Washington, D.C. — Few heads of the State Department's Africa Bureau have been as identified with a policy as has former Assistant Secretary of State for Africa, Chester Crocker, the architect of the still controversial "constructive engagement" that drove the Reagan Administration's policy toward South Africa at the time. Nowhere was Crocker more sharply criticized than from within the leadership ranks of South Africa's African National Congress (ANC). Today the ANC governs South Africa and in the second part of his interview with allAfrica's Charles Cobb Jr., Professor Crocker declares his admiration for the ANC leadership.>
One of the countries that you are most identified with in your role as Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs is South Africa. Looking at how politics and development have unfolded, first under Mandela and now under Mbeki, are you encouraged by what you see in South Africa?
South Africa has always been important and it continues to be important. It is in this current climate a pivotal state, and not only on purely African issues. South Africa's leaders like to think of themselves playing on a somewhat larger stage than as leaders of South or southern Africa, or even just Africa. The South African stock exchange market cap is larger than that of Brazil, even though the Brazilian economy is many times larger than the South African economy. In various ways South Africa is a significant country.
Anything surprise you about how domestic development has unfolded in South Africa?
I think people use the word "miracle" and "soft landing" to talk about South Africa. I'm not sure it is a "miracle." There are some very, very competent people in that country and they negotiated for themselves a strong transition and a new system and they've done some things very effectively. They've dealt with the past in ways that while there has been some controversy, I think has been thoughtful. I'm talking about the Truth and Reconciliation Committee. They've dealt with their at the macro level in a way that can only be applauded as tough and thoughtful and rational. The macro-economic framework that is in place in South Africa is a model. It's going to take some time to produce results because South Africa needs to figure out where is the growth going to come from in terms of its role in the world economy and also in terms of job creation. There is, I think, a healthier dialogue today than there was maybe 3 or 4 years ago, between the government and the private sector about some of those issues and that's vitally important. The South African government has a lot of able people in it.
What would you criticize in South Africa?
I stated some of the positives. We don't see political violence anymore. We see political stability and legitimacy have been accomplished. One of the most democratic constitutions you can imagine. But, there are some issues there I think in terms of the ability of leadership at the very top level in South Africa to grasp the nettle on tough issues. And I'm talking about the HIV/AIDS crisis which is simply appalling and I just don't know how much further we're going to go and still see the reality that we see, which is that there's no remedies being made available to people through the South African health system. Despite all the speeches and all the meetings and what-have-you, nothing is happening; the problem continues to get worse. I think the leadership of any country that is experiencing something like that has to ask itself some questions.
Is nothing being done because officials are deferring to Mbeki?
Well, he is the president and I think he's in a position to make his views known and to get his preferences carried out. It is an overwhelming ANC majority and he is the head of that. And then you have the problem I was referring to earlier; we were discussing Zimbabwe (see part one of this interview, posted Friday). It's a little bit unclear why the politics internally in South Africa are such that it's not possible for South Africa to step up to the plate and do something. I understand the idea and I empathize the idea of solidarity of leaders of liberation movements and all that. It's great. And you can go out to lunch and dinner on that for years. But you can't run countries that way. You've got to ultimately decide what your national interests are.
You were Assistant Secretary of State for Africa for eight years. Could you talk some more about the difference in the approach to Africa ranging from the Reagan Administration, the first Bush administration, Clinton and the current Bush administration? Do you see significant differences?
There certainly are differences. Some of the differences are contextual in the sense that any administration has to deal with the reality that's out there on the ground in Africa. And it can't just come with its own favorite agenda and pursue it without reference to realities on the ground. During the Reagan years we had a very clear set of mandates for the conduct of African policy. And despite a few skirmishes, there was for the most part a clear sense of who was running it, where the diplomacy was directed and what the responsibility lines were and so forth.
Will you describe that?
Yes. I felt that at key moments I had the support that I needed to do my job. I would never have stayed in that job for eight years if it hadn't been for the presence of superiors who backed me when things got rough. And things got rough as they often do. So, that makes a big difference, working for a Secretary like George Schultz, which I did for seven of those eight years.
But we also had a focus. I think one of the most difficult things for any administration working on African issues is to look at the great number of challenges. Today we have the conflicts we've been talking about (see part one of this interview). You have the HIV/AIDS disaster. You have trade issues and what are we going to do to build upon AGOA and that start's been made. There are a whole lot of issues to deal with and how many issues can you take on? We had a prioritization of sorts during the Reagan years. We focused a lot of our efforts on countering Libya's destabilization efforts across the region. We spent a lot of effort on economic reform and partnership with those African leaders who were serious about it. We worked a great deal of our diplomacy in Southern Africa, which was a broad diplomacy involving a dozen states. So there was a sense of focus. No doubt there were things we didn't do but we did do those.
I tried repeatedly to get Sudan on the radar screen in the 1980s and to find a way to get something moving - this was after Nimery's overthrow. To try to figure some way to open up productive channels with John Garang and Swar al-Dahab and Sadiq al Mahdi and other people which might have happened had Mengistu not been still in office in Ethiopia. But he basically vetoed Garang's freedom of maneuver and so it didn't go forward. If you're going to liberate Namibia and get the Cubans out of Angola and lay the basis for the end of apartheid maybe you're not going to do two or three other things. I think that's true today for my successors three times removed. They've got to make some choices. You can't do everything or else what you're going to do is talk the talk and not walk the walk.
Now forward to Bush one. I think my successor was able to do a good bit of regional diplomacy and conflict management initiatives. He did it often with the support of his troops in the field but not necessarily a whole lot of support upstairs. And as long as he didn't need that support it was okay. Up to a point. And we saw some positive things during those years and we saw some negative things. On the positive side we saw the completion of the Namibia process. We saw the flowering of the CODESA talks in South Africa. We saw the Mozambique peace process be quite successful. We saw the end of the Mengistu horrors in Ethiopia and the soft landing that got him out of there and somebody else in who is much more a part of the civilized world. On the negative side we saw Rwanda, the precursors to it, which was very sad. That whole diplomacy didn't really add up to much. And we saw Liberia.
The Clinton years were years of rhetorical activism. I don't think anyone would argue with the notion that this was the most African-oriented at the rhetorical level of any administration. Some credit needs to be given on commercial diplomacy and trade. The late Commerce Secretary Ron Brown helped put Africa on the map and so did the President, in the commercial areas. My problem with that eight years is that I think we kind of avoided our responsibilities on the security and conflict issues. So, it's a mixed legacy that this administration now faces.
Let me ask you right here because at several points you have brought up Libya and Gadhaffi. At the last OAU meeting ratification of the "African Union" was formally announced - an idea pushed by Libyan leader Muammar Gadaffi. What do you think of it? Is Gadhafi's influence growing?
It is very hard to analyse in normal rational terms the diplomacy of Libya because it is so highly idiosyncratic and so highly personal and it does shift around. There are times when you could say that Gadhaffi has suffered major reverses and there is strong opposition in his own country to some of his African engagements. We've seen that in terms of hideous attacks on African migrants who were in Libya and mass refugee flows out of Libya. So, at home it's not a successful policy. You also see a continuation of the kind of subtle subversion that Gadhafi is quite good at, often using just unmarked brown envelopes full of cash, just buying people, buying votes, buying support, building mosques as kind of fronts for other activities and that sort of thing. So it's a mixed picture.
The African Union - I'll believe it when I see anything real. The OAU has enough trouble getting itself taken seriously, and being able to get some traction and making a dent on situations. We don't necessarily need another organization but if there can be coherence in Africa, that's for the good because Africa is very Balkanized.
I guess my other comment would be that sub-regional coherence seems to be a place to start and there is some good news on that front at the level of certain regional organizations where you're seeing some progress like ECOWAS and SADC.
Looking back now in the year 2001 do you have any regrets about opportunities that were present that weren't seized at the time by the Reagan Administration? If Mobutu hadn't been shoehorned in by the U.S.; if action had been taken against Doe or Taylor earlier; if the United States had acted differently in Rwanda? Are there these kinds of "ifs" in your head as you reflect on your own role on policy in Africa?
I think we have two different subjects here. One is what we could have done differently as a country over the years, and the other is my own period of office. I'll deal with the last first. I think we played a proud and constructive role in Africa in the 1980s. I think we helped to put on the road its been on since in positive ways. We did a great deal to create the conditions for the transitions in Southern Africa. The only one that has not taken place effectively and completely is the Angolan one; that's a continuing tragedy. I'm afraid that [Angola's] war is fueled by a lot of resources and it just keeps on going and Angolans keep not learning from history. But for the rest, the sub-region of Southern Africa is not in bad shape except for - and this is the other negative fly in the ointment - the problems with Zimbabwe at the present time. In this regard, as I look at it, South Africa has a key role to play.
That it has been reluctant to play?
Yes. That it's been reluctant to play. And now I don't know if there is a "soft landing" in Zimbabwe. It may require that there is actually a kind of confrontation before we see a change and that would be unfortunate for the region.
But getting back to your question on my own role, with hindsight, looking back at what could have been different I would like to think that perhaps it might have been possible to get something going with the Cubans at an earlier stage. Because the Cubans turned out, along with the South Africans and the Angolans, to have been key players in breaking the morass of conflict between Namibia and Angola and within those societies.
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I'm not sure I understand what you're saying. How do you mean they were that kind of player?
The Cubans were both an obstacle but they were also a decision-making impetus. And when the time came that Fidel Castro had witnessed too many failed Soviet-led offensives by the MPLA government in Angola, Castro acted. He acted both by raising the ante militarily, and by getting serious about the diplomacy that we had created. And Castro got his graceful exit from Southern Africa thanks to American diplomacy. But in a sense he also enabled the South Africans to extricate themselves gracefully from that diplomacy. So, I ask myself sometimes looking back, what could have been done to accelerate the process of engaging with the Cubans? They turned out to be interesting players, interesting participants in that peace process. One wonders what might have happened differently if there had been a change of leadership inside the South African government from Botha to DeKlerk at an earlier stage. But I'm not sure we could have created that. I sometimes wonder if different speech writers had been at the right hand of President Reagan in the summer of 1986, would the sanctions debate have come out a little differently? That speech was the speech that lost the debate.
But you're asking a much broader question. Zaire - the realities of Zaire weren't created in the 80s, they were created in the 60s, by Democrats and Republicans alike. There were may be some opportunities here and there to ease Mobutu out before he was actually dying. There may have been some opportunities in the early 90s; I'm not sure there were in the 80s. I've indicated what I feel about Liberia. I think the missed opportunity there was probably at the moment we began to realize what Taylor was up to. Again, that was not occurring on my watch. Rwanda, well yes, I think we need to be frank here. More Africans have died in civil conflicts since the cold war ended. Since the Berlin Wall came down more died than probably during the cold war from these different conflicts we're talking about - that would be a good project for a graduate student to look into some day but I bet that I am right. If we look at Sudan and look at the Horn, look at the genocide in Rwanda .Where were we? I think we have a lot to answer for in Rwanda. Basically, the administration then in office, which was the Clinton administration, was so upset at what took place in Somalia the year before that they lost their way; they turned the other way and didn't want to know what was going on. I think for Madeline Albright, for Susan Rice and others Rwanda was a very moving experience for them to realize what had happened on their watch.
Interview With Chester A. Crocker (Part 1): Sudan, Congo, Sierra Leone and Liberia
