What, one may ask, happened to the promise of enlightened South African leadership of the region? Or, for that matter its converse, the latent fear of South African hegemony over the region?ģ This paper seeks to understand the South African government's response towards the crisis in Zimbabwe. With international expectations running high that the South African would play a key role in resolving the crisis, the apparent failure of «quiet diplomacy» to stem Zimbabwe's slide into economic and political chaos calls into question many key assumptions held of South African foreign policy. At the same time that Mbeki was articulating a vision for Africa's revival couched in terms that marries pan-African idealism to neo-liberal tenets, Pretoria was pursuing an apparently inchoate approach to the economic and political crisis in neighbouring Zimbabwe.
However, while South African president, Thabo Mbeki, issued assurances to an increasingly violent-prone regime in Harare, South Africa's own credibility as a bastion of support for human rights values was increasingly called into question and the rand came under severe pressure, exacting a high toll on its own economy.Ģ For observers of this phenomenon, the most puzzling aspect is the behaviour of the continent's most celebrated democracy, South Africa. Combining public reassurances for Robert Mugabe and support for the land issue while exerting limited diplomatic and economic pressure and incentives, the South African government hoped to bring about a peaceful settlement. Believing that it held sufficient leverage over Zimbabwe, South Africa sought to mobilise diplomacy and economic instruments to bring about a resolution to the crisis through the application of «quiet diplomacy». The mounting economic and political crisis in Zimbabwe, exacerbated by the costly intervention in the Congo and economic mismanagement of its autocratically-inclined president provided an opportunity for South Africa to give substance to its stated democratic aspirations for the continent.
«What I know is that we cannot afford the complete collapse of Zimbabwe on our borders, so we have to try and do whatever we can» 2.ġ South Africa's policy of constructive engagement, or «quiet diplomacy», towards the crisis in Zimbabwe has been a source of domestic concern, international scepticism and eventually outspoken criticism. Interview on BBC World Service, « Hard Talk».
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