Peace needed to fight desertification, says Zuma
04-Sep-2003: By GUY ROGERS
YOU cannot address land degradation and poverty unless you have peace, South African Deputy President Jacob Zuma said yesterday.
Mr Zuma was speaking during an exclusive interview with The Herald in the Cuban capital of Havana, where he is attending the 6th Conference of the Parties to the UN Convention to Combat Desertification.
Embroiled at home in bribe allegations around the arms deal, he has led a highly impressive SA delegation here through a myriad of complex issues, adding significant substance to the declaration yesterday by the heads of state.
He said his upbringing in the rural KwaZulu area of Nkandla had given him a strong sense of the environment especially the limitation of water resources.
“In terms of this upbringing and the debate here, certainly the issue of how the people should utilise the land has struck a chord.”
Defined as the loss of ecosystem value, desertification is caused by poor land use choices, destructive farming practices like over-grazing, the decimation of forests and over-population as well as the phenomenon of climate change which in turn is being driven by air pollution.
Explaining the intervention he had made on conflict resolution, he said the issue was directly linked to environmental and social upliftment.
“What I said was that violence and confrontation usually effects the poor people worst. Where there is conflict you cannot address questions of land degradation and poverty. We need to highlight this issue. We need peace.”
The deputy president did not spell it out but clearly the intervention seems to have been directed at Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe who has raised concerns of “sovereignty” to defend his violent land reform programme. These concerns colour the declaration, but are prefaced by Mr Zuma’s appeal for peace.
Following on an extraordinarily long and vague speech on Monday by avowed anti-globalist and former paratrooper Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, and the politically laden delivery of Mr Mugabe, the SA Deputy President has received considerable praise from commentators for avoiding the attraction of joining the fray, instead delivering a tightly focused address.
Asked about this, he said he had simply stuck to the strategy of his delegation.
“We came here for a specific issue and I thought it was important to help the participants here by sticking to that focus.”
An early disappointment for the host convention was the decision by the developed countries -- apparently for reasons including conflict with the Castro regime as well as other pressing business in Iraq for instance – to send only ministers and lower order officials to represent them. This issue took on a further dimension on Tuesday when these ministers were barred from entering the heads of state round table chamber to work on the draft of the declaration. Only 16 representatives, all from developing countries in Africa and Latin America, out of 170 countries overall at the conference, finally signed off on the document.
Commentators said the situation around the declaration had likely embarassed South Africa, which has sought to engage positively with donor countries.
Asked if he had expected the proceedings to develop in this way, Mr Zuma said he had not.
“I raised the point in fact that we needed to decide – what are we going to do after this. And I seconded the proposal by the UNCCD that after work by them it needed to be presented back to us.”
The final version of the declaration has apparently pared out much of the rhetoric of the first draft. Without a two-thirds quorum it remains an annex until it is adopted, but it will likely retain this status, with the up-coming decisions to be taken by the full corps of UNCCD members adopted as the only substantive document coming out of the conference.
Mr Zuma said he was comfortable on the international stage.
“I pay attention to international affairs and don’t find it too difficult. It is to some degree home ground to me and you have to find your feet. With globalisation all ideas now are international so the question only is what ideas do you have and how well can you communicate them.”
A great fan of Cuban music he said he loved its warmth and the vivacity of the people.
“They are very much life.”
ends