The
annual summit of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) ended in the Namibian
capital Windhoek on 7 August 2000 with a unanimous appeal for debt cancellation while
adopting a multi-pronged plan to deal with the AIDS pan-demic.
“The debt servicing obligations in
some of our member states are way too
high and are often at the expense of in-vestment
in social sectors, such as edu-cation,
health and water supply,” said
Mozambican President Joaquim Chissa-no.
Five SADC countries – Angola, Ma-lawi,
Mozambique, Tanzania and Zam-bia
– are experiencing acute debt prob-lems,
while the situation in Lesotho,
South Africa and Zimbabwe is of con-cern.
In Mozambique, the worst affected
country in the region, external debt per
head is seven times the gross national
product (GNP) per capita, while in An-
gola the ratio is almost four times. Zam-bia
has been spending 30 percent of its
national budget on debt repayments
each year since 1990 while only 10 per-cent
was spent on social services.
“We believe this is a dire situation
which deserves attention from the cred-itor
nations and international financial
institutions,” said Chissano who hand-
ed over the SADC Chairmanship to Na-mibian
President Sam Nujoma at the same
summit.
The summit noted that while some
developed countries were canceling bi-lateral
debt, it is the multilateral one that
is of grave concern. “Accordingly the
cancellation of bilateral debt has not been Kaunda lost his son to this deadly
disease in 1986, and was among the first
African leaders to publicly announce the
cause of the death. He informed the sum-mit
of the establishment of the Kenneth
Kaunda Children of Africa Foundation
for HIV/AIDS.
In a first for the SADC Summit, first
ladies convened a parallel meeting in
which they discussed the issue of HIV/
AIDS and the need to better the lives of
rural women. In a separate declaration,
the first ladies noted that conflicts as well
as lack of meaningful development in
rural areas were the main problems fac-ing
women in rural communities.
“We appeal to the heads of state and
government of our region to highlight,
promote and defend the roles of rural
women, at all available fora, as indispen-sable
partners for the development in the
region and the continent,” reads part of
their declaration.
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The
summit issued a separate state-ment
in support of the need for speedy
land redistribution in Zimbabwe, and
condemned the “Zimbabwe Democracy
Act of 2000” which was passed by the
US senate on 23 June. The Bill, which is
the first of its kind by the US against an
African country, is meant to force Zim-babwe
to reverse its land reform pro-gramme,
which the US says is undemo-cratic.
“This punitive piece of legislation is
counter-productive and unjust … We
find it regrettable that this Bill is being
proposed at a time when Zimbabwe is
involved in a challenging economic re-covery
programme and when we in
SADC are trying to deepen the integra-tion
process in our region. The Bill will
mark a major setback in our community
building efforts.
“We therefore, urge the US Congress
to reconsider its policy and withdraw the
Bill before it is passed into law. In this
regard, we direct the Foreign Ministers
of the SADC Troika (Mozambique, Na-mibia
and South Africa) and Zimbabwe
as well as our ambassadors in Washing-ton
DC and the SADC Secretariat to make
representations to the American Con-gress
projecting the SADC common po-sition
on this matter,” says the statement.
Discussions on the DRC issue were
deferred to a separate meeting on 14 Au-gust
in Lusaka, Zambia.
The summit endorsed former presi-dent
Masire, who was rejected by Kabi-la,
as facilitator of negotiations involv-ing
the government and the rebel move-ments.
Kabila accuses Masire of partial-ity
and has refused to talk to him.
On the Angola conflict, the summit
continued its condemnation of Jonas
Savimbi whose disregard for the Lusaka
Accord is frustrating efforts to secure
peace in the war weary southern African
country.
“Savimbi is harmful to the people of
Angola, so he should be isolated,” said
Chissano. Savimbi’s actions in Angola
and the war in the DRC are of major con-cern
to SADC as these two conflicts are
not only endangering civilians, but are
Summit delays restructuring
also driving away investors from the rest
of the region.
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On a
positive note, relations between
SADC and the private sector were
strengthened with the signing of a mem-orandum
of understanding between the
14-member organisation and the Asso-ciation
of SADC Chambers of Commerce
and Industry. This came as a major boost
ahead of the launch of the SADC Free
Trade Area on 1 September. The SADC
leaders adopted an amended Trade Pro-tocol
which now gives trade ministers
authority to amend its annexes as they
see fit.
The summit signed new protocols on
Culture, Information and Sport, Legal
Affairs, and SADC Tribunal and the
Rules of Procedure. A revised version
of the Protocol on Shared Watercourse
Systems was also signed. This brings to
14 the number of protocols signed by
SADC since 1995. Of these, eight are in
force having been ratified by the requi-site
two-thirds majority.
There was however, no concrete de-cision
on the exercise to restructure
SADC institutions including the eagerly
awaited restructuring of the Organ on
Politics, Defence and Security currently
chaired by Zimbabwe’s President Rob-ert
Mugabe.
The summit last year directed the
Council of Ministers to review the oper-ations
of all SADC institutions, but the
ministers felt the exercise needed more
time.
As a result of the delay in finalizing
the restructuring exercise, the summit
could not appoint a substantive execu-tive
secretary. SADC is currently head-ed
by Mauritian Prega Ramsamy, who is
in an acting capacity.
At the same summit, Mandela was
awarded the Sir Seretse Khama SADC
Medal in recognition of his contribution
to the region both as president of South
Africa and chairperson of SADC from
1996 to 1999.
He becomes the fifth recipient of the
medal introduced in 1985 in Arusha, Tan-zania,
in honour of Sir Seretse Khama,
the first president of Botswana and a
founding father of the SADC.
Previous recipients are Augustino
Neto, former president of Angola who
received it post – humously, late Presi-dents
Samora Machel of Mozambique
and Julius Nyerere of Tanzania, and
former President Masire.
By Munetsi Madakufamba |
