Mbeki to talk Africa with Blair

South Africa is recognised as a critical player not only in Africa but also in the developing world, so President Thabo Mbeki's two-day visit to the United Kingdom, which kicks off on Wednesday, is set to cover a wide range of issues. Ronnie Mamoepa, spokesman for the department of foreign affairs, said talks between Mbeki and Prime Minister Tony Blair would centre on the "African agenda of development", and cover the situation in the Great Lakes region, Sudan, the World Trade Organisation's (WTO) Doha round of negotiations, the restructuring of the UN and the Middle East peace process. He would also lobby for a diplomatic solution to Iran's standoff with members of the international community over uranium enrichment. "South Africa regards the UK [United Kingdom] as its strategic ally and [the UK] is a natural entry point [for South Africa] to lobby for support within the G8 or the UN Security Council," according to Prince Mashele, an analyst with the Institute for Security Studies (ISS), a Pretoria-based think-tank. The UK is committed to conflict resolution in Africa and spearheaded the recent debt cancellation campaign, which provided relief to 19 countries, giving the developing world a perceived ally among rich countries. As a sign of its commitment to the continent, South Africa, which has allocated 35 percent of its 2006/07 foreign affairs spending to Africa, also increased its contribution to the African Union (AU) budget from about eight percent to 15 percent. Besides its involvement in peace efforts in Burundi and Cote d'Ivoire, it has also been actively involved in peacekeeping missions in several African conflicts, including the Democratic Republic of Congo. The UK has in turn also played a significant role in supporting AU peace efforts in Darfur, Sudan's remote western region, where 3.6 million people have been affected by conflict. According to Henri Boschoff, a military analyst at the ISS, the UK "provides not only financial support to the AU's peacekeeping mission in Darfur, but also helps it with expertise in the form of [security] specialists - the two countries [South Africa and the UK] will probably review the situation in Darfur and the AU's peacekeeping role." In a recent article, Blair said Britain needed to do more to "beef up" the AU's outgunned and underequipped mission in Darfur. The EU has committed itself to footing the bill for the AU's 20,000 strong permanent peacekeeping mission to help resolve conflicts and crises in the continent, which should be up and running by the end of this year. Blair could also raise the crisis in Zimbabwe during his talks with Mbeki, said Mashele. According to government insiders, South Africa has burnt its fingers trying to resolve the situation in Zimbabwe in a series of unsuccessful attempts to mediate between the ruling ZANU-PF and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change. Zimbabwe is battling with an economic and humanitarian crisis, brought on largely by its own policies.