Thabo Mbeki is currently visiting Namibia, where he was accorded the honor of speaking before that country's parliament and where he hoped to boost trade between the two countries and to reaffirm their special relationship. Mbeki and Namibian President Hifekepunye Pohamba oversaw the signing of three agreements, one on investment promotion and reciprocal investment protection, cooperation in the fields of home affairs and immigration, and on diplomatic consultations. In an act of some symbolic resonance, Mbeki also handed over to Pohamba the records of birth, death and marriage of Namibian nationals, which the South African government had kept up to now, to Pohamba. This embodies a further breaking of the colonial past in which Pretoria dictated Namibia's affairs for some seventy years.
The two presidents are due to co-chair an international investor conference in Windhoek, to be attended by 500 participants, today.
“The reality is that both our histories and our destinies are inextricably tied together. In a literal sense, we shall sink or swim together,” Mbeki said.
“My delegation and I want to thank our brothers and sisters in this country with whom we engaged in a common titanic struggle to defeat the apartheid crime against humanity, which represented itself here in Namibia also as a colonial monster.”
We have heard relatively little of late about the specifics of South Africa's relations with its neighbors, save for the failures and shortcomings regarding “silent diplomacy” with Zimbabwe. And yet it is clearly vital for the region to have South Africa perform as a good neighbor, and not to act as a bully.
