Imagine a rolling military insurgency overthrowing the governments of Angola, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Mozambique, putting a junta-controlled rupture between Namibia, Botswana, Eswatini and South Africa and the rest of the African continent.
The 12 remaining legitimate governments that make up the balance of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) meet to discuss action to suppress the insurgency and reunite the region with the rest of the continent. How much faith do you have in their ability to devise and then implement a plan that compels military actors to return control of the four countries that stretch from the east to the west coasts of Southern Africa — or even a solitary member state — to their rightful governments through necessary and effective means?
This hypothetical military insurgency scenario has played out in reality in the northern quarter of Africa, with last week’s coup in Niger creating a more than 5,600km “coup belt” stretching across six countries from coast to coast — from Guinea in the west to Sudan in the east. West Africa’s regional political and economic union, the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) is taking decisive action, led by current chair Nigeria.
West African military leaders met in Abuja to work on a response while a delegation was in Niger for negotiations a week after the coup took place. The immediate Ecowas response was to impose economic and travel sanctions on Niger, with a one-week deadline to reinstate deposed democratically elected President Mohamed Bazoum. When that deadline passed, Nigeria’s Nigelec, responsible for supplying 70% of Niger’s power, cut electricity supply to the country.
Unequivocal advocacy for legitimate and constitutional government by SADC leaders would give peace, stability and self-determination a fighting chance in our region
The last resort of military action is being seriously considered, despite junta-ruled Mali and Burkina Faso warning that any military intervention in Niger would be tantamount to a “declaration of war” against them.
It is ironic that, after playing a key role in Western counteroffensives against the jihadist insurgency in the Sahel since 2012, Niger now finds itself the victim of a military coup. The US has 1,000 soldiers based in its capital, Niamey, and France's anti-jihadist mission against forces in Mali and Burkina Faso, operating out of Niger, was once 5,400 troops strong, with extensive aerial support. Since 1975, the role of Ecowas has been to protect its member states from any potential coups or attacks, ensuring that peace and stability are maintained, along with regional trade security.
Ecowas has previously deployed military countermeasures to secure the region, most recently in Gambia after president Yahya Jammeh’s refusal to step down despite an election loss in 2016. Before that, the Ecomog (Economic Community of West African States Monitoring Group) regional peacekeeping operation led by Nigeria in the 1990s and early 2000s helped restore order in several countries, from Liberia to Sierra Leone.
The Southern African Development Co-ordination Conference (SADCC) was established in 1980 and transformed into the Southern African Development Community (SADC) in 1992, with a focus more on the regional integration of economic development than the protection of the region’s sovereign states. The divergence of the two unions’ main objectives is largely based on the difference between the respective political histories which brought them together in the first place.
But their effectiveness in implementing these objectives is too often dissimilar as well. While SADC most often limits its work to the enhancement of economic co-operation, the union’s mandate — outlined in its 1992 Windhoek Declaration and Treaty — explicitly includes evolving “common political values, systems and institutions” and the “promotion and defence of peace and security” in the region. And yet, despite adopting a framework of Principles and Guidelines Governing Democratic Elections at its 2004 summit in Mauritius, SADC seems already to be neglecting the myriad challenges to free and fair elections which are plaguing Zimbabwe ahead of its forthcoming national elections — just a month away.
A 44-page report released by Human Rights Watch this week has highlighted the undermining of “rights critical for Zimbabwe’s election, such as to freedom of expression, association, and assembly” and “violence, intimidation, harassment, and repression” of opposition parties and civil society activists as threats to the freedom, fairness and legitimacy of the upcoming polls.
SADC members states — South Africa foremost among them — have a history of interventions in the region relating to humanitarian crises and natural disasters. But when autocratic leaders declare war on their own people or military players unsettle political systems — such as the decades of human rights violations in Eswatini under iNgwenyama Mswati III and the six-year Al-Shabaab insurgency in Mozambique’s Cabo Delgado province — the community closest to these injustices is also the least vocal in its condemnation and least active in seeking urgent resolution.
For more than 40 years, Ecowas has demonstrated the kind of accountability-based regional leadership that SADC should aspire better to emulate. Unequivocal advocacy for legitimate and constitutional government by SADC leaders would give peace, stability and self-determination a fighting chance in our region. Prevarication and ambivalence will only further embolden military actors and encourage those who seek to cling to power against the wishes of the people they say they represent.
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