Pretoria warming up to Baghdad?

By M.S. Prabhakara

CAPE TOWN, APRIL 18. South Africa is likely to have a resident Ambassador in Baghdad soon. This was indicated by Mr. Aziz Pahad, South Africa's Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, on his return from a recent visit to Iraq .

An official statement issued in Pretoria on Mr. Pahad's visit to Iraq (April 7-10) said that ``there is need for more regular high-level contacts and consultations between South Africa and Iraq.''

As if in Iraq's immediate implementation of this resolve, Iraq's Ambassador-designate to South Africa, Mr. Zuhair M. al-Omar, presented his credentials to the President, Mr. Thabo Mbeki, on April 12.

South Africa, Chair of the Non-Aligned Movement, established diplomatic relations with Iraq only last October. Since then, Iraq has had a resident representative in Pretoria.

The reasons for South Africa not having a resident mission in Baghdad are not simply related to weighing of diplomatic and budgetary choices and options, or even the self- image of Pretoria as a capital where every other country longs to have an official representative while Pretoria itself can pick and choose where, if at all, its representatives should be posted. South Africa simply cannot brush aside the sensitivities of countries like the United States and Saudi Arabia, both bitterly opposed to the present Government in Baghdad, and its own economic and political stakes in these countries.

The reported controversies, uncertainties and vacillations that continue to surround a proposed humanitarian flight to Iraq carrying medical and relief supplies organised by some South African voluntary agencies is just one indication of these sensitivities.

According to a statement issued by the Department of Foreign Affairs in Pretoria on February 22, a flight carrying ``essential medical supplies, baby milk formula and high protein biscuits'' was to have left for Baghdad on February 28. The statement said: ``The purpose of the humanitarian flight is to give effect to the groundswell opinion in South African civil society condemning the devastating effects of sanctions on the civilian population of Iraq.''

The flight is yet to leave, though the expectations still are that it would leave soon, ``in a matter of weeks.''

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Section  : International
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