Challenges faced by the Southern African Development Community (SADC) in Conflict Transformation: The case of the Lesotho Conflict from 1994-2017

ABSTRACT

The post-Cold War period has been characterised by increased intra-state conflicts in most African states which have overstretched the United Nations‟ (UN) capacity to respond to all conflicts that occur in various regions across the globe. This has resulted in an observable relative decrease in the involvement of the UN in African internal conflicts and a subsequent increase in African regional organisations being involved in various conflict handling mechanisms within their respective communities as provided for in Chapter VIII of the UN Charter. Among the mechanisms being adopted is conflict transformation which is a relative new phenomenon. Just like other sub-regional organisations in Africa, the SADC has had challenges in conflict transformation as vindicated by recurrent internal conflicts in the DRC, Lesotho and Mozambique. The study therefore sought to examine challenges being encountered by the SADC in its efforts to facilitate conflict transformation in the region using the Lesotho conflict from 1994 to 2017 with a view to generalise findings to the whole region. The selection of the theory is premised on conflict transformation supported by the human needs theory. The study adopted a qualitative approach to collect and analyse data. In-depth interviews which were conducted in Zimbabwe and Lesotho complemented data collected through desk search. The Lesotho conflict, which dates back to that country‟s independence in 1966, has been recurrent since then. After the transformation of the Southern African Development Coordination Conference (SADCC) into the Southern African Development Community (SADC) in 1992, the regional body has intervened in Lesotho using various means and mechanisms for conflict handling. However, despite SADC‟s involvement in trying to transform the conflict in Lesotho, it has remained recurrent. Since the 1994 disturbances, the conflict has continued to recur at various magnitudes of violence, notably in 1998, 2007 and 2014 to 2017. Given Lesotho‟s continued turbulent nature, the study identified that SADC had some challenges in its facilitation of conflict transformation in that country. The identified conflict transformation challenges in Lesotho which generally apply to the whole region include the sovereignty of member states, national interests of member states, structural challenges for the SADC institutions responsible for dealing with conflict, the demanding nature of conflict transformation programmes and processes, lack of sufficient funding and SADC‟s insufficient grassroots engagement in the transformation process. The study also noted that there were no relevant provisions for conflict transformation to guide SADC conflict transformation. An urgent need to include conflict transformation in SADC provisions and literature was therefore recommended. The research also identified that conflict transformation is demanding in terms of time, human and material resources as well as funding. The research noted that SADC needs to make detailed conflict analysis, come up with necessary phased programmes and processes, draw budgets for each phase, source and allocate funds for each phase and have a system for evaluation. It was also recommended that SADC needs to consider sourcing funds for specific conflict transformation programmes both from member states and from other external actors who include international organisations, other countries outside the SADC region, donor organisations and the corporate world. In this regard, the study recommended that there was need for SADC to reconsider its position of resisting external funding from donors or other countries around the globe. The research therefore recommended that if SADC was to facilitate successful conflict transformation in the region, there was need for the creation of a deliberate fund for the sustenance of conflict transformation in regional conflicts.