Interview

Thabo Mbeki, President of South Africa
Simon Marks, Washington Bureau Chief, South African Broadcasting

June 11, 2004
Mayflower Hotel, Washington, DC

SABC’s Marks: Mr. President, thank you very much for talking to us, as ever.  Let me start by asking you about the most immediate event, the Ronald Reagan funeral. How was it for you to be there, and why do you think it was important for you to be there?

President Mbeki: Well, as you can see, its clear that the American people as a whole were mourning the death of President Reagan. And since we were here, I think it would have been wrong for us to not to join the American people as they did in the mourning. But also I think in terms of our own struggle…we had lots of differences with the Reagan administration in its approach to the South African question, but in the end what happened was that in fact it was those differences that were overcome. We should bear in mind that the passage of the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act took place during Reagan’s presidency.  And indeed, the very first meet that the ANC had with the administration of the United States was under his presidency. They were the first to recognize the ANC as a liberation movement and work with the ANC. And that was an important signal, both to the South African regime and to the rest of the world. Once the U.S. government took that position, it became impossible for anybody else to say, treat these people as a terrorist group, isolate them, and so on, marginalize them. Everyone from then onwards could see that it was necessary to deal both the South African government and the ANC. I mean, those are important contributions in terms of moving forward the resolution of the South African question.

SABC’s Marks: And the atmosphere inside the Cathedral? I mean, looking at that ceremony today, I was struck by the fact that you had former ideological adversaries who are clearly now approaching the sunset of their lives, but also a new generation of political leaders who are not necessarily ruling the world or governing the world at a time when there are those ideological confrontations. What was the atmosphere like in that context?

President Mbeki: No, I was also struck of course from the American side that you had this former Democratic presidents in the Cathedral sitting side by side with certainly President Bush, senior, and President Bush current, when he came in and the indirection that one saw seemed fine and of course you had the Democratic candidate, Senator Kerry also in the Cathedral, so it did communicate a message as far as the Americans were concerned whatever differences people might have had with President Reagan, at least they respected the institution, they respected the fact that as  a president he was elected by the people of the United States. And when he died, the first comments, the feeling that they ought to, all of them, be there to say farewell and condolences to the wife, Nancy Reagan and the children. But of course the rest of the world was there. A lot of people from the rest of the world. That includes Mikhail Gorbachev. I sure that communicated the message that there are problems, but that it must surely be possible for people to get together. If they can get together in a Cathedral, they must be able to get together in an office, to sort out whatever common problems, despite differences.  No, I’d…very strong sense that it was a statement that, a point has been made in the U.S. press  quite often that President Reagan did not approach his adversaries in a manner that sought to marginalize them, that sought to define them in such a way that became impossible to have an interaction in the dialogue and so on.  And that was the sort of sense one got in the Cathedral.

SABC’s Marks: Let me ask you about the ostensible and immediate reason for your visit here, the G8 summit. The night before you traveled to Georgia, at the Council on Foreign Relations, you made the cast for both sides in the relationship between Africa and the G8 to reaffirm their commitments to the Africa Action Plan. I think its probably fair to say that the G8 summit did not make massively substantive achievements but do you feel, indeed, that those commitments were reaffirmed?

President Mbeki: No, I thought it made  …  very important commitments were made. We raised the question for instance that the peace and security council had been launched by the African Union. And that it needs to become operational and to become operational, it needed logistical support. The immediate response was, “give us a list.” So we got to work on that list. Now, what is it that is needed?  Whether its boots or vehicles or whatever? So a commitment was made to meet that commitment and that is the only way to get the Peace and Security Council working, is to give it the means. Which, basically, the continent would not be able to meet all of those needs, but a commitment was made with regard to that. We raised the question of the World Trade Organization. That there’s needs. This is part of the commitments made in the G8 Africa Action Plan, so we raised the matter so say, but what about that commitment, because we are running out of time. And again, they made a commitment, they said fine, ok, let’s aim to conclude the WTO negotiations as planned and deal with all of these questions. The point was made that yes indeed, even among us, you have differences about the matters that are on the agenda of the WTO but we’ll try to solve them. And they also agreed to make a public statement saying so. So that creates the political space, then to handle the detailed negotiations and conclude by the beginning of 2005 as was agreed. In the context of that, the issue was raised of AGOA, and President Bush committed himself to push, to make sure AGOA is renewed as AGOA III, so we don’t have all the problems of its expired and all the complications that would arise from that. Especially, a commitment was made in the meeting, with regard to that as a specific AGOA thing. But it was in the larger context of the moving forward of the WTO agenda, all of these things, agricultural products subsidies in all of these kind of things, yes, we must solve those within the time set, bearing in mind, the point was made, bearing in mind the special needs of the African continent in that context. So, I think that was an important agreement. We raised the question of the need to help to finance project preparation. Because in terms of NePAD, a lot of movement has been made with regard to planning. Take agriculture. We’ve got a comprehensive agricultural development plan for the continent, which now needs to be broken down into specific projects. And the problem that’s arisen is the capacity, including financial capacity, to prepare projects, which would then be put out to tender. The Canadians had already moved to commit some funds for this and so we raised this matter and they agreed. Again, we have to come back to them with the detail of how much money is need and what kind of resources are needed.  So, that we’re then able to prepare this project specifically. Another matter that we’d raised which is, we need to ensure that the bilateral arrangements between each of the G8 and individual African countries, relations, cooperatively, whatever, in whatever field, whether its training of people for peace purposes or development assistance or money from the United States for HIV and AIDS and so on, that all of these need to fit into the overall global plan. And indeed, President Bush himself said, fine, in which case, let the institutions of G8 and NePAD deal with these things, let them work then on the detail to make sure that we do integrate these programs. So, now, there were specific decisions that were important, including the important issue, from an implementation point of view, the functioning of the committee of the G8, the personal representatives of the heads of government of the G8, which is appointed to interact on a daily basis with the NePAD Steering committee, to ensure that this is functioning. The specific question, we raised this question, that it has to function, because with out that, we can’t be interacting on an annual basis. Once the G8 meets in the summit, we meet. There’s daily work to be done. And then it was agreed, that they would make sure from their side that board functions properly, because from the NePAD side, the steering committees, that’s a permanent body. So, I think therefore, the institutional capacity to translate the agreed programs into practical programs, that institutional capacity is there and will be strengthened, if it’s weak. And in regard to some of these elements where were have moved, where there is the peace and security or agriculture or infrastructure, it should be possible, with the resources that have been committed, for us then to translate those broad programs into specific, actionable programs. So, I thought that was very important decisions. 

SABC’s Marks: Once the summit ended, you made the point that you and the other African heads of state, there were 15 people around the table, it was a 2 hour conversation, the degree of specificity that you were able to discuss certain issues had been limited. Was there any frustration on you part or on the part of the other African leaders that you were at least this year being shoe-horned into a rather short period of time?

President Mbeki: No, certainly our view was that we needed more time which is why it was important, since there was not enough time, it was important that the matter of the implementation mechanisms that needed to be addressed. Since we couldn’t discuss all of the necessary detail at the summit, there needed to be a place where those details were to be discussed and hence the importance of the proper functioning of the subcommittee of the G8, which is its personal representatives to make sure that it functions. I thought that that compensated for the fact that the meeting was relatively short, as I say, lots of people there. And you couldn’t get into this kind of detail that was needed. The fact that you have an institution to be able to pursue this and indeed some of the personal representatives of the G8 came to me afterwards, because, you remember, they’d been listening in on the conversations, they came to me to say, thank you very much for insisting, on this thing, because its now empowered us to make sure that we do act and deal with these details which could not be dealt with at the summit.

SABC’s Marks:And finally Mr. President, let me ask you about one other issue that’s in the news today, the latest developments in the DRC. Have you had an opportunity to talk to President Kabila? Do you have a sense of his security in office at the moment? Do you have a sense of what’s going on, on the ground in the DRC?

President Mbeki: Well, no I haven’t spoken to President Kabila. But as you know, I sent a delegation to the Congo this week, led by Minister Mufamadi. It was essentially to discuss with the Congolese government progress and problems in regards to the implementation of the agreement, the agreement that they had reached. And the minister is saying that there is a very firm commitment indeed to move faster in regard to the implementation of that agreement. So, I’m quite certain that we’ll do that. They’ve asked, President Kabila has asked that I should myself come as quickly as possible to go over the same ground. So that we can work together to see, what are the obstacles, if any to speedy movement forward in regard to the implementation of the agreements. No, I’m sure that the situation is alright. I’ve spoke to our ambassador who has been reporting regularly about what is happening. And in the situation is calm, the government responded to this attempted coup, together, in a very unified way and swiftly and effectively. Its clear that some people have managed to get away among the people that are in that rebellion. But, I think it actually demonstrates the crisis that was that was produced by this underlined the importance for this government of national unity to act as a government of national unity and to act decisively deal with this.  And they’ve responded very well, so. We have no problem, we have no worries at all, but I think it emphasizes all of this, the need to move forward faster. It really, its implementation of agreed positions.