18 August 2008
Sandton — The heads of state summit of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) ended in Sandton, South Africa, on Sunday, without any agreement on power-sharing in Zimbabwe.
The main protagonists were all there. The President of the ruling ZANU-PF, Robert Mugabe, sat on the platform alongside the heads of state, although his victory in the second round of the Zimbabwean presidential elections is widely contested, since the opposition felt obliged to withdraw, given the scale of violence against its members and supporters.
Prominent among the summit's invited guests were Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the Movement for democratic Change (MDC), who won the first round of the presidential election in March, and the head of a breakaway MDC faction, Arthur Mutambara.
An attempt was made to stop Tsvangirai from attending the summit. As he was traveling to South Africa on Thursday morning, his passport was confiscated at Harare airport. Apparently due to pressure from the South African government, the passport was returned a few hours later and he was able to catch a later plane.
The SADC-appointed facilitator for the Zimbabwean crisis, South African President Thabo Mbeki, clearly hoped that Mugabe, Tsvangirai and Mutambara would reach an agreement on power sharing during the summit. But the negotiations stalled, and at the summit's closing session, Mbeki admitted there was no deal on the table, and said that the SADC troika on politics, security and defence cooperation would have to continue dealing with the matter.
The troika, Mbeki said, "continues to engage with this matter, and indeed, after we have formally closed, it will convene again. It is an indication of the seriousness with which SADC approaches this question". He added that a speedy conclusion was needed "so that it indeed becomes possible to address the enormous challenges that face the people of Zimbabwe".
Details of the negotiations have been shrouded in secrecy because of a media blackout. But details of what Tsvangirai told SADC foreign ministers on Friday became available over the weekend. From this it was clear that Tsvangirai is negotiating for the position of Prime Minister with executive powers (the position held by Mugabe during the early years of Zimbabwean independence). Mugabe would remain head of state, with command over the military (a major concession by the MDC), but would lose many of his other powers.
Clearly this distribution of power is still not acceptable to ZANU-PF. Among the other sticking points, according to anonymous South African officials, is the question of who would appoint and dismiss ministers. The Prime Minister or the President?
Interviewed by the "New York Times", Tsvangirai warned "It's better not to have a deal than to have a bad deal".
Botswana's President, Ian Khama, boycotted the summit in protest at Mugabe's presence. This gesture takes on considerable symbolic value in that Botswana hosts the headquarters of SADC, and that Khama's father, Seretse Khama, was one of the men who founded SADC in 1980.
The Zimbabwean crisis overshadowed the main item on the summit agenda, which was regional integration. On Sunday the heads of state officially launched the SADC Free Trade Area (although it has, in fact, been in force since 1 January).
Economic integration is the goal of the 1996 SADC Trade Protocol, and since 2000 tariff barriers within the region have been gradually coming down. By now, all SADC countries were supposed to have removed tariffs on at least 85 per cent of imports from other SADC member states.
The abolition of tariffs should mean that goods are cheaper in the shops. Yet in Mozambique, at any rate, the reduction in tariffs, first to 10 per cent, then to zero, has made no discernible difference. The suspicion must be that any benefits are being pocketed by importers, and are not passed on to consumers.
Mbeki admitted that the Free Trade Area has so far not led to any growth in trade between SADC members. He argued this was because SADC countries have little to offer each other, since they are not producing enough. He said that only by raising production and adding value to their goods could SADC members hope to benefit from the free trade area.
But this does not apply to South Africa itself. Maputo shops are full of South African produce, most of which ought to have entered the country duty free. Yet some of these goods are actually more expensive than they were in late 2007.
SADC Executive Secretary Tomas Salomao declared that the Free Trade Area was a great advance "which shows the selfless commitment of the member countries to profound integration, poverty eradication and promoting the sustainable development of the region. To reach this stage, we had to find various solutions, some of which call into question the sovereignty of states".
Salomao admitted there was much to do to consolidate the Free Trade Area, although he claimed that the results so far made SADC an attractive destination for foreign investment
"The next step we have to take is to remove non-tariff barriers, by eliminating complicated procedures", he said. "We have to work on this, because we're going to reduce the costs of doing business in the region, which will facilitate competition and the development of trade".
Not all SADC members have yet signed up to the Free Trade Area. Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo say they need more time because they have only recently emerged from civil conflict. Malawi has been dragging its feet on tariff reduction, and has not yet reached the 85 per cent reduction required. It pledges to do so by the end of the year.
The next institutional phase in regional integration should be the establishment of a SADC customs union in 2010. A SADC Task force has set up working groups that are supposed to develop frameworks for the Customs Union in such matters as the common external tariff, mechanisms for revenue collection, sharing and distribution, and policy harmonization.
The problem here is that a country can only belong to one customs union. Five SADC members (South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland) are already members of the Southern African Customs Union (SACU). Eight SADC members are also members of the Common Market of Southern and Eastern Africa (COMESA) which intends to announce its own customs union later this year.
Salomao has warned that eventually SADC members will have to choose which customs union they wish to join. Yet there is no sign of anyone pulling out of COMESA, or of any deal on the future of SACU.
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