Toward a regional approach to human security in Southern Africa

Over the last fifteen years, the combined effects of the end of the Cold War and the peaceful transition of South Africa to black majority rule have radically trans- formed the security landscape of Southern Africa. [...] In this, the twenty-sixth Martello Paper, Alhaji Bah — a specialist on regional security in Africa — assesses the efforts of the members of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) to create a security architecture for the sub- region, which includes fourteen states reaching from the Cape to the northern bor- ders of Tanzania and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). [...] The new approach was clearly spelt out in Article (2) of the SADC Protocol on Politics, Defence and Security Co-operation, which outlines the Organ’s objectives as follows: “protect the people and safeguard the development of the Region against instability aris- ing from the breakdown of law and order, intra-state conflict, inter-state conflict and aggression; promote the development of democratic [...] The end of the Cold War superpower rivalry, coupled with the liberation of the remaining minority-ruled states of Namibia and South Africa and the ensuing disarmament and demobilization of thousands of fighters, marked a new phase in Southern Africa’s attempt to deal with the problem of small arms proliferation. [...] Boutros-Ghali introduced the term “micro-disarmament” and called for “practical disarmament in the context of the conflicts the UN is actually dealing with and of the weapons, most of them light weapons, that are actually killing people in the hundreds of thousands.”20 12 Toward a Regional Approach to Human Security in Southern Africa Four years later, Virginia Gamba, a leading voice in the small