BY THE HONOURABLE MINISTER RONNIE KASRILS MP
SOUTH AFRICAN MINISTER FOR INTELLIGENCE SERVICES
AT THE “SEA POWER FOR AFRICA” SYMPOSIUM
MONDAY, 29 AUGUST 2005
The Honourable Deputy Minister for Defence, Mr Mululeke George,
The Chief of the South African National Defence Force, General Ngwenya,
The Secretary for Defence Mr Masilela,
The Chief of the South African Navy, Vice-Admiral Mudimu,
Chiefs of African navies,
Representatives of navies and coast guards in Africa present here,
Members of the South African Plenary Defence Staff Council, flag and general officers, officers,
Ladies and gentlemen.
Standing in for our Minister of Defence, Mr Mosiuoa Lekota, may I say it is an honour to open this inaugural ‘Sea Power for Africa’ Symposium 2005’.
I do so in the words of South Africa’s former President, Nelson Mandela. In his address to the International Fleet Review that celebrated the 75th anniversary of the South African Navy here in Table Bay, in 1997, he said:
“The sea is a vital national interest, and that is why we maintain a Navy. Just as we believe that all people should be free, so too as a nation we believe in the freedom of the seas.
That is a matter of national strategic interest. We are a maritime nation trading all over the world.
We accept our obligation to combine with other maritime nations to uphold the freedom of the seas and to protect our national interests through naval power.”
I am particularly pleased to see so many of our navies and coast guards represented here today. In 1994 we hosted the Southern African Naval Chiefs Conference attended by seven navies; and in 1995 the inaugural meeting of the Standing Maritime Committee of the Southern African Development Committee, which has been doing sterling work since then to develop co-operation among our navies here in the south of the continent.
Today we have 28 navies from many parts of Africa present meeting for the first time, to lay the groundwork for the future. We have all come a long way, and we are heading in the right direction.
The destiny of this continent has for centuries been determined by the sea powers of the world, not by the people of the continent. That has been the case because they had the ability, the sea power, to voyage to Africa and to impose their will.
Thus the European powers were able to establish colonies in Africa; thus were the slave traders from east and west able to come to Africa and carry away Africans to work in their plantations and fields; and thus too has Africa been a pawn in various wars between other powers, from the Napoleonic era through the two World Wars to the Cold War.
For too long Africa has lacked the ability to control its waters or access to the continent from the sea. Not since the navies of Carthage and Ancient Egypt and, we must admit, the Barbary Corsairs, has Africa had any real ability to influence events along its coasts or protect its interests or assets.
Since the 7th Century, every invasion, every colonisation, and every attack has come by sea. The only exception being 1973, when Israeli forces temporarily crossed the Suez Canal into Africa, after Egypt’s successful offensive which led to a significant victory and the regaining of territory lost in 1967.
Look at a chart. Almost all of the key landmarks along our coasts were named by Portuguese explorers – Cape Bon, Cape Verde, Cape Agulhas, Cape Guardafui – and by other European sailors and traders. While they were exploring our coasts, we sat ashore helpless, and finally were colonised.
The challenge to us is to develop our maritime power, our naval power, to a level where this continent will no longer be an easy target.
That does not mean building massive navies. It does mean developing the maritime and naval strength to control our waters, to protect our maritime assets and interests, and to discourage adventures by foreign actors, be they states or non-state groups such as international terrorists, narcotics smugglers, illegal immigration or mercenaries.
It does also not mean doing it all ourselves. We cannot do that. Africa does not have the resources for that. We need to do this in partnership and co-operation with each other, and in partnership with our friends in other parts of the world
Maritime and naval power is, if anything, even more important today than in the past:
We must also note the potential for terrorist groups to use the sea. We have already seen the attacks on the USS Cole and a French tanker in the Gulf region, and we know that some of these groups have used ships to move supplies and personnel. The step from there to using ships to transport bombs or, indeed, as bombs, is not such a great one.
Africa is not immune to this problem. There have already been terrorist attacks on our continent. We need only think of the bombing of the United States embassies in Dar es Salaam and Nairobi, the attempt to shoot down an Israeli airliner at Mombasa, following a fatal attack on a tourist resort there, a prolonged terrorist onslaught in Algeria in the 1990s, and the attacks on tourists in Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco. There are groups in Africa that claim to be part of Al Qaeda and other structures. And here in Southern Africa they have been discovered seeking refuge and quite possibly attempting to set up networks. Only alert security forces with community support and international cooperation can halt them and disrupt their criminal intentions. Although I wish to state, there has been much sensationalism about these links in the media and we must avoid stereotyping of communities and belief systems.
There is nothing to stop terrorists attacking a maritime target in Africa, along our busy sea lanes or in our harbours. We must minimise the risk.
Africa must also move swiftly to deal with the problem of piracy, before it reaches levels that make Africa’s ports unattractive destinations. While this used to be a problem restricted to the Gulf of Guinea, pirate attacks are not common off Somalia and this scourge has moved south along both coasts in recent years. The growth of the offshore oil and gas industry will present a whole new set of lucrative targets to these criminals, and of course also to terrorist groups.
It is sadly true that Africa still suffers from intra-state conflict and a range of related security problems. The current crises in Cote d’Ivoire, in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Darfur region of Sudan are just the obvious examples.
If the New Partnership for Africa’s Development is to achieve its aims, Africa must move to deal with this insecurity and instability. Already in 2001 President Mbeki said at the World Economic Forum in Davos that without “peace, security and stability, and democratic governance … it would be impossible to engage in meaningful economic activity”. Or, as my colleague Minister Lekota has put it, “there will be no development without security”.
It is for that reason that the African Union has established the Peace and Security Council, the Early Warning System and the African Standby Force. Africa intends to demonstrate its willingness and ability to help itself to the extent that its means allow.
Many of the countries that are vulnerable to conflict are coastal states, and some are among our island states. There is, therefore, a clear need for the naval capacity to participate effectively in peace support operations, as our colleagues from Nigeria and Ghana, for example, have already demonstrated during the ECOMOG operations in West Africa.
Navies are key elements for transporting forces, conducting littoral surveillance and reconnaissance, and supporting ground forces in coastal areas.
Let us not forget the Great Lakes region. It has seen some of Africa’s worst conflicts and is still far from stable. Notably, it is characterised by those vast bodies of inland water that serve as a source of fish; a means of communication and as international borders in a tense and unstable region. Those inland seas must be patrolled and protected, and their size suggests that this is a maritime matter - even if the water is not salty and there are crocodiles among the fish.
I hope that these comments have illustrated the importance of meeting the maritime challenge – and that not only the navies of Africa will take note, but particularly their governments and people and international agencies.
The key issue, of course, is capacity. Africa’s states are not rich, and they all have many urgent demands on the available funds. There is not much money to spend on our navies and coast guards.
Unfortunately conflict, terrorism and crime will not take pity on Africa, go elsewhere and leave us in peace. Far from it, conflict and crime obey the most basic law of nature and move to fill any vacuum.
If we do not want to go on being the victim, living at the whim of others who have the power to come here and act in their interests regardless of ours, we will have to find a way to develop the capacity to deter or at least discourage them.
Therefore it is of crucial importance that Africa develops its maritime and naval power, building on the basis of the forces available today.
We can do much even within our limited resources, if we:
Looking to the future, the navies of Africa might also consider combining some of their ship requirements to standardise on a particular type for a particular role. That would go a considerable way to reduce acquisition, training and support costs.
In drawing towards a close, allow me to also conduct a little marketing for my own field of endeavour.
Even if we all work together optimally to develop our maritime and naval power, our capacity will still be small when compared to the length of our coasts and the size of our Exclusive Economic Zones: Africa south of the Sahara (by way of example) has a coastline of some 18 180 km; and a collective EEZ of some 6.73 million km2. That is an enormous area for small navies with, mainly, small ships and very few patrol aircraft.
Therefore it is vital that we share intelligence, and that we co-ordinate our surveillance and reconnaissance activities. No force is effective if it does not know what is going on around it. A small force is utterly dependent on good and timely intelligence.
Within Africa’s intelligence community we have made a start. We have recently established an association of African intelligence services, and recently held an inaugural meeting of the Committee of Intelligence and Security Services of Africa (CISSA) in Lybia. We will build on this and on the new African Early Warning System with its headquarters in Addis Ababa and its five regional Early Warning Centres.
The navies and coast guards of Africa can be key contributors to this process of building our overall intelligence picture and ensuring that it is kept current. It is in your interest to do so, as it will make your operations more effective.
Finally, in closing, I would like to stress that South Africa is willing and keen to play its part.
The South African Navy, established as long ago as 1922, will be there to support the other navies of Africa, to complement your capabilities with our new patrol corvettes and submarines, and to supplement your capabilities with both larger and smaller ships when that is needed. Our future fleet planning will take into consideration what capabilities we will need to be best able to operate with our neighbours to achieve our common goals.
We are not just your neighbours. We are also your partners in developing our continent and ensuring its security and its future.
I wish you well in your deliberations, and look forward to enhanced co-operation among our navies.
Thank you.
For further information on the Ministry for Intelligence Services, please visit our website www.intelligence.gov.za or contact the Minister via intmin@mweb.co.za