|
TOWARDS THE 21ST CENTURY: A NEW GLOBAL SECURITY AGENDA?
Hussein Solomon
Senior Researcher, Institute for Defence Policy
Occasional Paper No 6 - June 1996
WELCOME TO THE NEW WORLD DISORDER
In November 1989 the Berlin Wall crumbled, heralding the demise of Soviet-style communism in Eastern Europe. Scholars like Francis Fukuyama and John Lewis Gaddis1 were quick to announce the start of a new golden era which saw the end of brutality, the global triumph of Western liberal democracy and economic prosperity. In the same vein, President George Bush boldly announced his vision of a New World Order. Soon after Bush made this announcement, Los Angeles erupted into racial riots and Bush lost the presidency. Far from heralding a new global era of peace and prosperity, the end of the Cold War has ushered in a world wracked by conflict. Released from the straitjacket of bipolarity, international politics is on a turbulent trajectory.
This paper sets out to identify some of the global sources of insecurity and their implications for national security policy formulation. While the discussion revolves around the global security agenda, in many instances this also forms the backdrop for the discussion of Southern African security and its implications for the South African National Defence Force. The reader is forewarned that the article is more tentative than conclusive, hoping to raise more questions than to provide answers and in so doing to act as a catalyst for debate.
There are eight important areas in coming to grips with the post- Cold War period. These are listed below, but not in any specific order of priority. It should be borne in mind that although the paper is presented in neat sections, they are merely for reasons of exposition, as issues overlap and are closely related to one another. These eight clusters also have an important binding point in that they present grave threats to national and regional security, and ultimately to global security.
DRUGS
World-wide, the value of illegal trading in drugs may be as high as US $500 billion per annum. The United States is the largest consumer with thirty million users spending an estimated $28 billion per annum on cocaine, $68 billion on marijuana and between $10 billion and $12 billion on heroin.2 Within Southern Africa, there are ominous signals that South Africa is being targeted both as a major trans-shipment centre for a wide variety of narcotics, and as a lucrative market. For example, it has been estimated that ninety per cent of global marijuana production is sold in South Africa, while 25 per cent seized world-wide is confiscated locally. The fact that the South African police confiscated R1 billion worth of drugs, lends credence to these estimates. Moreover, it is now thought that more than 100 of these estimated 273 crime syndicates operating in South Africa are involved in narco-trafficking.3
The domestic toll from drug addiction is alarming. It includes loss of productivity, soaring health costs, a sharp rise in drug-related crimes, and the accelerated spread of AIDS via contaminated needles. But drug use is not simply a social phenomenon; it has wider political and security implications. For instance, in Latin America there is an intimate relationship between the narcotraficantes (drug traffickers) and leftist revolutionary groups such as Columbia's M-19 and Peru's Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path).4 Neither are these isolated examples: in Lebanon and elsewhere in the Middle East, in the Balkans, the Southern Republics of the former Soviet Union, Burma (Myanmar) and Sri Lanka, drugs have been the main source of funds for more than one armed movement.5
Drug-trafficking can also adversely affect the relationship between states. For example, the primary reason for the 1989 invasion of Panama by the US was that its administration, under the leadership of General Manuel Noriega, was allegedly allowing the country to serve as a conduit for drugs en route to the US.6 More recently, in one of Ross Perot's strongest attacks against the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), he argued that the eradication of restrictions on the free access of goods between Mexico and the US would allow drug traffickers greater freedom to distribute their 'poisons' in the US.
MIGRATION
At present, one in almost one hundred and fourteen people are displaced world-wide.7 Broadly speaking there are four main types of global population movements. These are: intrastate, east-west, south-north and south-south.8
Estimates suggest that there are twenty million internally displaced people on the planet.9 Many are victims of ethnic strife: good examples are Liberia, Ethiopia, Somalia, Burundi, the Balkans, and the former Soviet Union. Others are victims of civil strife: Mozambique, Cambodia, Guatemala and Afghanistan.
The destruction of the Iron Curtain has erased the physical barriers between rich and poor Europe, ceasing to enclose a total of more than 400 million people from the River Oder to Kamchutka.10 The removal of the Curtain was accompanied by changes and instability (ethnic rivalries, irredentist pressures, nationalist disputes and economic hardships) which were concomitant with the end of the Cold War. All resulted in population movements from East to West Europe.11 In 1989 alone, 1,2 million people left the former Western Pact states to live in Western Europe. In 1991, it was estimated that 2,5 million people left Eastern Europe to settle in Western Europe.12 Since 1991 indications are that this trend has intensified.
Civil war, economic decline, environmental catastrophe and a plethora of other factors have resulted in population displacements from the south to the north.13 The south north migration can be seen in the steep rise of asylum-seekers and illegal immigrants to the west from the Third World. In Western Europe alone, the number of asylum applications from the Third World rose from 70 000 in 1983 to 442 000 in 1990,14 an increase of more than 500 per cent in the space of seven years.
The largest and most dramatic population movements of recent years, however, have been the thirty million refugees and other displaced people in the developing world.15 Political unrest, social upheaval, economic dislocation and ecological disaster have all contributed to the movement of people across national frontiers from one 'southern' state to another.16 As a result there are 3,2 million Afghans in Pakistan and 2,3 million in Iran; 685 000 Ethiopians are reported to have taken refuge in Sudan, while 320 000 Somalians and 384 000 Sudanese are in Ethiopia; and a further 600 000 Ethiopians are reported to have fled to Somalia.17 Civil war and hunger have led to a third of Liberia's population (763 000 out of a total population of 2,4 million) taking refuge in neighbouring Guinea, Sierra Leone and the Ivory Coast.18
Mass population movements are increasingly drawing the attention of key policy makers, not simply for humanitarian reasons, but also because they create domestic instability, generate interstate tension and threaten international security. South Africa, hosting an estimated eight million illegal immigrants, is an interesting case in point. In 1994, it cost the South African taxpayer R1,985 million to host an illegal alien population. In addition, there exists a causal link between illegal immigrants and the spread of infectious diseases like AIDS, malaria, cholera and tuberculosis. Police sources have also noted that fourteen per cent of all crimes within the borders of South Africa involve illegal immigrants. These included gun-running, drug-trafficking, prostitution, money-laundering, rape and murder.19
ENVIRONMENT
The waning of Cold War military tensions has coincided with the growing visibility of problems that threaten the security of many states and require international solutions - the hole in the ozone layer, the greenhouse effect, deforestation, scarce water, energy and other resources. Increased environmental hazards have underlined two forms of interaction between states in the world: co-operative and conflictive.
In 1985 scientists discovered a hole in the planet's ozone layer over Antarctica. This layer protects life on Earth by acting as a shield to the sun's harmful ultra-violet rays. Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) are regarded as the primary cause of ozone depletion. Subsequent research has revealed that similar holes in the ozone layer are developing over much of the industrialised North. The ozone layer is said to be disappearing at a rate of four to five per cent over US latitudes, which would result in an additional 200 000 deaths from skin cancer over the next fifty years in that country alone.20 This has serious implications for the health-care systems and the economies of countries which are similarly affected.
The related greenhouse effect is also a real threat. It is no coincidence that the seven hottest years this century have all occurred since 1984.21 The culprit identified by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) for this act of gross stupidity is homo sapiens. The IPCC, in conclusion to their report, noted that "... emissions resulting from human activities are substantially increasing the atmospheric concentrations of the greenhouse gases: carbon dioxide, methane, chlorofluorocarbons and nitrous oxide. These increases will enhance the greenhouse effect, resulting in additional warming of the Earth's surface."22
Because of global warming the earth's surface is expected to rise between 2ºC and 2,5ºC in the course of the next century. Global warming would result in a significant melting of the Antarctic Ice Sheet thereby raising sea-levels. A one-foot rise in the sea level (which is in the middle of the expected range) would pose a serious threat for low-lying regions such as Bangladesh, the Nile Delta, China, Japan, and the Netherlands. A third of the globe's population live within forty miles of the sea, where the soil is the most fertile and the land the lowest. As sea-levels rise, the world will witness millions of environmental migrants.23 The loss of valuable arable land would adversely affect the capacity of the world to feed itself: mass famine could become more widespread.
Intimately related to the greenhouse effect is deforestation, a problem described by Jessica Tuchmann Matthews as "... the most serious form of renewable resource decline."24 Each year an area the size of Austria is deforested, resulting in intensified global warming. Through deforestation, plants, the only organisms that can remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, are destroyed. Moreover, when trees are chopped down, burnt or allowed to decay, they release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, further contributing to global warming.25
There are at least 75 000 plant species with edible parts in the world today. They contain medicines and foods still unknown to us in many instances. This is underlined by the fact that 25 per cent of all medical prescriptions are derived from plants and micro-organisms.26 This truism has been stressed by the discovery of a promising anti-cancer drug, taxol, in the rapidly disappearing forests of the Pacific Northwest.27 Yet, despite this awareness, deforestation continues unabated and at the current rate, 4 000 to 6 000 plant species are lost per year. This rate of destruction is 10 000 times greater than the pre-human destruction rate. To place it further into perspective, at present rates of deforestation, by the year 2000 as much as twenty per cent of all plant species may have been lost.28
But, what does this mean for international relations in general, and interstate relations in particular?
In the 1940s, David Mitrany constructed a functional theory of international relations. This proposed that, given the common problems facing humanity everywhere, it would result in greater co-operative relations between states. This theme has been picked up and expanded by globalists in the 1980s and 1990s - even to the extent of proposing a world federal government for the Planet Earth. At the heart of such theories is the notion that the gravity of global problems necessitates global solutions - resulting in a greater degree of co-operation among the countries of the world. For instance, one country cannot solve the problem of the widening hole in the earth's ozone layer; it will have to be a planetary-wide combined effort. On one level such global co-operation, arising from shared problems, can be seen to be realised on occasions such as the Rio Earth Summit. However, if one considers the level of acrimony among the participants in the Summit stemming from the US's refusal to sign the various accords, it is doubtful whether such co-operation would be forthcoming.29
Moreover, there is stronger evidence to suggest that the existence of common problems will not necessarily lead to global co-operation. In fact, there is a discernible pattern suggesting that environmental problems are directly responsible for conflictive behaviour.
Consider the case of the growing scarcity of fresh water. Turkey recently completed construction of the Ataturk Dam on the Euphrates River which is to irrigate 7 000 square miles, an area the size of Israel. It will enable Turkey to double its agricultural output and hydroelectric power. However, it has a negative downstream effect on Syria and Iraq, thus straining the relations among the three states.30 This case is not unique. Tensions arising from scarce water resources are to be found in North Africa over the use of the waters of the Nile River between Egypt and Ethiopia31; in North America concerning the sharing of the waters of the Colorado River between the US and Mexico32; and in Southern Africa over Zimbabwe's attempt to construct a dam on the Saabi River, thereby reducing the flow of the river downstream to Botswana. Conflict over scarce water resources holds special relevance for Southern Africa if the semi-arid nature of the region is considered. The African Development Bank33 puts it as follows: "Current calculations are that by 2000, South Africa will suffer water stress, Malawi will have moved into absolute water scarcity and Kenya will be facing the prospect of living beyond the present water barrier. By 2025, Mozambique, Tanzania and Zimbabwe will suffer water stress, Lesotho and South Africa will have moved into absolute water scarcity, and Malawi will have joined Kenya living beyond the present water barrier ... Competition for scarce water resources will intensify."
The potency of resource-based conflict is clearly evident in the Gulf War of 1990 1991, which basically revolved around scarce energy resources. One of the primary reasons for the US to become involved in the Gulf War was its dependence on Gulf oil. American reliance on Persian Gulf oil rose by 500 per cent between 1985 and 1989. By 1990 oil accounted for half of the US trade deficit of $100 billion.34 Thus, when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait on 2 August 1990, President Bush responded: "Our jobs, our way of life, our own freedom and the freedom of friendly countries around the world would all suffer if control of the world's oil reserves fell into the hands of Saddam Hussein ... We cannot allow any tyrant to practice economic blackmail. Energy security is national security and we must be prepared to act accordingly."35
POPULATION
The world's population is expected to grow from 5,3 billion in 1990 to 6,2 billion in the year 2000, and to 8,5 billion in the year 2025.36 The growth rate of nearly one billion per decade presents grave environmental, economic, socio-cultural and political consequences. For instance, resource problems in countries such as Mexico and Egypt are directly linked to population growth. A 1982 draft report on the political conflict in El Salvador noted that "... the fundamental causes of the present conflict are as much environmental as political stemming from problems of resource distribution in an overcrowded land. El Salvador has a population density that exceeds India's."37 Closer to home it has been noted that there is a causal link between the recent conflict in Rwanda and the fact that it has one of the highest levels of population density in Africa.38 Population growth is also seen to be responsible for two-thirds of the increase in carbon dioxide entering the atmosphere between 1950 and 1985, thereby contributing to the greenhouse effect.39 The population boom is also listed as one of the factors contributing to population displacements.40
The twist in the tale lies in the fact that population growth levels are fundamentally uneven. Little of the projected population growth will take place in the north. The developed industrialised states' share of the world's population is decreasing dramatically. In 1950 it was 22 per cent, fifteen per cent in 1985, and is projected to be a minuscule five per cent by the year 2085.41 The future imbalance between 'haves' and 'have-nots' will increase, thereby exacerbating the north-south divide.
Conversely, much of the projected population growth will take place in the countries of the south. For instance, Ethiopia's population is expected to increase from 47 million in 1990 to 112 million by 2025; Nigeria's from 113 million to 301 million; Bangladesh's from 116 million to 235 million; and India's from 853 million to 1 446 million.42 Environmental degradation, economic decline, social fragmentation, and political instability will be the norm in the Third World.
However, there may be an even more explosive consequence of the population time bomb. In the 1930s Adolf Hitler made calls for greater lebensraum (living space) for the Aryan race. To a large extent the demand for lebensraum was artificial - a pretext for Nazi Germany's quest for territorial aggrandisement and reversing the Treaty of Versailles. At present, with so many developing countries experiencing a population explosion, calls for lebensraum, should they materialise, will take on a different meaning. In this regard, it may be useful to consider the case of the People's Republic of China.
At present, China is attempting to feed a billion people on only 250 million acres of land (compared with the US's 400 million acres of crops for its population of 230 million). In addition, mainland China's population is expected to grow by another 200 million by the year 2000.43 The question which needs to be posed is whether the People's Republic of China can feed its growing population, without an increasing dependence upon imported food, which has both balance-of-payments and strategic costs. Feeding 200 million additional mouths is not the only problem Beijing has to face. A growing population places greater stress on the education, health and welfare systems of the country. It also exacerbates the housing shortage and unemployment. These have adverse social and political spin-offs. Beijing's response: an anschluss (annexation) of their own. This time, however, it is not Austria or Czech Sudetenland, but Tibet.
The Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader, is forced to flee, and other Tibetan leaders are either imprisoned or killed. Native Tibetans are transformed into serfs in the land of their birth. Their neighbours - the Chinese - are their feudal lords. Beijing encourages its citizens to settle in Tibet through tax incentives, higher salaries, and lifting the ban of only one child per couple for those who settle in this 'new' region. The result: at present Chinese settlers outnumber native Tibetans by a ratio of 2:1. The possibilities of this scenario being played out in other parts of the globe is terrifying in the extreme - but real!
Finally, there is an even more serious question - given that population growth levels are related to economic indices,44 what implications does this have for a restructuring of the global economy?
GLOBAL ECONOMIC CHALLENGES
The need to restructure the world economy stems from two broad points: the growing north-south divide and economic rivalries.
The existence of the north-south divide, and in some cases its expansion, is clear. It is highlighted by the fact that the richest twenty per cent of the world control eighty per cent of the world's resources.45 This is also demonstrated by the fact that the richest twenty per cent of the world are now 150 times richer than the poorest twenty per cent. It is further underlined by 1,3 billion human beings in developing countries living in conditions of absolute poverty. Saddest of all, it can be seen by the fact that 34 000 young children die every day in the developing world because of malnutrition and disease.46 The need to address the north-south divide stems not only from humanitarian reasons, but also from the threat to prosperity that poverty poses everywhere.
Economic scarcity in the form of shrinking global markets and increasing production costs is intensifying economic rivalries. Technology races and various forms of commercial warfare have replaced the arms race of the Cold War days. According to Japanese politician Isihara Shintaro, the twenty-first century will be one of economic warfare.47 Should this prediction materialise, international security will be severely jeopardised. Huge economic power blocs have already developed in the Pacific Rim and North America as a counterweight to the European Union (EU). Similar economic formations have also developed in Africa and Central and South America. The existence of these large economic formations need not necessarily mean economic rivalries; indeed, they could complement each other. However, in conditions of scarcity such rivalries could develop and historically have become 'hot'.
Consider the following scenario. At present the US's share of the world's GNP is declining in relative terms. This has adverse effects on the US domestic economy: since the mid-1970s real wages for two-thirds of all US wage earners have dropped twelve per cent to 1960 levels.48 Furthermore, there is every indication that this trend will persist. For instance, the US labour force is expected to increase by only one per cent per year this decade, thereby having adverse effects for both future production levels and the broader economy.49
However, there is the growing economic might of the Pacific region. This growth is likely to continue, simply because it is so broad-based. It includes not only the economic powerhouse of Japan, but also the swiftly changing giant, the People's Republic of China; not only the prosperous and established industrial states of Australia and New Zealand, but also the immensely successful newly industrialising countries such as Taiwan, South Korea, Hong Kong, and Singapore. It also includes countries within the larger Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN), Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, and the Philippines.50
Despite a slowdown in any one country's growth, or problems affecting a particular industry, it is evident that the phenomenal growth of this region as a whole is continuing. It is not surprising that the Pacific region, with 43 per cent of the world's GNP in 1989, is projected to possess fifty per cent of the world's GNP by the year 2000.51
This imbalance might have serious consequences. On the one hand, there is the military dominant US with an economy declining in relative terms. On the other, there is the economically prosperous Pacific region with relatively weak military power. Could this imbalance tempt the US to apply a military solution to an essentially economic problem? This is not as far-fetched as it may seem. Historically, numerous examples can be quoted to demonstrate cases where economic rivalries transformed themselves into military rivalries: Sparta and Athens in ancient times; the US and Spain in the early nineteenth century; Edwardian Britain and Kaiser Wilhelm II's Germany in the early twentieth century.
Within Southern Africa, regional economic imbalances are proving to be an Achilles Heel to economic integration. One of the criteria for regional integration is economic complementarity. However, no such complementarity exists in the region where the South African economy contributes 84 per cent of Southern Africa's GNP.52 South Africa's relative economic might have raised fears among its neighbours of Pretoria's 'hegemonic' role within the region. This has recently been graphically illustrated in Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe's virulent attack on South Africa's regional trade policy. Thus South Africa's trade imbalance of 4:1 with its neighbours is having a knock-on effect: souring regional foreign relations.
THE CRISIS OF LIBERAL DEMOCRACY
The demise of Soviet-style communism, marked by the run on the Soviet system in November 1989, consolidated the position of Western liberal democracy. Henceforth, there have been no competing state-sponsored ideologies. The fall of the Soviet system vindicated the tenets of liberal democracy in the eyes of many: Smith, Mill and Keynes were seen to have nailed the coffins of Marx, Lenin and Stalin shut forever. The ideas of Western triumphalism were encapsulated in Francis Fukuyama's The End of History and the Last Man. The liberal democratic paradigm seemed absolute in its dominance. Developments in the immediate post-1989 period seemed to confirm this - economic structural adjustment programmes (ESAPs) liberalised many African economies; the winds of liberal multiparty democracy were sweeping much of Africa, South America, the Middle East and Asia.
Subsequent developments in the former Eastern bloc, which has seen the resurgence of former Communist Parties, seem to disprove this notion. Neither is this an isolated occurrence if the recent victory of the United Marxist-Leninist Party in Nepal is anything to go by. In Southern Africa, too, political pluralism has suffered from several setbacks.
Soon after the destruction of the Berlin Wall, the surge towards multiparty democracy increased in Southern Africa. The corrupt one-party government system of Kenneth Kaunda was replaced by Frederick Chiluba's Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD). In Malawi, the despotic rule of President-for-life Hastings Kamuzu Banda came to a peaceful end when Malawians, who went to the polls for the first time, voted Banda and his Malawi Congress Party (MCP) out of power. He was replaced by Bakili Muluzi's United Democratic Front (UDF). In Lesotho, the rule of the generals ended and the Basotho National Party lost their dominance in an election which brought Prime Minister Ntsu Mokhehle and his Basotholand Congress Party (BCP) to power. In South Africa, white minority rule came to a relatively peaceful end on 27 April 1994 - the country's first racially inclusive election. Meanwhile, both of the region's former Portuguese colonies, Angola and Mozambique, started to make the long and difficult transition to political pluralism.
However, the history of humankind has not been one of linear progress, and so, invariably, the democratic process received some severe setbacks. Swaziland continues to be ruled by a despotic King Mswati III treating the country as little more than his personal feudal kingdom. There are still severe question marks as to the political stability of Mozambique and Angola where the advent of multiparty democracy has resulted in the endorsement of FRELIMO and the MPLA respectively. In both countries, opposition parties like UNITA and RENAMO have found it difficult to accept their subordinate status. This is aggravated by the fact that after years of civil war, a culture of violence has permeated the entire society and this reinforces the perception that changes may only be brought about by the bullet and not the ballot. In Zimbabwe, opposition parties have accused President Robert Mugabe's ruling ZANU(PF) of intimidation. In addition, the democratic press has been effectively gagged by various draconian pieces of legislation and the imprisonment of journalists critical of the ruling party. In Zambia, the newly-elected Chiluba government has lost any pretence of democracy, and ordinary Zambians are increasingly disillusioned with the MMD. Journalists have been imprisoned; Kaunda and his United Independence Party (UNIP), the only credible opposition to Chiluba, have been harassed; and various ministers of the new ruling political elite have been implicated in corruption. In Malawi, the fragility of Africa's nascent democracy was underlined by the attempted coup in February 1995 by a group of army officers against the Muluzi administration. In Lesotho, Prime Minister Mokhehle's BCP has increasingly become more totalitarian. All Principal Secretaries in the Lesotho civil service have been replaced by members of the BCP. The use of the Westminster first-past-the-post system in the 1993 elections resulted in the BCP winning all sixty seats in the new Parliament, while the rival BNP with 25 per cent of the national vote, obtained no seats. The outcome is a de facto one-party rule that has inhibited broad political participation, undermined the development of a vibrant political society, and generated new extra-parliamentary forms of protest and opposition.
Obviously, this is an untenable state of affairs. Southern Africa cannot hope to escape from its current economic malaise where there is no democracy. After all, a functional relationship exists between good governance, foreign investment and economic growth.
These developments give rise to doubts, at the very least, over the universality of liberalism.53 Various reasons account for this failure of liberal democratic values to take root in such societies. Some analysts argue that liberal democracy, as it has developed in Western Europe and North America, is the product of historically specific conditions prevailing in these regions. By extension, it is inapplicable to other regions which have not experienced a similar set of historical circumstances.54 Others argue that the polities within which change takes place (from authoritarian single party states to liberal multiparty democratic ones) are weak and incapable of absorbing the stresses which accompany such changes.55 Still others blame the failure of liberal democracy from emerging in the Third World on the position of the south in the international division of labour. They point out that suffocating debt burdens, insufficient flows of foreign aid, unfavourable export opportunities all conspire to deepen the political, economic and social crises that will have to be faced by emergent democracies in the Third World.56
Irrespective of the source of the failure of liberal democracy, it does place the liberal democratic vision in a crisis and adds yet another dimension to the challenge of global security in this latter part of the twentieth century.
FUSION AND FISSION
Two of the most contradictory elements in the contemporary period are fusion and fission - the peaceful coming together and the violent disintegration of communities.
Regarding fusion, a nascent global culture seems to be taking shape. Denim jeans and Coca-Cola are universal. If Toshiba and Toyota are in New York, then MacDonald's and Kentucky Fried Chicken will be found in Tokyo. If stewed lamb is being cooked in a New Delhi delicatessen, then you can bet that a posh London restaurant is serving a hot Indian curry. If Michael Jackson and Madonna are burning the airwaves in Montevideo, Maputo or Kuala Lumpur, then West African and Indian music represented by the likes of Manu Dibango and Babu Shegal, are sure to be found playing in a Parisian or Manchester discotheque. But this trend towards a nascent global culture is even deeper than this: human rights and gender issues are criss crossing geographical, political and cultural divides. Part of the reason are communications and technological innovations which have compressed space and time, making travel cheaper and allowing for CNN broadcasts to reach 200 million people in ninety different countries.
Fission is seemingly contradicting this trend: scarce resources, varying population growth levels within a heterogeneous society and the resultant growth of virulent ethnic nationalisms are all combining to tear communities asunder. This has been evident in Rwanda and Burundi between Hutus and Tutsis; between Serbs, Croats and Muslims in the former Yugoslavia; and between Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims in India. What is rather interesting at this present juncture of human history is that this problem is now resurfacing in the successful Western liberal democracies: consider the growth of neo-Nazism in Germany; the rising fortunes of Jean-Marie le Pen's National Front in France; the invigorated secessionist movements in Quebec; Catalonia; the Basque country; Corsica; Lombardy; Scotland and Wales; and increasing tensions between Flems and Walloons in Belgium.57 Not even the US has escaped this scourge if the 1992 Los Angeles riots and the growth of ethnocentric nationalist movements are anything to go by.
Southern Africa has also not been spared the scourge of ethnic violence. Although more muted, there are indications that ethnic rivalries may erupt in various areas of Southern Africa.
For many years the Angolan conflict was seen through the prism of a Cold War proxy conflict between the MPLA (Marxist) and Jonas Savimbi's UNITA (pro-West). Released from the straitjacket imposed by global bipolarity, the conflict has increasingly taken on ethnic and racial dimensions. Savimbi portrays himself as the leader of the Umbundu people, Angola's largest ethnic group, whom he claims are being marginalised by the MPLA. UNITA claims that the Kimbundu people and mesticoes (those of mixed Portuguese/Angolan descent) are the enemy as they support the MPLA government.58 Although this is a simplistic ethnic dichotomy that has been disproved in the recent elections in Angola with large sections of the Umbundu voting for the MPLA, ethnic tensions are sometimes easily exacerbated by leaders who exploit these differences for political gain.
This phenomenon is not confined to Angola. Since its inception in 1974, Inkatha under the leadership of Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi, has portrayed itself as a moderate pro Western alternative to the 'radical communism' of the ANC. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the unbanning of the ANC, however, Inkatha has pursued a narrower Zulu nationalist agenda. The result has been an upsurge in violent conflict with thousands of lives being lost in the troubled region of KwaZulu-Natal.
Unscrupulous political leadership is not the only reason for the resurgence of ethnocentric nationalism. In many cases, there are legitimate grievances held by specific sectors of the population who believe their needs are neglected by government. This is the case in Botswana. With a population of only 700 000 Botswana is divided into more than twenty different ethnic groups. One group - the Bakalanga - are demanding greater socio-economic and political recognition, as well as a recognition of language rights from the dominant Tswana.59
In Mozambique, unscrupulous leadership and legitimate grievances have combined with devastating consequences. RENAMO largely draws its support from the Ndau ethnic group who inhabits parts of central Mozambique. RENAMO's war against the FRELIMO government was often portrayed as a struggle against a government dominated by Southerners. FRELIMO supporters in the south are markedly better off in terms of socio-economic development and education than their Ndau counterparts. While it is widely acknowledged that RENAMO has been the creation of specific interests in South Africa and the former Rhodesia, it has more recently been successful in carving out a constituency in the Mozambique body politic.
The advent of multiparty democracy in Southern Africa has at times exacerbated ethnic and regional tensions, as the Malawian experience indicates. The former Malawi Congress Party (MCP) derives its support largely from the Chewa tribe in the central region. In the run-up to the election in 1994, new political parties appear to have organised themselves mainly along regional and ethnic lines. The Alliance for Democracy (AFORD) received most of its votes from the north, and the United Democratic Front (UDF) led the polling in the southern region.
The dilemma facing many countries in the region is how to secure the basic rights of particular ethnic groups in a democracy while preventing narrow ethnically-motivated conflict. While inclusive nation-building would go a long way to assuaging such ethnic tensions, poverty also needs to be combated. After all, economic development is one of the most effective ways to overcome ethnic conflict. Whenever or wherever the struggle for scarce resources intensifies, people organise themselves into ever-smaller groups to compete more effectively for access to resources. While such conflicts may be rationalised in terms of religion (for example, between Muslims and Christians in Tanzania) or ethnicity (for instance, between Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda), the underlying imperative is the struggle for economic security. Economic growth coupled with proper distributive policies will go far in averting most of these so-called 'ethnic', 'religious', and even 'regional' conflicts.
LIGHT WEAPON PROLIFERATION
According to Smith60 light weapons refer to crew-portable and land-based armaments. This definition includes small arms such as pistols, rifles, assault rifles and sub machine guns; light and medium machine guns; heavy machine guns (HMG) with a calibre not exceeding 14,5 mm; anti-aircraft and anti-tank missiles; light mortars; mines and grenades.
The danger light weapon proliferation holds for world peace is underlined by the fact that in 1994, 31 major armed conflicts were being waged in 27 countries around the world and light weapons was the overwhelming cause of both civilian and combat deaths.61 Light weapon proliferation is potentially the most destabilising factor in fragile Third World polities because they change the balance of power between state and sub-state groups such as insurgents, drug-traffickers and other criminals. For instance, insurgents in Kashmir fighting against India are using Soviet Kalashnikov assault rifles, Chinese Type-56 assault rifles, pistols, stick grenades and Type-69 rocket-propelled grenades. In Pakistan, light weapons has exacerbated ethnic conflict between mohajirs,62 Pakistani Punjabis, Pathans from the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) of Pakistan and Sindis.63
In Southern Africa, the legacy of almost 25 years of war has been the surfeit of weaponry introduced into the region. As the region enters a period of relative peace, the problems associated with small-arms proliferation, such as the ubiquitous AK-47 assault rifle, have escalated. These have become tradeable commodities, are widely available and are used for a variety of purposes. In Mozambique alone there are an estimated 1,5 million automatic weapons which freely move among the population.64 Aside from fuelling crime in the host state, these weapons are increasingly smuggled into South African townships via regional crime syndicates.
Once inside townships, these weapons help to transform ethnic differences into ethnic conflict and political differences into political violence. In addition, crime by heavily armed assailants has risen dramatically. Between 1988 and 1993 murders in South Africa increased by fifty per cent and armed robbery by 109 per cent. In 1992, 500 people were killed and 575 injured in 650 incidents in which AK-47s were used. The same type of weapon was used in 165 robberies, a 61 per cent increase over the 1991 figure.65 Obviously, this is an untenable state of affairs; prospects for peace and security are minimal in conditions where large sections of the population are armed.
CONCLUSION
By way of conclusion, it may be noted that, contrary to the euphoria surrounding the events in 1989, the post-Cold War era seems more unstable and dangerous than the preceding fifty years. These new, largely non-military sources of insecurity have challenged traditional Clausewitzian conceptions of security. This was underlined by the fact that members of the International Institute for Strategic Studies were called upon to change a key text of their Constitution at an Extraordinary General Meeting in 1992. They had to approve the following: "The object for which the Institute is established is to promote on a non-party basis the study and discussion of and the exchange of information upon any major security issues including without limitation those of a political, strategic, economic, social or ecological nature."
The original version read: "The object for which the Institute is established is to promote on a non-party basis the study and discussion of and the exchange of information upon the influence of modern and nuclear weapons and methods of warfare upon the problems of strategy, defence disarmament and international relations."66
This raises questions regarding national security policies in general and the role of the armed forces in particular. Do national security policies adequately reflect the nature of non-military sources of insecurity and its impact on 'harder' security issues, for example the relationship between water scarcity and armed conflict? And what about the role of the armed forces: are they properly trained for the demands of the new global security agenda? Consider, in this regard, the various tasks the military has performed more recently. In Austria, the army is used for the construction of anti avalanche 'breaks', the stabilising of ski ropes and the development of alternative energy sources (solar and water). In Bulgaria and Cuba soldiers are used to plant trees and to create national parks and nature reserves in their military localities. A similar situation exists in Finland where commanders of each military area are responsible for the environmental welfare in their areas. In South Africa, the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) is used to support police operations against crime and to curb the influx of illegal immigrants into the Republic. In France, the navy is used to minimise pollution at sea. In Italy, the army has set up the Geographical Military Institute for the study of seismic cartography of the soil, tectonic (rock) modifications, movement of the earth's crust and subsidence. In Jordan, the army is used to combat locust invasions.67
These new tasks performed by the military begs the question of how well-trained the officers of today are to deal with the new security landscape. Recognising the threat to security inherent in certain environmental concerns, the Hungarian Ministry of Defence established a military training school in 1994 specifically for environmental education.68 Given the plethora of environmental and other non-military threats facing Southern Africa, how well prepared are South Africa's military and that of its neighbours to deal with such threats? This raises yet another question: is the military the best agent to deal with these threats? After all, the primary role of the national defence force is to maintain the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the state by repelling any military incursion by hostile forces. Would emphasis on non-military sources of insecurity result in a decrease in the professionalism of the armed forces with regard to their primary task? Furthermore, would defining security so broadly - with the military involved in so many non-military tasks such as building bridges and dams, conserving the environment - not increase their power vis-à-vis the rest of society? This is a particularly important point in Africa where civil-military relations have traditionally been atrocious. But, if the military is not involved in non-military threats, who should be? Moreover, if the military is not involved in such issues, what will the implications be specifically for officer training? Should South Africa at some future time send a peacekeeping force to Rwanda, would the South African commander sufficiently understand the nature of the ethnic conflict between Hutus and Tutsis and the relationship between this conflict and population density and the struggle for scarce resources? Should he need to know this or should this fall under the auspices of some other authority?
These are difficult questions, but they need to be answered. As was noted at the beginning of this paper, its aim was not to be conclusive but to raise questions and thereby, hopefully, to stimulate debate. At issue is the kind of democracy South Africa hopes to be, with resulting good civil-military relations, and the preparedness of the SANDF to deal with any and all threats facing the Republic effectively. More importantly, at issue is whether the security concerns of the ordinary man on the street is and will be addressed.
ENDNOTES
- J L Gaddis, The United States and the End of the Cold War: Implications, Reconsideration, Provocations, Oxford University Press, New York, 1992.
- J J Romm, Defining National Security: The Nonmilitary Aspects, Council on Foreign Relations Press, New York, 1993, p. 9.
- S Baynham, Narco-trafficking in Africa: Security, Social and Economic Implications, African Security Review, 4(6), 1995, pp. 33-34.
- Romm, op. cit., p. 10.
- S Kumar, Drug-Trafficking in Pakistan, Asian Strategic Review 1994-1995, 1995, pp. 194 195.
- Ibid., p. 195.
- H Solomon, Population Movements into South Africa: Trends, Outlook, Policies, FGD Occasional Paper Series, 2, Foundation for Global Dialogue, Braamfontein, p. 3.
- S Bearman, Strategic Survey 1990-1991, Brasseys, London, pp. 41-46.
- G Loescher, Refugee Movements and International Security, Adelphi Papers 268, Brasseys, London, p. 8.
- F Heisbourg, Population movements in Post Cold War Europe, Survival, 33, p. 35.
- F S Larrabee, Down and Out in Warsaw and Budapest: Eastern Europe and East-West Migration, International Security, 16, year???, p. 3.
- Bearman, op. cit., p. 41.
- Loescher, op. cit., p. 16.
- Bearman, op. cit., p. 41.
- Ibid., pp. 46-47.
- N Eberstadt, Population change and national security, Foreign Affairs, Summer 1991, p. 125.
- New York Times, 12 August 1990.
- The Christian Science Monitor, 27 November 1990; The Christian Science Monitor, 7 January 1991.
- H Solomon, Strategic Perspectives on Illegal Immig
|
