Botswana and the norms and principles of SADC and the AU
Following the fall of apartheid in 1990, Botswana still enjoyed a large degree of international prestige. Gaborone saw itself playing an activist foreign policy role by ensuring that norms governing international regimes were respected and adhered to (Lekoa, 2017). In this regard, Gaborone’s contributions towards
Botswana's constructivist foreign policy 147 conflict management organs and avenues of preventative diplomacy in both SADC and the OAU/African Union (AU) are well noted (Sekgoma, 1998: 483).
SADC norms and principles
The SADC Treaty provisions13 have occasioned a bifurcation between those who privilege national sovereignty, regime solidarity, stability and anti-imperialism (as championed by South Africa and Zimbabwe) and those who underscore the value of liberal democratic ideals (such as Botswana and Zambia). SADC remains dominated by the former camp and this has contributed to the limited success of interventions with respect to crises of governance, democracy and the rale of law which manifest themselves within the region (The Nordic Africa Institute, 2018). Nevertheless, Botswana has managed to forge some alliances, for example with South Africa, in dealing with the Lesotho crisis of 1998 and with Zambia in condemning Mugabe’s actions during the Zimbabwean electoral crisis of 2008.
AV norms and principles
As with SADC’s political configuration, the Summit of the Heads of State and Government is the ultimate level of decision-making in the AU and has served as a bulwark against the operationalisation of the non-indifference principle.14 Member state heads in this regard tend to shy away from decisions that could set precedents inimical to their own self-interests. Thus, for example, in 2016, against the backdrop of an evolving political and humanitarian crisis, the Summit of African leaders failed to dispatch an African Prevention and Protection Mission to Burundi as recommended by the Peace and Security Council of the AU (Dersso, 2016). Similarly, the AU took to a collective foreign policy approach which sought to delegitimise the International Criminal Court and called for a continent-wide withdrawal from the Rome Statute.
As with its participation in SADC, Gaborone imbued principles enshrined in the instruments of the AU as part of its identity. Botswana acceded to the Responsibility to Protect (R2P)15 initiative under the UN, and co-hosted the fourth Annual Meeting of the Global Network for R2P Contact Points in June 2014 (Ntwaagae, 2015). Botswana also supported the AU’s change in posture from non-interference to non-indifference under its Constitutive Act.16 In the lead-up to the establishment of the AU, Botswana chaired the “International Panel of Eminent Personalities to Investigate the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda and Surrounding Events" (Kioko, 2003: 813).
While many of the obligations under international institutions necessarily involve deferring to supranational bodies for decisions that affect member state territories, it did not necessarily follow that Botswana was uncontestably in favour of surrendering its sovereignty to such bodies. This is especially the case with respect to African Institutions such as the AU and indeed SADC, where only four countries were classified by the Freedom House Survey in 2009 as being “free”. This indicates stark contrasts in the socio-political orders of these states (Nathan,
2013: 881). Taking this context into account, the next section of this chapter turns to Botswana's post-1990 approach towards addressing various political crises that arose in Lesotho and Zimbabwe, as well as the AU and International Criminal Court (ICC) fallout over the prosecution of incumbent leaders indicted for gross human rights violations.
Lesotho’s political crisis
With the fall of apartheid in South Africa, Botswana now had an ally—with a similar internal social identity—in a new liberal, democratic South Africa, which aligned with its principles of supporting democratic ideals in regional and global affairs.17 Alongside the big powers of Southern Africa—Pretoria and Harare— Gaborone collaborated on the promotion of regional security, which was predicated on transparency, democracy and human rights (Khadiagala, 2001: 140). This context informed Botswana’s foreign policy towards Lesotho in the 1990s.
In 1994, Botswana (under Masire), South Africa and Zimbabwe, as leading members of a “SADC troika”, collaborated on addressing the problems that had started to plague Lesotho’s political landscape. These problems included the army being at loggerheads with civilian administration, and the dissolution of the government by King Letsie III, culminating in nationwide protests and strikes (Selinyane, 2006: 68). In 1998, further pandemonium ensued, following electoral irregularities that led to a landslide victory for the Lesotho Congress for Democracy. In the wake of this chaos,junior army officers mutinied against senior officers, appointing a new commander. Under the auspices of SADC, Botswana (under Mogae) and South Africa carried out a joint military intervention to restore peaceful order to Lesotho.
Pretoria incurred criticism for using the intervention as a pretext to secure its interests in the Katse Dam, while Botswana was seen more as a peace keeping force, with its army entering the country flying a white flag (Neethling, 1999; Likoti, 2007: 256). In this regard, Botswana projected ideals commensurate with the promotion of liberal democratic principles.
