Nordic Journal of African Studies 8(1): 22-38 (1999)

Changing with the Tide: The Shifting

Orientations of Foreign Policies in Sub-Saharan

Africa

JOHN K. AKOKPARI

The National University of Lesotho, Lesotho

I

NTRODUCTION

Foreign policy orientations in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) are in flux. Since the full-

scale adoption of structural adjustment programmes (SAP) by SSA countries in the

mid-1980s and the abatement of the Cold War at the end of the decade, new

anxieties have emerged to challenge established assumptions, analysis and praxis.

The last decade has seen a phenomenal proliferation of armed intra-state conflicts,

which have not only shaped Africa's foreign relations, but also featured on the

foreign policy agenda of its states and regional organisations. This trend contradicts

old assumptions in which the foreign policies of SSA states were explained

exclusively within the contexts of colonialism, the Cold War and its aftermath, debt

and structural adjustment.

The growing incidence of conflicts and their ancillary effects, including

economic and political insecurity, interventionism, refugees and migration, not to

mention AIDS and drugs - have assumed critical importance for foreign policy

makers in SSA and actors within and outside the region with whom they seek

relations. In addition, foreign and local non-governmental organisations (NGO)

now pushing the dual agenda of development and democracy, also influence

foreign policy, albeit to a limited extent. Thus, impinging as these developments

and actors are on the region's affairs, intellectual discourse and analysis on the

foreign policies of SSA require a paradigm shift and a more holistic approach.

This paper demonstrates the shifting orientations and preoccupations of SSA

foreign policies occasioned by changing exigencies and pressures. It argues that the

containment of conflicts has become one of the most central, if not the dominant,

concern of foreign policy in SSA. Divided into sections, the first conceptualises

foreign policy and its objectives in SSA; the second examines the shifting

orientations in foreign policies since the 1960s; and the third, which is followed by

a short conclusion, demonstrates the extent to which conflicts are currently shaping

the region's foreign policies.

22

The Shifting Orientations of Foreign Policies

1. C

ONCEPTUALISING

F

OREIGN

P

OLICY IN

SSA

Conventional thinking holds that foreign policies aim at enhancing a state's ability

to achieve a specific goal or a set of objectives (Holsti 1990: 13). Thus according to

Hermann (1990: 5), foreign policy is "a programme (plan) designed to address

some problems or pursue some goal that entails action towards foreign entities."

Arguing about SSA, Kraus (1994: 257-9) notes that such foreign policy goals

involve two critical issues; namely, the quest for security, and the desire to extend

influence. In retrospect, security has remained a universal concern in almost every

foreign policy calculation. The ability to ward off external aggression is not only a

mark of statehood, but is also crucial for internal peace and development. It was for

this reason that realism, the dominant intellectual tradition during the Cold War,

depicted the twin concepts of power and security as the most central concerns of

foreign policy. Conceived of in largely strategic terms, the sources of security

threats were seen as primarily external. Thus the bolstering of national defences

through the acquisition of sophisticated military hardware became a popular

method of deterrence and the lessening of external security threats.

In the post-Cold War era, however, both the nature and sources of insecurity

have changed. Emphasis has shifted from military and strategic concerns to

economic and human security. This shift reflects popular feelings that military

security means nothing for a population in desperate want of food and shelter.

Zdenek Cervenka has argued that for regions battling with the challenges of poverty

and underdevelopment, "security should first and foremost include food, physical

survival, family and community security rather than military security" (Cited in

Ornas and Salif 1989: 15). Thus, a region displaying the worse human development

indices across the world, security in SSA should be concerned with improving upon

the quality of life. Furthermore, Africa's post-Cold War realities have amply shown

that the sources of security threats are principally internal, posed among others by

opposition elements, the unmitigated tension between structural adjustment and

democratisation, and the rising spate of armed rebellion against established regimes

(Rugumamu 1994; Fatton 1992: 110; Akokpari 1996a).

To a large extent, foreign

policies in SSA aim at assuaging the security threats posed by these conjunctural

factors.

The second concern of SSA foreign policies, the extension of politico-economic

influence beyond national borders, is itself dependent on the containment and

elimination of internal security threats. A collapsing or politically unstable state

will of necessity expend its resources on security rather than on the pursuit of

regional honours. The preoccupation with internal security therefore renders a state

inward-looking and thus reduces its ability and success to influence other external

actors. Morgenthau (1967: 106-144) postulates that a state's ability to extend its

influence through foreign policies is a function of, or contingent on, certain key

factors, including its geographical and strategic location, economic strength,

military prowess, the size of its population, the quantity and importance of its

23

Nordic Journal of African Studies

natural resources, and the type of regime. Lacking most of the above attributes and

in particular presiding over fledgeling economies, most SSA countries, with the

exception of South Africa and, to a lesser extent, Nigeria have limited capacities to

influence actors beyond their borders. Incapacity to pursue dynamic foreign

policies is further compounded by SSA's economic vulnerability, which is in turn a

function of the region's simultaneous marginality in, and dependence on, the global

economy (Callaghy 1991: 36-68).

In many respects, foreign policy is both a means and an end. The overt and

covert objectives of foreign policy are to persuade but sometimes to compel other

actors to behave in a manner that facilitates the achievement of stated goals.

Sometimes, however, even powerful states must redirect their foreign policies in

order to enhance goal achievement. Such foreign policy adjustments and redirection

are rare and are dictated either by expediency or exigency (Hermann 1990).

However, for SSA countries, policy adjustments are the rule, not the exception,

because of the continuing economic and security constraints confronting them.

Accordingly, SSA countries have had to constantly reorient their foreign policies to

reflect or accommodate domestic and external vicissitudes. Such orientational shifts

have rendered SSA's foreign policies innately malleable and pliable, deprived of

coherence or consistency. Since the independence decade of the 1960s, shifts in the

orientation of foreign policies of SSA states have been profoundly evident.

2. C

HANGING

O

RIENTATIONS IN

SSA'

S

F

OREIGN

P

OLICIES

Since the 1960s, roughly five developments have shaped SSA's foreign policies,

each associated with a specific period in the post-independence history of the

region: (2.1) decolonisation and non-alignment; (2.2) the debt crisis; (2.3) structural

adjustment and democratisation; (2.4) marginalisation, and (2.5) armed conflicts.

These developments are by no means exhaustive or discrete. Indeed, in addition to

overlapping, all but the fourth were overlaid by the impact of the Cold War. To

what extent have these developments conditioned foreign policies in SSA.

2.1 D

ECOLONISATION AND

N

ON

-

ALIGNMENT

There is general consensus that during the immediate post-independence years

Africa's foreign policies were informed by its colonial experience (Austin 1972:

167-172; Clapham 1977; Aluko 1977; 1991: 33-44). Agreement is also wide on the

view that these policies were dominated by presidents who reduced foreign

ministries to mere emissaries following the replacement of pluralist politics with

one-party rule. As Hill (1977) has noted, the overriding concern of Africa's first

generational leaders included the total decolonisation and deracialisation of the

continent, the establishment of the new states' identities, keeping the new governing

24

The Shifting Orientations of Foreign Policies

elites in power, reducing the influence of former colonial powers and, tackling the

challenges of development.

In addition, African leaders had to counter the now familiar pathological effects

of colonialism, which were manifested in various ways. For example, it established

strong ties between African states and their former colonial powers. Francophone

Africa in particular retained strong economic, political and military ties with Paris

long after independence, giving the latter considerable influence over the former. It

was even claimed that French Africa required clearance with Paris before

implementing most of its foreign policies (Africa Confidential, December 2

nd

1987).

Also, colonialism forged closer ties among countries with similar colonial

experiences, creating political blocs and fissures which now characterise Africa's

post-independence continental politics. Further, with the introduction of cash

agriculture, which was a logical consequence of colonialism, Africa was

incorporated into the global economy. This process became the foundation of the

precarious mono-crop and agrarian economies that characterise African states.

Again, colonialism bequeathed arbitrary national boundaries, which are seen as part

of the causes of conflicts and insecurity in contemporary Africa. Considered largely

inimical to development and the pursuit of continental foreign policies, some

African leaders sought to address these legacies.

One approach to these ravaging colonial legacies found expression in the

proposal for African unity. However, as it became clear, subsequent on the subject

were characterised by wide disagreements, dramatised in the emergence of three

ideological coalitions: the radical Casablanca bloc which advocated total political

unity; the conservative Monrovia bloc which wanted economic and cultural union

instead; and the ambivalent Brazzaville group, sandwiched between the two poles

(Tordoff 1993: 235-241). These blocs were significant in that they symbolised both

the lack of consensus among African leaders on the form of African unity, and the

deep fissures and fission that had emerged on the African continent. While stronger

linkages developed among coalition members, the gap between these camps grew

irreconcilably wide, making subversion of regimes in the rival camps an implicit

goal in foreign policy (Aluko 1977). With the demise in 1966 of Kwame Nkrumah,

the leading exponent, rhetoric about continental unity receded.

But, if disagreements arose over the nature of African unity, there was broad

consensus over the need for a non-aligned posture in a bi-polar world. As the Cold

War gathered momentum, African countries chose to remain neutral, a position that

ideally guaranteed some leverage in foreign policy choices. However, as inter- and

intra-African conflicts erupted and intensified, and as the challenges of

development became more poignant, non-alignment as an ideology became more

pretentious than practical. In reality, Ghana, Guinea and Tanzania, among those

adopting radical and statist approaches to development opted for socialism or some

version of it and thus tilted towards Moscow, while Liberia, the Ivory Coast and

Kenya, among the pro-market candidates, inclined towards the West. As the Soviets

overtly armed Ethiopia, the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola

(MPLA), and Front for the Liberation of Mozambique (FRELIMO) from the late

25

Nordic Journal of African Studies

1970s, and as the Americans in turn aided Somalia, the National Union for the

Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) and the Mozambique National Resistance

(RENAMO), Africa became a de facto Cold War battleground and the facade of its

non-aligned posture became even more palpable.

2.2 T

HE

D

EBT

C

RISIS

While the rumblings of the Cold War continued, shaping and influencing foreign

policies, SSA's mounting debt was already deflecting attention from post-

independence anxieties and non-alignment. At the close of the 1970s, majority of

SSA countries were deep in debt following the cumulative effects of crushed

primary commodity prices, oil shocks, discredited statist policies and dysfunctional

military rule. By 1984, for example, SSA's debt had soared to $91 billion up from

$14.8 billion in 1974. Against a backdrop of increasing debt and decreasing

prospects for repayment, Western interest in SSA waned. To a considerable extent,

the debt crisis atrophied the interest of Western private banks and EEC countries in

SSA as the latter increasingly became unprofitable for any form of investments.

Thus as indebted SSA countries attempted to reclaim western attention and also

lessen the crippling effects of debt, rescheduling - the arranged postponement of

debt repayment - became a key preoccupation of their foreign policies. Evidence of

this was reflected in the fact that of the 42 countries rescheduling their debts

between 1975 and 1985, 19 were from SSA and of the 144 rescheduling world-

wide during the same period, 67 were for SSA countries. It was, however,

paradoxical that while rescheduling dominated its foreign policies SSA still

remained "by far the most rescheduled region of the world" (Callaghy 1987: 154).

Worse yet, far from being an act of charity, rescheduling neither alleviated nor

stabilised the debt of SSA countries. Rather, this process compounded the interest

on the capital, eventually increasing the original debt. As a result of rescheduling,

for instance, Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo - DRC) paid $191.5

million more to its creditors than it received in 1984 alone. Similarly, between 1983

and 1993, the World Bank and the IMF injected a total of $9.3 billion as aid into

Ghana's economic recovery effort. During that same period Ghana paid back to, or

repurchased from, the IMF more than that amount resulting in a negative net

transfer (Ofori-Atta 1993: 1813). On the aggregate, SSA's interest payments rose

from $221 million in 1980 to $7.2 billion in 1989 (Kraus 1994: 251; Parfitt and

Riley 1989: 88; New African, October 1991: 32). With an overgrowing debt,

foreign policies had a clear objective of endearing countries to creditors, especially

the London and Paris Clubs, in order to achieve debt relief, rescheduling or fresh

loans. Because SSA economies were dependent and fragile, generating only small

revenue, much of which was siphoned away by insidious corruption, external

borrowing continued unabated. With the rate of debt escalation completely

outpacing economic growth and creating bleak economic recovery prospects, SSA

26

The Shifting Orientations of Foreign Policies

became a high-risk unattractive region to investors. Consequently, Western private

banks totally retreated from SSA.

2.3 S

TRUCTURAL

A

DJUSTMENT AND

D

EMOCRATISATION

The void left by private banks was filled in the 1980s by multilateral financial

agencies, notably the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF),

which had hitherto maintained a low profile in the region's development effort.

With structural adjustment, the neo-classical paradigm which calls for the

replacement of the state with the private sphere in development, the Bank and Fund

sought to reverse SSA's economic malaise. In the process, the twin Washington-

based institutions both initiated and determined the contents of domestic and

foreign policies in virtually all countries aboard the structural adjustment wagon.

For the most part, Bank/Fund-initiation of foreign policy in adjusting countries was

covert, but quite conspicuous in Ghana, which was eventually depicted by Western

creditors as a successful structural adjuster (Africa Report 1987; World Bank

1994; Akokpari 1996b). Zaya Yebo, an ex-cabinet member of the Rawlings regime,

notes that shortly after Ghana concluded a stabilisation agreement with the IMF in

1982 World Bank officials were attending cabinet meetings in Accra (Ankomah

1992: 14). This development was not surprising; it represented a logical

consequence of heavy dependence international aid. As one United Nations

Committee Report noted,

"Countries which are dependent on concessional financial flows . have also

been constrained in their national policy-making as a result of pressures from

international financial institutions and the loss of relative autonomy vis-à-vis

those institutions." (CDP 1997: para. 45)

For a region constantly struggling to revitalise its ailing economies, submitting to

foreign influence may not be atypical for SSA once this promises economic

assistance. Agyeman-Duah and Daddieh (1994: 44) have persuasively argued that

the foreign policies of developing countries are driven primarily by the quest for

financial assistance and development aid.

From the mid-1980s discussions and implementation of adjustment policies

dominated SSA's development agenda, altering both the content and locus of

foreign policies. To better meet the requirements of SAPs, foreign policies shifted

effectively from politics to economics, and from presidential mansions to central

banks and finance ministries. Here, not only did Bank and Fund officials set the

development agenda, but they also exercised unfettered control over foreign

economic relations. The intricate interconnection between politics and the economy

meant that control over the latter led inexorably to the domination of foreign policy.

Indeed, Callaghy (1987: 149) could not have been more correct to argue that SSA's

"foreign economic relations are in many ways [its] high foreign policy writ large".

27

Nordic Journal of African Studies

The fragility of SSA's economies and the compelling need to secure Bank/Fund

support or simply their ‘seal of credit worthiness’ in order to qualify for bilateral

assistance, obligate SSA countries to waive their sovereign rights and to succumb

to extra-regional dictates in the determination of their foreign policies.

The beginning of the 1990s brought further intrusive, second generational

conditionalities to augment existing compulsions under adjustment. Underscored by

liberal beliefs, these new conditionalities obliged SSA countries to, among other

things, dismantle authoritarian rule in favour of Western-styled multiparty politics

and the respect for human rights in exchange for Western aid, credit and

investments. Desperately hungry for aid, the majority of SSA countries complied.

Even the leaders of Ghana, Kenya and Zambia who initially argued frantically

against multiparty democracy on the grounds of its incompatibility with Africa's

social reality, succumbed. In the meantime, the results of the multiparty democracy

experiment in SSA have so far been mixed, if not totally dismal. While a few

countries like Ghana, Benin, and Zambia made successful transitions, the majority,

including Sudan, Nigeria, Gambia and Sierra Leone, to mention a few, have either

remained impervious to democratic pressures, retreated to the old-style military

dictatorships, or are swinging back and forth between constitutional and military

rule. The euphoria about Africa's ‘second independence’ envisaged to accompany

the democratic transitions has thus waned and Western governments, which were

initially hopeful about nurturing genuine democracy in Africa, have become only

cautiously optimistic.

To be sure, the twin processes of structural adjustment and democratisation,

along with their attendant conditionalities circumscribed the foreign policies of

SSA states as their regimes came under close international supervision, scrutiny and

surveillance. Indeed, as Bank/Fund officials, election monitors, representatives of

NGOs and human rights investigators made ceaseless trips to individual SSA

countries to check on the proper utilisation of aid, the preoccupation of policy

makers was to demonstrate their countries' simultaneous commitment to market and

democratic reforms. It was clear though that in most countries typified by Nigeria

such commitments particularly towards the latter project were dubious, if not totally

feigned.

Structural adjustment and its vast panoply of conditionalities also spawned

further pernicious implications for regionalism in SSA. Among other things, it

reinforced linkages between SSA countries and Western countries and institutions

at the cost of intra-African ties. Some observers contend that such adjustment-

inspired extra-African orientations are certain to make effective regional

cooperation among African states a permanent nirvana, never a reality (Shaw 1989:

112). Moreover, SAPs emphasis on export agriculture in a region whose countries

are predominantly agrarian, producing similar primary commodities, creates strong

disincentives for regional integration. Not only does the production of similar

commodities among a group of countries undermine the possibilities for

specialisation, but it also limits opportunities for exchanges. In brief, with

adjustment and democratisation, SSA foreign policies became severely constrained.

28

The Shifting Orientations of Foreign Policies

In the main, foreign policy was aimed at improving the credit-worthiness of

countries through policies of strict adherence to international conditionalities.

2.4 M

ARGINALISATION

As SSA grappled with the adjustment-imposed constraints on foreign policies, the

attenuation of the Cold War brought new challenges. The collapse of the Soviet

bloc terminated the ability of SSA states to play one superpower against the other,

as their strategic importance became superfluous. Even so, SSAs gains from the

Cold War should not be overstated. With the exception of Zaire, Malawi, Liberia

and Somalia whose regimes, in addition to economic aid, enjoyed western

protection against popular accountability; and those in Angola, Ethiopia and

Mozambique which also received large amounts of Soviet military aid, the majority

of SSAs 48 countries hardly gained from bipolar politics beyond the leverage to

freely switch between patrons (Copson 1994: 117).

The end of the Cold War neither reversed this situation nor brought new gains.

On the contrary, SSA, including former Cold War beneficiaries, became

competitors with the liberated economies of Eastern Europe for dwindling Western

concessional credit. With political turmoil accentuating SSAs economic

uncertainties, Eastern Europe enjoyed unquestioned preference as the pattern of the

flow of Western aid and investments shows. In 1992, for example, the Organisation

for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) pledged an estimated $45

billion to Eastern Europe for its 24 members. That year the Overseas Development

Administration (ODA) total pledge to the entire African continent was $34 billion.

Similarly, although global flows of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) rose by 40

percent between 1994 and 1995, reaching $315 billion, those for SSA fell from $5

billion to $4.7 billion, or just 1.5 percent of the 1995 world total (Kraus 1994: 256;

Africa Recovery 1996: 23). For much of SSA, then, neither the Cold War nor its

abatement brought gains for foreign policy making. It is clear that the proverbial

grass which only suffers when two elephants fight is safer, perhaps luckier, than

Africa which continues to suffer (even more intensely) when the fighting elephants

now make love. Worse yet, while its foreign policies remained circumscribed by

debt, structural adjustment and marginalisation, armed conflicts and insecurity have

further limited the contents and scope of SSA foreign policies - an issue to which

we now turn.

2.5 A

RMED

C

ONFLICTS AND

F

OREIGN

P

OLICIES

Armed conflicts and wars are not new in SSA. However, the increase in their scope,

intensity and frequency has been phenomenal since 1980 (Copson 1994; Brown

1995: 101). In addition to generating insecurity, conflicts induce refugees and

29

Nordic Journal of African Studies

migration (Akokpari 1998). These, along with the attendant economic and

environmental implications, compel beleaguered states as well as adjunct and

regional governments to respond through the reordering of their foreign policies. In

general, such foreign policy responses aim at mitigating the effects of the conflicts

on their countries. In some cases such policy responses are intended to make

diplomatic gains through the extension of the state's influence in the region.

That conflicts influence the foreign polices of SSA is hardly disputable. At the

height of their civil wars, Angola, Burundi, the DRC, Liberia, Rwanda, and

Uganda, to name just a few, hardly followed any coherent foreign policies beyond

measures designed to suppress internal insurgency or salvage the collapsing state.

In pursuing these goals, the foreign policies of conflict-torn states have focussed on

either one or both of two concerns. First, they aim at increasing the defence budget

to enhance the state's ability to contain internal security threats or repel invading

rebels. For example, by 1988 the regime of Mengistu had increased Ethiopia's

defence expenditure to half the national budget, about $1 billion annually, in

response to the Tigre and Eritrean rebellions, and the Ogaden war. Much of this

budget went into meeting the cost of imported Russian-made military hardware, the

maintenance of Cuban troops, and the remuneration of Soviet military experts. The

war budgets of Sudan, Western Sahara, and Namibia were similarly estimated at $1

million a day, while that of Sierra Leone accounted for 75 percent of total

government expenditure by early 1995 (Copson 1994: 15; Reno 1997: 227-230).

Second, the foreign policies of beleaguered regimes seek to solicit external

military assistance. In the wake of the advance of Charles Taylor-led National

Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL), for example, Samuel Doe, on 7 May 1990,

appealed to Nigeria to intervene after an earlier request to the United States was

rejected (Ofuatey-Kudjo 1994: 272). Similarly, President Ahmed Kabbah of Sierra

Leone extended an invitation to the Economic Community of West African States

(ECOWAS) to restore him to power after being deposed by the country's military

on 25 May 1997 (Pan African News Agency, May 29th 1997). In the same way,

the regime of Laurent Kabila in the DRC is currently sparring no diplomatic efforts

to elicit support from a host of African and non-African governments in its fight

against the country's mainly Tutsi rebels who have coalesced into the Congolese

Rally for Democracy (CRD) (The Sunday Times, August 9th 1998: 4).

Unilateral intervention in which sympathetic regimes attempt to rescue the

besieged government is most often covert. However, some beleaguered regimes

have openly hired corporate mercenary armies to bolster their defences. Both the

Angolan and Sierra Leonean governments have at various times engaged the

services of the South African-based Executive Outcomes (EO) to repel the

incursions of UNITA and the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) respectively. Also,

in December 1996, the ailing regime of Mobutu Sese Seko hired 400 extra-African

mercenaries, including Belgians, Croats, Russians and Serbs to augment its forces

as the Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo-Zaire (ADFL)

closed in on Kinshasa (Rubin 1997: 44-55; Africa Today March/April 1997: 22).

In general, the foreign policies of states threatened by conflicts or collapse tend to

30

The Shifting Orientations of Foreign Policies

focus on ways of ensuring regime survival as well as the maintenance of internal

order.

However, where the conflict is one in which the state is not a direct combatant

but one mainly between contending factions, such as the violent conflict between

ethnic Gonjas and Konkombas of northern Ghana in 1995, the objective of foreign

policy will often, though not always, include securing external humanitarian

assistance for war-ravaged communities and for displaced persons. Often, where

the scale of the conflict and the number of casualties threaten to raise security

concerns for investors and the international creditor community, the state-controlled

media may either underreport destruction or may simply not carry any news about

it.

Just as war-torn states reorder their foreign policies, neighbouring countries also

respond to political turbulence across their borders. Such responses include direct

and covert intervention and may be driven by various motives, including the desire

to protect their economic and strategic interests. Thus, as Lemarchand (1988: 109-

110) argues, Libya's support for Chadian dissidents in the 1980s was motivated not

only by Qadhafi's suspicion that Chad backs Libyan insurgents, but also because of

his belief that Aouzou strip, the main bone of contention among the country's

protagonists, had large deposits of uranium, phosphate and manganese from which

he could benefit. Intervention may also aim at either toppling or entrenching the

incumbent regime. Rwandan support for the ADFL in the 1996-7 Zairian conflict

was aimed principally at overthrowing the regime of Mobutu in retaliation of

Kinshasa's support for Rwandan rebels, while the involvement of UNITA forces in

the same conflict was orchestrated at strengthening the regime's capacity to counter

the AFDL. Angola and Uganda are now openly involved in the current conflict in

the DRC for strategic reasons - to create buffer zones in which to contain Hutu

extremists (Trench et al. 1998: 1).

Prior to 1990, ideological considerations influenced some policy responses to

conflicts. Somalia's covert support for Ethiopian separatists was dictated by the

logic of the Cold War. The same could be said of Zaire's support for UNITA. Other

times, neighbouring states intervene non-militarily as, for example, Kenya's current

mediatory efforts between Sudan and Uganda whose relations have suffered sharp

deterioration in recent years because of support for each others' dissidents, and the

attempts by Zimbabwe to resolve the dispute between the government of the DRC

and its rebels. In doing this, both Kenya and Zimbabwe enhance their own

diplomatic images in the region. Yet still, foreign policy responses from some

neighbouring states may be purely defensive and non-interventive, aimed primarily

at averting the spilling over of the conflict or its effect. Thus, fearing the overflow

of refugees and the possibility that the war might extend into the country, Sierra

Leone closed its border with Liberia at some point in 1990 (Sorenson 1994: 179).

Also, in December 1996, Tanzania ejected thousands of Rwandan Hutus taking

refuge within its borders mainly for economic and security reasons.

Since the effects of conflicts are felt beyond their epicentres, governments in the

region also formulate appropriate foreign policy responses. These responses depend

31

Nordic Journal of African Studies

on their perception of the consequences of the conflict. Essentially, such policies

aim at ending the conflict, but the method may involve mediation or the clandestine

aiding of one faction. Generally, unilateral military intervention may prove costly

for states that do not immediately border on the conflict-ridden country except

when undertaken in concert with other countries or under the auspices of regional

organisations. Nigeria's current military intervention in Sierra Leone under the

aegis of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the

Botswana/South African intervention in the 1998 Lesotho conflict under the banner

of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) are illustrative

examples of this point. Non-neighbouring states, however, tend to support one

faction for economic, security or ideological reasons. South Africa's involvement in

the Angolan civil war from 1978 in support of UNITA was both for ideological and

economic reasons - to outgun the Soviet and Cuban-backed MPLA and thereby

contain communism in the region.

Other times, regional states intervene diplomatically to achieve specific foreign

policy goals. South Africa's mediation in the 1996-7 and the on-going Zairian

conflicts illustrate this point. Since the inception of the new political dispensation,

South Africa has emerged as an undisputable regional hegemony and a custodian of

democracy and human rights. Its foreign policies have aimed at exporting these

ideals. However, in a few instances, South Africa suffered setbacks in its campaign

to promote human rights beyond its borders. For instance, not only did it fail to

dissuade Nigeria's former strongman, Sani Abacha, from executing Ken Saro Wiwa

and other environmental activists in November 1995, but it also failed to garner

African support to impose punitive sanctions on Nigeria after Abacha defied

international pleas for clemency and carried out the executions.

Moreover, although South Africa's president, Nelson Mandela, succeeded in

getting Central and East African countries to impose a trade embargo on Burundi

following the Pierre Buyoya-led 25 July 1996 coup, that new military regime has

survived much to the displeasure of South Africa. Again, in October 1996, besides

failing to dissuade Frederick Chiluba from barring ex-president Kenneth Kaunda

from contesting the 18 November presidential election, Mandela was accused by

Zambia of unduly interfering in its internal affairs. Occasional foreign policy

failures are normal in international relations. However, for a leader with

considerable international stature like Nelson Mandela, a leader perceived as a

symbol of freedom and democracy, this chain of foreign policy fiascos represented

major setbacks. Against this background of debacles, the South African president

was ultimately persuaded that engineering the resolution of the 1996-7 conflict in

Zaire would bolster his image, overshadow past failures and generally reassert

Pretoria's dominance in Africa. Although the 1996-7 Zairian conflict eventually

ended on a military note, only few would dispute the role of South Africa's shuttle

diplomacy. For similar reasons, using SADC as a springboard, South Africa plays a

pivotal role in the efforts to resolve the Lesotho crisis and the post-Mobutu conflict

in the DRC.

32

The Shifting Orientations of Foreign Policies

Like adjunct and surrounding states, regional organisations are also compelled to

reorder their foreign policies to accommodate the shocks generated by conflicts.

Since 1990, meetings of the ECOWAS Heads of States, for instance, have been

overshadowed by discussions on how to contain conflicts in the sub-region. Few

will disagree with the contention that conflict management has displaced and

replaced economic integration in priority as ECOWAS seeks lasting solutions to the

seemingly intractable conflicts in Liberia and now Sierra Leone. Preoccupied with

these conflicts, moreover, military intervention, peacemaking and peacekeeping

have become key components of the community's foreign policies. These new

policy orientations reflect changing trends at both the global and regional levels.

The UN is currently caught in a financial quandary and is unwilling to take on any

new peacekeeping roles in Africa. Also, because Cold War tensions have eased,

undercutting the strategic salience of SSA, Washington has no inclination to

sanction a US- or UN-led intervention in the region. Worse yet, since the ill-fated,

Nigerian-dominated Organisation of Africa Unity (OAU) military intervention in

Chad in 1982, the organisation has shown a weakening capacity to militarily

intervene in conflicts beyond mediation. The weakness of the OAU was amply

demonstrated when full-scale wars raged between Ethiopia and Eritrea; and

between rebels and the government of Guinea Bissau at the same time that the

organisation was meeting in Burkina Faso in June 1998. It was the perceived

incapacity of the OAU to resolve armed conflicts that compelled ECOWAS to

compose the Cease-fire Monitoring Group (ECOMOG) in 1990 to contain the

Liberian conflict. After many setbacks, ECOWAS succeeded in overseeing general

elections in Liberia in July 1997.

Although a myriad of factors incapacitate the OAU from militarily intervening

in Africa's conflicts, its policies nevertheless reflect a desire to do so diplomatically.

Like ECOWAS, the recent agenda of the OAU has been dominated by conflicts.

The last two OAU Summits in Harare and Burkina Faso in June 1997 and 1998

respectively were dominated by the conflicts in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Angola,

Somalia, the DRC as well as the war between Ethiopia and Eritrea (Machipisa

1997). As the military is slowly but surely returning into politics casting doubt on

the sustainability of Africa's democratic revolution, and as threats of violence,

genocide and insecurity loom across many SSA countries, the OAU may be

compelled to dissipate a significant proportion of its meagre resources on conflict

resolution. Already, hitherto topical issues such as structural adjustment, debt,

environmental conservation, democracy and gender parity have relapsed to the

margins of policy as the containment and prevention of conflicts as well as coup

reversals assume prominence on the OAU's agenda.

The OAU is not the only continental organisation compelled by conflicts to

recast its foreign policies in recent years; the UN Economic Commission for Africa

(ECA), a policy and research-oriented institution, is now involved in discussions

about conflict prevention. Acutely aware that development is impossible in an

environment charged with turmoil and instability, the ECA shifted from a position

of apparent non-involvement to active involvement in the search for solutions to

33

Nordic Journal of African Studies

Africa's conflicts. This shift in position was reflected in the fact that during the

1997 OAU Summit in Harare, the ECA Executive Secretary, Mr. K.Y. Amoako,

made passionate appeals to African leaders to spare the already debt-ridden

continent of wars (Machipisa 1997).

The ECAs involvement in the search for peace

was a strong indication that discussions on peacemaking were no longer the

preserve of the OAU. In short, regional organisations have not been left out in the

reordering of policies occasioned by the ubiquity of armed conflicts. Like

neighbours to a warring state, the foreign policies of regional multilateral

organisations have of necessity been conditioned by conflicts and wars.

3. C

ONCLUSION

Without a doubt, the orientations of SSA foreign policies have undergone dramatic

and fundamental shifts. Since the independence decade of the 1960s, the foreign

policies of the region has shifted from one concern to another in accordance with

changes at the international and domestic levels. These shifts have affected not only

conflict-stricken and regional states, but also Africa's multilateral organisations.

Such orientational shifts also suggest that assumptions about SSA foreign policies

constantly require revision if they are to remain valid. While decolonisation,

African Unity and non-alignment dominated foreign policies in the immediate post-

independence years, this is not the case in the post-Cold War period in which SSA

battles with a hostile global economy, and the constant menace of conflicts.

Clearly, regional stability has become the dominant preoccupation of foreign

policy as states and regional organisations engage in frantic searches to prevent,

contain or terminate conflicts. It is uncertain how long conflicts will remain at the

top of the SSA largely pliable foreign policy agenda, nor is it clear what new

orientation will be spawned by the tide of change. It is certain, however, that while

the recipe for conflicts - debt, structural adjustment, poverty, scarcity and

undemocratic regimes - exist, internal dissent, rebellion and conflicts will in the

meantime remain SSA's worst nightmare, and the principal preoccupations of its

foreign policies.

34

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