., if the product is wholly obtained in Zimbabwe it clearly has Zimbabwe as its country of origin. The rules of origin also cover the material content, or substantive transformation or value addition criteria.
The following do not confer origin:
- changes of packaging packing, packaging and processes for shipping and for sales
- mere dilution, blending, or other types of mixing, that does not materially alter the characteristics of the material.
- simple assembly or combining operations,
- other minor operations such as testing, sorting or grading.
To operationalise the rules of origin for the sake of simplicity, clarity, and security through developing product-specific preferential rules of origin, SADC still has to come up with golden rules of origin which are intended to strike a balance between competing interests among SADC states and the business community.
The basic principles and trade laws in the SADC trade protocol are not in conflict with the WTO regulations.
There is currently the draft regulation on mutual assistance which is intended to facilitate the exchange of ideas amongst customs authorities on the process of conducting investigations where preferential violation is suspected. There shall be mutual cooperation in facilitating cross border trade on the basis of non discrimination,. There is also the development of the harmonised trade and customs documents for the SADC FTA
The other substantive provisions also relate to trade development and cross border investment, and this is intended to strengthen the modalities for co-operation in this area.
On the institutional arrangements for the implementation of the SADC protocol there are:
- the Committee of Ministers responsible for industry and trade matters/(CMT),
- the Committee of Senior officials or permanent secretaries/ (COSO)
- the sector coordinating unit/(SCU) which is the SADC industry/and trade coordination division (SITCD) in Tanzania.
Other institutions that are expected to be established are the dispute settlement panel and some sub-committees of experts. The remainder of the Articles deal with standard legal issues such as amendments, signature, ratification, entry into force, accession and depository.
The SADC trade protocol was supposed to be operational by the 1st September 2000 but the technical and administrative problems still had to be solved. In some countries like Zimbabwe its operationalisation has been postponed until a later date. Negotiations are still continuing in some of the areas such as the consolidated text on the rules of origin, the dispute settlement mechanism, the sugar cooperation agreement, and the textiles and clothing agreement.
It is anticipated that the SADC trade protocol will be reviewed in 2006 and a fully fledged FTA will be in place by 2008, by 2012 it will be 100 % operational.
Critics of the Maseru Protocol argue that it is not guided by a sound development strategy and is therefore likely to increase the gap between rich and the poor and could result in deindustialisation in the SADC region. Those who support the creation of an FTA argue that it will lead to the creation of a bigger market for SADC products, foreign direct investment, and competition and as a result quality goods will be available. Ì
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[*Clemence Mugura is the Programme Assistant of MWENGO, a Reflection and Development Centre for NGOs in Eastern and Southern Africa, Harare, Zimbabwe]
3. THE ROAD MAP TO THE SADC TRADE PROTOCOL IMPLEMENTATION
Carlson Mbegabolawe*
(Edited for SEATINI Bulletin)
The Emerging Trade Regimes under SADC, COMESA, ACP-EU and WTO, and bilateral trading arrangements, or agreements, present a plethora of regimes a company faces business outside the borders of this country.That is the first challenge.
The second challenge relates to knowing and understanding the implications of doing business under any of these arrangements, i.e. a combined challenge of which one of these regimes does a company go for, and why? For example, in order to benefit from the most favourable duty available for an export product or import need, it has to know the applicable duties and the differing rules of origin under each particular scheme.
¨ SCOPE
Legally, the SADC Trade Protocol has already entered into force on 25 January 2000, following ratification by the required two-thirds majority of Member States. However, the technical and administrative structures are not in place for the real transactions to occur on the basis of the Protocol. These were expected to be completed in 1999 for implementation to commence on 1 January 2000. Therefore, in terms of implementation, one can distinguish two phases: the formal implementation date which is 1 September 2000, and some other date in the future when there is material and full-fledged implementation by all or the majority of the Member States. Effectively the future road map thus entails a schedule of work that needs to done to enable these Member States to implement the Protocol. There are two levels of implementation tasks to be undertaken: one at the national,ot domestic level the other at the regional level, i.e. requiring intra-SADC and intergovernmental action..
¨ ROAD MAP AT THE REGIONAL LEVEL
(a) Outstanding substantive issues
The Committee of Ministers of Trade (CMT) agreed and recommended to the Heads of State/Government that the Protocol be implemented from the 1 September 2000. This was despite the fact that a number of issues, and important ones for some Members were still unresolved. The Ministers considered that these outstanding issues “do not constitute a sufficient reason to delay the launching of a SADC Free Trade Area…” and that a delay “ would be a disappointment to the people of SADC and particularly to the SADC business community”. Such out-standing issues as remained would continue to be negotiated in the course of implementation. The Heads of State endorsed this approach and decided on 1 September as the implementation date.
For Zimbabwe, the most important outstanding matter concerns the textiles and clothing sector rules of origin, in particular in relation to the garments made from man-made synthetic fibers. For other Member States, particularly outside SACU, this is also an important market access issue that can be satisfactorily resolved if agreement on quota sizes can be reached. SACU’s view is that the SADC trade arrangement on textiles and clothing should not result in third parties taking advantage of it to enter into the regional market. There remains a number of various chapters and headings on which Member States have so far failed to reach consensus: e.g. coffee, wheat products, articles of plastics and electrical and electronic items. In addition, the motor sector and optical photographic equipment chapters have still to be conclusively discussed and negotiated.
(b) Outstanding Administrative Issues
Of particular note are the legal and procedural requirements and the institutional support mechanism. The SADC negotiations have resulted in a number of additions and amendments to the original Protocol. Consequently, some of the Articles require amendment. Four specific areas in this regard are;
- The Consolidated Text on Rules of Origin
- The Dispute Settlement Mechanism
- The Sugar Cooperation Agreement
- The Textiles and Clothing Agreement
The objective is to beef-up the capacity of SADC to manage and cope with the implementation and monitoring of the Protocol. It has been agreed to set up a Trade Implementation Unit, to be manned, in the interim, by seconded experts on Trade Information, Legal Affairs and Customs and Standards. South Africa, Lesotho, Mozambique and Zimbabwe have volunteered to sponsor these experts for the interim period of six months, pending the recruitment of permanent staff.
¨ ROAD MAP AT THE NATIONAL LEVEL
We have categorized actions required under this level into two: administrative and technical work which essentially the work of member Government and work that involves the wider group of stakeholders, namely, business, civil society, parliamentarians, etc.
With regard to governmental tasks, the primary one is to gazette, publish and announce the tariff schedule containing SADC rates, the relevant documents and procedures. Most of these documentation and procedures will principally concern the Customs area, e.g. Certificates and Rules of Origin and Border Posts. The presentation by the Department of Customs and Excise will cover this subject.
The legal changes to the Protocol have also to be aligned to national legislation probably through de nouveau ratification. This is in respect of the four instances of amendments afore-outlined, i.e. agreements on rules of origin, sugar, dispute settlement, and textiles and clothing. The exact standing of this will be decided by the Attorney General’s Office as the legal adviser to Government.
Of particular importance is the wider task of sensitizing all the stakeholders on the Protocol: by targeting trade and customs experts, the business community and the general public.
¨ POST-IMPLEMENTATION ROADMAP
The main task for post implementation period will relate to monitoring and surveillance. In 2006 a review of implementation will be carried out, i.e. two years before there is a full Free Trade Area. Furthermore, the other component of trade, i.e. services, will be taken up under the auspices of the Trade Protocol. And lastly, Member States are considering the modalities of notifying the Protocol to the World Trade Organization as required under the rules of this Organization.
v TRADE PROTOCOL DEVELOPMENT
v MAIN PROVISIONS OF THE PROTOCOL
The provisions of the SADC Trade Protocol can be put into the following seven basic clusters:
1. Objectives and Mandatory Undertakings (Articles 2 – 8)
¨ The Protocol seeks to, among other issues:
à Promote the liberalization of intra-SADC trade in Goods and Services but with initial emphasis on trade in goods;
à Establish and sustain efficient production chains within SADC on the basis of Dynamic Competitive Advantage;
à Enhance the investment climate of SADC for both Regional (Cross-Border) and International Investors and above all;
à Establish a Free Trade Area in SADC within eight years from the entry into force of the Protocol.
Why Within Eight Years?
¨ The eight year bench-mark for establishing the SADC-FTA was arrived at after due consideration of WTO Provisions with respect to the establishment of Customs Unions and Free Trade Areas. These provisions, at Article XXIV 5{c} of GATT-199, read as follows:
à …”Accordingly, the provisions of this Agreement [especially those related to the mandatory extension of the MFN Principle and the fundamental Principle of Non-Discrimination] shall not prevent, as between the Territories of contracting parties, the formation of a Customs Union or of a Free Trade Area or the adoption of an Interim Agreement necessary for the formation of a Customs Union or a Free Trade Area; Provided that:
…c] any Interim Agreement referred to in sub-paragraph a] and b] above shall include a plan and schedule for the formation of such a Customs Union or Free Trade Area within a reasonable length of time.
à In this case, a reasonable length of time, according to the Understanding on Article XXIV, is a period not exceeding 10 Years, unless full explanation is given to the WTO Council on Trade in Goods why 10 years is insufficient.
Extent of Liberalization (Articles 3-8)
¨ The extent of liberalization is generally expected to cover the removal of both Tariff and Non-Tariff Barriers (NTBs). Articles 3 to 8 therefore elaborate on the degree of liberalization required in order to achieve a Free Trade Area.
¨ The bench-mark of at least 85% liberalization was arrived at taking into account the provisions of Article XXIV 8{b} of GATT-1994 which reads in part:
à A Free Trade Area shall be understood to mean a group of two or more Customs Territories in which the duties and other restrictive regulations of commerce [except those allowed through Exceptions] are eliminated on ‘substantially all the trade’ between the constituent territories in products originating in such territories”.
à The Understanding on the meaning of ‘substantially all the trade’ is further elaborated by various WTO Working Parties in their Reports, especially their “European Communities-Agreements with Portugal” Report of November 1957 and the “European Free Trade Area-Examination of the Stockholm Convention” , to mean 80% of intra-FTA trade as a general indicator or Quantitative Measurement and therefore not to be construed to permit the outright exclusion of a complete sector (like Textiles and Clothing..Cap50-63 or Agriculture. Cap1-24), which is the Qualitative Measurement.
à Measures necessary to protect Public Morals or maintain Public Order (like Narcotic and other Dangerous Drugs);
à Measures necessary to protect Human, Animal and Plant life or health {like Regulations on Food Additives, Pesticides and use of other Chemicals};
à Measures necessary to protect Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) or to prevent deceptive trade practices {like Anti-Regulations};
à Measures relating to the transfer of Gold, Silver and other Precious or Strategic metals {in line with International Practice};
à Measures imposed for the protection of National Treasures {like trade in the Zimbabwe Bird or the Flame Lilly};
à Measures imposed for the Conservation of Exhaustible Natural Resources and the Environment {like the export of Natural Woods and Environmental Impact Regulations etc};
à Measures necessary to ensure compliance with existing International Agreements or Obligations {like the CITES and Green-Peace Accords and};
à Measures imposed in the interest of National Security or the maintenance of peace in general {like restrictions on trade in Firearms and Radio-Active Materials (Article 10)}.
Rules of Origin (Article 12)
§ The Rules of Origin are elaborated under Annex I of the SADC Trade Protocol. These Rules are generally referred to as Preferential Rules of Origin. Under SADC, lack of agreement on Rules of Origin is one of the major areas that has seriously delayed the implementation of the Protocol as debate still rages on under the auspices of the High-Level Committee (HLC) on Rules of Origin established by Sector Ministers in Pretoria (Dec.1999).
à Rule 2.1 {a}:
Wholly Produced/Obtained as defined under Rule 4 of the same Annex;
à Rule 2.1 {b}:
Material Content/Substantial Transformation or Value
(CIF of Cost of Materials) X 100% £ 60%
Total Cost Of Materials
OR
A Value Addition ³ 35% of Ex-Factory Cost and lastly;
à Rule 2.1 {c}:
Change in Tariff Heading (CTH) or Change in Tariff
Classification (CTC) subject to Processes to be agreed upon as provided for by Rule 2.2.
à Simplicity of their administration by SADC Customs Authorities;
à Clarity of their provisions to both Customs Authorities and the Business Community;
à Optionality of their application, and therefore, freedom of choice to the regional Exporters and lastly;
à Security of their extension in order to prevent Preference Violations by third countries.
Draft Regulation on Mutual Assistance (Article 13)
§ Article 13 provides for mechanisms to ensure the uniform application of the provisions of this Protocol by various stakeholders through Annex II. In this regard, the sector is developing a Regulation on Mutual Assistance (as provided for by Article 12 of Annex II of the Protocol) to facilitate the exchange of ideas amongst Customs Authorities of the region on the basis of the Nairobi Convention (which governs general Customs investigatory matters).
§ This Regulation will guide Customs Authorities on the process of conducting investigations where preference violations are suspected and the overall manner in which Customs Verification Missions shall be conducted.
§ Annexes III and IV provide for mutual cooperation in facilitating transit and/or cross-border trade on the basis of non-discrimination. The Annexes also provide for the development of Harmonized Trade and Customs Documents for the SADC-FTA.
§ As of June 2000, all SADC Trade and Customs Documents had been agreed upon except for the SADC Customs Document-SCD (an equivalent of the UN Bill of Lading form, normally referred to as the Single Goods Declaration Document-SGD), which member states have agreed to defer its implementation for an initial six months until stock of documents currently in use is exhausted.
§ All Basic Principles and Trade Laws advocated for by the Protocol adhere to WTO regulations. These include:
à The Principle of National Treatment (Article 11);
à Sanitary and Phyto-Sanitary Measures –SPS (Article 16);
à Standards and Technical Regulations – TBT (Article 17);
à Anti-Dumping Regulations (Article 18);
à Subsidies and Countervailing Measures (Article 19);
à Safeguard Measures (Article 20);
à Infant Industry Protection (Article 21);
à Trade in Services-GATS (Article 23);
à Intellectual Property Rights [as in TRIPS for WTO] (Article 24) and;
à Competition Policy (Article 25).
§ One key outstanding area from the above Trade Laws relates to SADC Trade in Services (equivalent of GATS under the WTO. It is likely that SADC negotiations on liberalizing Trade in Services will soon take centre stage after the launch of the Trade Protocol in September 2000.
§ Other substantive matters likely to be pursued in more detail in the near future relate to Cross-border Investment and Trade Development in general (Articles 22 and 26). Like under Customs Cooperation (Article 13), substantive Regulations shall be developed in the context of Annex V on Trade Development (Article 26) to strengthen the modalities for cooperation in this area.
§ Provisions under Articles 27 and 28 of the Protocol relate to Trade Relations between SADC Member States and between SADC as a bloc with other regional and international entities in general.
§ These provisions intimate a lock-in effect of the Protocol with existing efforts to create trade under other initiatives like Bilateral Trade Agreements and other regional arrangements (i.e. COMESA, CBI, etc), without prejudice. This intimation is motivated by the fact that:
à Most SADC Member States already have Bilateral Trade Arrangements amongst themselves e.g. RSA/Malawi; RSA/Mozambique; RSA/Zimbabwe; and Zimbabwe/Botswana; Zimbabwe/Malawi; Zimbabwe/Namibia;
à Most SADC Member States are common members of other trade arrangements e.g.
- Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, RSA and Swaziland are common members of both SACU and SADC};
- Angola, the DRC, Malawi, Mauritius, Namibia, Seychelles, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe are common members of both COMESA and SADC} and finally,
- Namibia and Swaziland and until 1997 Lesotho were, common members of COMESA, SACU and SADC.
§ As supported by Article XXIV 5{b} of GATT 1994, the SADC Trade Protocol provisions on Trade Relations anticipate an exchange of the Deepest Preferences between and amongst SADC Member States were a multiplicity of trade arrangements exist such as under Zimbabwe/Namibia.
§ The net effect of these provisions is that existing Preferential Trading Arrangements shall be made redundant gradually by the deepening of SADC-FTA preferences over the lifetime of the phase-in period.
§ As regards Trade Relations with Third Countries (i.e. the USA) or Groups of Third Countries like the EU, NAFTA, ASEAN etc or nearer home, COMESA, ECOWAS or UMA as the case may be, Article 30 urges SADC Member States to develop these relationships in the interest of Article 24 of the SADC Treaty, provided such relationships facilitate and/or accelerate the achievement of the objectives of this Protocol. Examples of such relationships could be cited :
à The RSA-EU Trade and Development Co-operation Agreement which grants Horizontal Cumulation status to products from SACU and other ACP states exported by South Africa to the EU under the agreement after final and/or further processing;
à The proposed USA-Africa Free Trade Agreement in the context of the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) and;
à Any such other future arrangements as would inevitably, be expected between SADC and COMESA, as the two institutions cannot continue to co-exist in perpetuity without violating some fundamental WTO provisions.
§ The last cluster of Articles (31-39) deal with Institutional Arrangements for the implementation of the SADC Trade Protocol, the main institutions being:
§ Due to lack of technical capacity at SITCD, there is current debate within the Sector looking at ways of strengthening this capacity in light of increased responsibilities arising from the entry into force of the Protocol. The last CMT Meeting (Retreat) held in Dar es Salaam just before the SADC Summit approved, as a temporary measure (i.e. for an initial period of six months), the establishment of a Technical (or Trade) Implementation Unit-TIU at the SADC Head Quarters in Gaborone to assist in the launching of the Trade Protocol from 1st September 2000. Lesotho, Mozambique and South Africa offered initial staff for the TIU who shall comprise a Trade Information Expert, a Customs and Standards Expert and a Legal Expert. Upon expiry of the six months, it is anticipated that the SITCD shall be transformed into a Trade Commission manned by experts recruited region-wide in line with the SADC tradition.
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[*Drawn from the paper presented by the author on behalf of the ministry of Industry and International Trade of Zimbabwe at a CZI conference on “The Emerging Trade Regimes Under SADC, COMESA & WTO,” from 28 – 29 August, 2000 in Harare.]
Ì
[The Southern African Peoples Solidarity Network (SAPSN) is a network of grassroots movements, Non-Governmental organizations, trade unions and committed scholars in the southern African region who are active on matters related to trade, debt, development and governance in the region. In August 2000 they met in Namibia and passed a wide-ranging resolution, parts of which are reproduced here. Editor]
The Declaration:
“5.1 reject claims that the transformation and development of the regional economy should (and can) be driven by national and regional 'market forces' and should be structured to serve and further the business interests of 'indigenous' private enterprise and 'national' capital in the countries of the region. This applies particularly to South African trading companies, banks and corporations, often operating in conjunction with their international partners, which will reinforce not reduce the inherited inequalities within, and imbalances between our countries.
5.2 desist from their collaboration and collusion with national and international political and economic forces and neo-liberal agencies, particularly the IMF and World Bank, to turn SADC into an 'open region' of free trade, free capital movements and investment rights, to the benefit of international traders, transnational corporations and financial speculators. This runs counter to the potential for full and effective, internally-generated and rooted national and regional development.
5.4 insist upon the illegitimacy of our purported national 'debts' and the continuous outflow of our hard-earned national financial resources into the coffers of the governments of the richest industrialised countries, private banks and the IMF and World Bank. Our governments must actively prepare, together with other 'debtor' countries like ours - and with the support of international peoples movements against debt - for collective and concerted repudiation of those debts if they are not promptly and definitively canceled. This must be carried further with demands for reparations for the long-standing economic, social and ecological damages imposed by such agencies upon our countries.
6.1 ON TRADE - our governments need to drop their uncritical embrace of the arguments for 'free trade' within our region which are reflected in the SADC trade agreement; and, instead,
* create a negotiated variable and graduated preferential trade area within and through which to create clear and effective production development and diversification strategies for communities, national economies and the region as a whole;
* replace the liberalisation, privatisation and deregulation policies in national and regional programmes and create trade and development cooperation agreements for Southern Africa which address region-specific issues and are not predetermined or constricted by 'compliance' with WTO terms and trade-related conditionalities, or any similar terms in 'post-Lome' agreements;
* convince the South African government to revise its free trade agreement with the European Union where it is in conflict with the declared priority goals of cooperation and development in the SADC region, including South Africa.
6.2 ON INVESTMENT - our governments have to abandon the futile illusion that foreign investors will respond to 'positive macro-economic signals' and an 'open region'; and that such reliance on private capital will create development; and, instead
* recognise that capital is a social relation not a neutral and disinterested financial instrument and, as the embodiment of social/class interests, any growth that such capital produces is distorted and incidental to its main aim of self-expansion (or profit);
6.3 ON LABOUR - all the governments of the region have to recognise the vital role that labour plays in all economic projects/enterprises and national economic development, and recognise that governments have to adopt effective social and economic development policies that bring to an end the forced migration of millions of workers in search of employment and survival.” Ì
5. DIRECTOR’S COMMENT:
It is often forgotten that SADC was actually born as a political organization. In its earlier incarnation it was known as the Southern African Development Co-ordination Conference (SADCC). It was created specifically to unite non-South African independent countries of the Southern African region to unite their positions in relation to the struggle against apartheid in South Africa.
SADCC was transformed into SADC in 1992, and it soon acquired an economic role, that of facilitating the integration of the economies of these countries into a common market. Indeed, since South Africa’s liberation, the economic role of SADC has dominated the agenda of this regional body, and certainly so at the level of the Secretariat in Gaborone. However, it is necessary to draw attention to the fact that SADC’s political function has not disappeared. If anything, the events in Lesotho and then in the Congo, and Western sanctions against Zimbabwe on the land and governance issues have, once again, brought the political role of SADC strongly to the fore. While the business community and the academic and professional economists, and even the Non-Governmental Organisations, largely stress the economic domain of SADC (as the articles in this issue testify), and this is of course an important domain, they would be in error to ignore, or bypass, the political domain of SADC. After all, no economic integration or even a common market can sustain itself without a minimum political consensus between the partners. The present difficulties that the European Union countries are having, for example on the issue of the common currency, is an object lesson of history on the preeminence of the political over the economic in any regionalist efforts. Without a minimal political accord, there can be no viable economic union.
So what political role does SADC play in the region, and what forces determine the parameters and dynamics of this role?
This is a difficult question. It is a subject that requires much thought and deeper analysis than can be offered here. Three things come to the fore immediately as starting points for any serious deliberation on the subject.
These are not clear-cut cases, of course. They overlap. Few conflict situations are of pure types. Indeed, that is where part of the problem lies. Thus, for example, the SADC countries have, overall, come out in defence of the regime of ZANU(PF), and thus of Mugabe, when under clear threat of sanctions or approbation by the Western countries. In an opening address to the Heads of State meeting of SADC in Namibia on 3 September, 2000, its chairman, President of Mozambique Joaquim Chissano, said that detractors were trying to humiliate those who brought freedom and independence to their countries. "We cannot in SADC condone these views,” he said in an unscripted remarks that reportedly drew applause from the summit. “We are the democrats,” he added, “and we want democracy to work according to the will of the people in each of our countries".
This is where SADC countries apparently drew the line. Things could go wrong in their countries, yes, but this did not give outside countries a reason for intervention in their internal affairs. This is, as it were, a continuation of the role that SADCC played when they united to fight against what they conceived in apartheid South Africa as a common threat to the independence and dignity of all of them. If the West can threaten sanctions against one of them today, tomorrow could well be their turn. This way the West can continue to divide and rule as in yonder years.
On the other hand, however, such support from SADC to a beleaguered regime (or government in power) can also tilt the balance in its favour, and raise questions about a regime whose credibility or legitimacy is under challenge. It could also encourage the government in power to pursue policies that large numbers of the population might find unacceptable. Hence the observation by Zimbabwe’s leader of Opposition, Morgan Tsvangirai, that by supporting Zimbabwe on the land issue, the SADC has undermined its role as honest broker.
These are, of course, difficult and politically delicate issues. But no gain is made by putting them under the carpet and refusing to take positions on them on political as well as moral grounds. In other words, the tendency on the part of the business community and the academia in general that takes an almost exclusive interest in the economics of SADC is a derogation of their political responsibility. There is the danger, of course, that by getting involved in politics they could exacerbate rather than ameliorate the situation. But it is an illusion to think they are not politically involved. In Zimbabwe, for example, there is ample evidence that they are involved in recent political developments in the country. And as far as the NGO community is concerned, it is even more incumbent on them to take their political responsibilities seriously since moral and ethical issues are their daily bread. For them to shy away from these difficult political and moral issues is to leave matters of grave concern to be determined almost ad hoc by those who are in power in these countries, or by external interests, which, in most cases, tend to be the former colonial powers and their domestic allies. The civil society in the Southern African region must take SADC for what it is, a political as well as an economic institution. Only that way can they contribute to the building of a genuine community within SADC. Ì
Produced by the international South Group Network (ISGN) Director and editor: Y. Tandon; Advisor on SEATINI: B.L. Das
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