Issued by: Office of the Presidency
16 May 2001
The International Institute for Strategic Studies has issued a critical report about Africa, and South Africa in particular, and it is necessary to make some preliminary comment pending receipt and study of the full report.
The IISS view, according to Sapa-AFP, is that South Africa and Zimbabwe have failed to provide "effective leadership" over the last year. This, for one thing, perpetuates the mythical linking of the role and fortunes of South Africa to those countries that have decided to move away from democracy, whereas the more insightful international observers such as Anthony Lewis of the New York Times have warned, with conviction, that the connection cannot remotely be made.
President Mbeki's alleged "reluctance" to respond to Zimbabwean land policies is an allegation not borne out by even cursory reference to his critical public remarks on land, the judiciary, human rights and other controversial areas in Zimbabwe - made not once but on many occasions. That he is not prepared to conduct his diplomacy with a megaphone has been appreciated and accepted by much responsible opinion, including the South African business community which has placed advertisements backing him in the South African and British press.
The alleged South African lack of leadership will be news to the Commonwealth, which has chosen to entrust an expanded role of chairperson to the President of South Africa; to the Non-Aligned Movement headed by South Africa; to a whole range of bodies where South Africa plays an acknowledged leadership role in the interests of peace and security in its region, continent and the world. It does little justice to President Mbeki's advocacy of the MAP African renewal plan, and his championing of the poor of the world.
It will, indeed, be news to the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund and many influential world bodies which have gone out of their way to praise South Africa's exemplary stewardship of the economy. The picture of South Africa given in the IISS study, according to media reports, is also at odds with the progress made in productivity, in greater economic growth, in crime detection and combating, in rural and urban delivery, etc, that has been so obvious in democratic South Africa.
The IISS criticism of the President over HIV/Aids fails to take account of the very real progress made in launching and sustaining a Government programme based on the very thesis that the IISS implies he rejects, the role of HIV in causing Aids. The IISS view should be measured against this comprehensive and costly programme, led at Presidential level, to curb HIV/Aids.
Far from "pitting blacks against whites" President Mbeki has -in public utterances in and outside Parliament - called for a pooling of white and black effort to overcome the scourge of racism; and South Africa is soon to host a major world conference on the very subject.
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