This is the transcribed version of that session.
Question: When are we going to have a power bloc in Africa that is going to equal that of the Western countries so that we are not being bullied?
Question: President Mbeki, as the intelligentsia, the youth, we often ask ourselves the question, what do we make of the South African government’s diplomatic strategy in this current epoch, whereas in your epoch yours was to build Africa. In this government we actually see our government actually advocating for regime change within the UN. What do you make of that and what do you think should be the way forward in that regard?
Question: Former President of the country. Some call you an organic intellectual. My name is Mandla Mashele, I am one of the graduates of this university from Mpumalanga.
Now Comrade President, I’ve got two questions. My first question is what will we do to avoid this bloated and expensive public administration.
Question: Mr President, my name is Oscar Van Heerden and my question is, you mentioned challenges with some of the multilateral fora. In terms of the conflicts in Africa, I’d like you to tell me the subjectivity of the ICC. What would happen if the AU takes a decision that all African countries must actually not be signatories to the International Criminal Court?
Former President Thabo Mbeki’e response
The African intelligentsia that was emerging in South Africa, spoke then about the need to liberate the whole of the continent. So this vision about African unity, African liberation, I am saying it’s an old vision, very much established, it is part of our blood.
That is why we sing Nkosi sikelela iAfrica, it was never Nkosi sikelela iSouth Africa.
No, I am saying all this to say I think if there is a concern that our government is not paying sufficient attention to these African challenges, I think we should raise that with the government. And really because in the end, we are an African country. And the rest of the continent sinks, we will sink with the rest. It must be in our interest surely to engage these African challenges and I am saying if people might feel that there’s a sense in which the government is not doing enough, I would engage the government. I am quite sure the government would be quite happy to discuss and debate this matter so that indeed we…we can’t avoid this engagement.
The point that is made about lack of unity on the continent is correct. My own view is we haven’t done enough to ensure that all of these member states who attend these summits, adopt policies…we have not done enough to make sure that those policies are infact respected because the reality is that there is a very large body of policies on the continent, that is agreed.
All of these countries negotiated and agreed. The matter we were talking about just now of this charter on the elections, democracy, good governance and so on, they were negotiated and was agreed. A whole manner of other decisions, whether about economic policy or gender questions, the rights of children and peace and security, all of these.
But I am saying there is a base of policies that have been approved on the continent which indeed, if all of us as individual countries, respected them we’d contributed to this matter of the achievement of the unity of the continent.
Because that unity, we’ve got to unite around a particular perspective. We’ve got united around a particular body of policies and I am saying that, that body of policies is there.
It is a matter that we need to attend to because in reality part of what happens is that Heads of State and Foreign Ministers and so on, go to these summits, decisions are taken, they come back, they don’t even report to the rest of their colleagues.
So, therefore the possibility to integrate these policies that they have agreed gets compromised. But I am saying there is a basis to address this matter. The question we must ask is how do we do it.
I think part of our problem maybe relates to the first question that was posed, part of our problem is that I think is that in many instances we are leaving too much…the issue of the future of our continent, we are leaving it too much and too exclusively in the hands of governments. Where are the people?
So, political parties, trade unions, youth movements, mass organisations of one kind or the other, really ought to be taking up these matters because indeed the point that was being made about the power bloc, what about this power bloc that is going to make sure that we avoid being bullied.
I think that power must in the first instance originate from the people. You some practical problems. You see one day I was talking to one of my colleagues, the President of one of the African countries.
So I was saying part of the problem with …is that yes indeed we may very well agree on these policies and this and that and the other, but when people go home and they have got to consider the fact that fifty percent of their budget is paid by donor countries, it becomes very difficult to entertain the notion of a sovereign African state.
So this President says to me you know you are quite right. In our case we get quite a lot of money from France and then says you see what now you should do, I want South Africa to replace France.
He said President, you give me that budget support and then indeed we will take very firm positions on all of these matters. But I am saying this part of the practical reality that we face on the continent.
I do not imagine that you are going to get a mass withdrawal of African countries from the ICC, from the Rome Statutes. I don’t it’s going to happen.
But the fact of the existence of the ICC emphasises a very important point, which is our own domestic capacity to deal with these kinds of crimes.
Adcovate Pillay mentioned the work that we have been doing in Sudan and in that context we have had very active interactions with the Prosecutor of the ICC And he is always insisting that the ICC is a court of last resort. It doesn’t replace the national courts and therefore it is very, very important that we as Africans must indeed build that capacity and indeed have the will where these kinds of crimes have been committed so that nothing needs to go to the ICC.
Things go to the ICC because of our own domestic failures and indeed if you take many of these African cases that are with the ICC, they were referred to the ICC by African governments, whether you talk about the LRA in Uganda that was referred to the ICC by the government of Uganda or Jean Pierre Bemba was referred by the government of the Central African Republic and so on.
So I am saying that I don’t think that it’s likely that the African countries will withdraw from the Rome Statute. But the correct response to this, it’s a complicated question, but the correct response to is indeed that we strengthen our own criminal justice, judicial systems otherwise is going to continue.
I’m saying it’s a complicated question because there’s always this tension between justice…national reconciliation. When we say, people raise all of these questions, we say look, in the South African case, if the ICC had been there in 199????, we would have refused that FW must go to the Hague.
We would have said no. Not because we are approving of the crimes of apartheid but because there was a larger question which was the liberation of these millions of people as peacefully as possible. So we would have said no. In our case, sure it’s true that all sorts of crimes were committed, but in order to achieve this process of the end of apartheid and the change in this country, avoidance of a racial war, we choose this root.
Now I am saying that this tension that arises all the time, because the ICC will act, when you raise these questions, sure we are not saying there was no injustice or crimes committed, but what are the implications.
Cote d’Ivoire for instance, a very critical central challenge of Cote d’Ivoire is national reconciliation and if you don’t attend to this matter of national reconciliation there will be another civil war in Cote d’Ivoire.
And you can’t achieve this national reconciliation by taking leaders who are supposed to be sitting together to build this new nation by carting them off to the Hague. It’s not going to solve the problems of Cote d’Ivoire. So this is a problem.
So I am saying though that I think as Africans what we’ve got to do is to make sure that we’ve got this capacity to deal with these problems.
Now the last question that was raised was, well, the matter of the bloated public service, South African Ministers are here and they will answer that.
Yes indeed we have got all of these policies agreed through the OAU and the AU. The manner in which we then ensure that these policies are implemented and respected it becomes a challenge.
We set up the African Peer Review Mechanism. The reason for that is because we were saying we need an instrument by which, as African countries, we can infact intervene in one another’s affairs. And therefore said, there we have this Peer Review system, ….will…benchmark…economic benchmark and all of that….
And let the peers come and look at South Africa and say South Africa you are doing wrong things ……precisely to ensure that the question that is being posed, that indeed we then actively use these agreed positions on the continent. …now I think that is a theoretical perspective. In the practice, it’s not easy.
When some other Head of State come here and say, now President Mbeki you are mishandling South Africa, the temptation is to say please go away.
But I am saying it’s a challenge, but certainly one of the instruments that we would use to address that question that was raised, how does the AU intervene to make sure each of our member states indeed act in a manner that respects these policies that have been agreed.