SADC adopts mutual defence pact draft

A plan to prevent and end conflicts within the Southern African Development Community (SADC) was brought a step closer on Friday with the adoption of a draft mutual defence pact, news reports said on Monday. Defence ministers from 10 of 14 SADC countries approved the draft at the end of a two-day meeting in Maseru, Lesotho, South African Defence Minister Mosiuoa Lekota told SAPA. Lekota said the pact would provide a mechanism to prevent conflict between SADC countries as well as with other countries, and for SADC countries to act together against outside aggressors. “The pact is a direct outflow of the SADC protocol on politics, security and cooperation which is a political agreement, among others, on how to deal with any conflict that arises,” Lekota said on South African public radio after the meeting. He added that it would allow for SADC intervention in intra-state conflicts that had the potential to affect the stability of southern Africa. “The protocol underlines that whenever there are difficulties we will always start by peaceful means but ... in certain circumstances peaceful means may fail and therefore the community may have to take enforcement action. The pact is about working out the mechanism, the modus operandi, of on how such enforcement action will be undertaken,” Lekota said. The draft pact has to be studied by individual SADC countries before final adoption at the next council of ministers summit in Blantyre, Malawi, in August. Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Mauritius and Seychelles did not attend the meeting.