John Stremlau. Business Day (Johannesburg). October 23,
2001 . Posted to the web October 23, 2001. AllAFrica.com
Unlike Cold War, war on terrorism will not bolster autocratic rulers in
long term
TWENTY years ago the biggest recipients of US assistance to Africa were four
men whose support Washington wanted in its global campaign against communism:
Zaire's Mobutu Sese Seko, Liberia's Samuel Doe, Somalia's Muhammed Siad Barre
and the Angolan rebel leader Jonas Savimbi.
None of the four leaders respected the human rights and democratic values to
which Americans pledge allegiance.
The African piece of this global policy, which also included sharing
military and other intelligence with SA's anticommunist apartheid leaders,
continued until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1990.
Now that the US has embarked on a global war against terrorism, thoughtful
people are again warning of the moral hazards and long-term political risks of
aligning with autocrats, and of ignoring abuses of power elsewhere. Are these
concerns justified?
Since the events of September 11 Afghanistan's autocratic neighbours have
certainly curried favour with Washington. President George Bush also appears
more accepting of claims by the leaders of Russia, China, and several Muslim
nations aligned with the US that their dissidents are guilty of terrorism that
must be forcibly suppressed.
Even repressive regimes with no discernible role in the antiterrorism
campaign, such as Burma, are likely to benefit from an easing of pressure as the
US and its world media remain focused on Afghanistan.
There are, however, at least four reasons why the Cold War pattern of
long-term US support for autocratic allies will not be repeated in the war
against terrorism.
First, the Cold War was essentially about a struggle for global dominance
between two powerful states, each trying to recruit smaller states to augment
its alliance at the expense of the other. Today, there are no competing
alliances, as virtually all states oppose terrorism. International policy
differences will be about the means, not the ends, of this campaign.
Second, African and other autocratic leaders seeking western favour during
the Cold War could fairly easily suppress supporters of imported atheistic
communist ideology. Only where communism and Soviet support aligned with strong
anticolonial movements, as in Vietnam and Portuguese Africa, did the west lose
in the short-run.
The global terrorist threat, as manifest in the events of September 11,
appears rooted in deeply held religious beliefs that in many countries present a
more intractable challenge to incumbent regimes, especially those that are
autocratic.
Corrupt repressive leaders are likely to prove increasingly unreliable
allies in restraining religious zealots, even those like Al-Qaeda.
Third, liberal democracy is in fact far more prevalent in the world today
than at any time in the Cold War. All of Latin America except for Cuba is
democratic, a majority of African countries have freely elected governments,
most of Asia is democratic or in transition, as are the countries of the former
Soviet Union. This is bound to restrain the US in its dealing with current or
potential autocratic allies in the war against terrorism.
Fourth, Europe is no longer the central theatre of a bipolar confrontation
and is playing a central role in the war against terrorism. This includes
promoting democracy in Africa and elsewhere, in what might well become a new
chapter in sharing burdens with the US.
The recent meeting President Thabo Mbeki and other New African Initiative
leaders held with the European Union augurs well for greater western support for
Africa, in favour of democrats. Bush's closest ally, British Prime Minister Tony
Blair, is Europe's most vocal proponent of the New Africa Initiative, stressing
the centrality of human rights and good governance.
Bush has promised a global campaign that evokes parallels with the Cold War.
Victory, though, will depend on convincing Muslims and other people the US is
not waging war against any religious group; the US will lose if fails to define
the war as a fight for religious tolerance and other core democratic values.
Aligning with autocrats may be tactically necessary, to bring down the
Taliban in Afghanistan. In the long term, though, such tactics will prove
self-defeating, as Bush's references to the need for broadly based nation
building in post-Taliban Afghanistan already suggest.
Such a strategy will take resources and resolve in support of democratic
development that the US has not demonstrated since the era of the Marshall Plan,
more than 50 years ago, and on a far broader scale. This is why financial and
military backing from Europe, and political support of other democracies,
including SA, will be so vital in winning the war against terrorism.
Stremlau is the head of international relations at the University of the
Witwatersrand.
Copyright © 2001 Business Day. Distributed by
AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). | 
