Mandela and a new role for peace

South African President Nelson Mandela, already helping the search for peace in 10 countries, plans to renew his efforts to end the civilian war in the Sudan and East Trimer later this month.

Sudanese President Omar Hassan AL-Bashir after meeting with Mandela in Pretoria reiterated his call for a cease-fire with the main opposition movement's, in south Sudan, leader Garang.

Not every one is convinced, however, that either Mondela or South Africa President have much to offer to world peace.

Now Mandela is preparing to meet the Sudan peoples' Liberation Army leader John Garang and UN special representative for East Trimor Jamseed before the end of this month.

Mandela has emerged as a leader with stature far beyond South Africa's borders.

"We’re the newest boys on the block and sometimes it is felt by belligerent groups that South Africa has no hidden agenda. Increasingly, we are getting involved in trying to resolve conflicts", said Deputy Foreign Minister Aziz Pahad.

Mandela, 79, has not scored one unqualified success since 1994, when he led his own country from the conflict of apartheid through an almost miraculously peaceful transition to a democracy largely accepted by blacks and whites.

Some recent mediation efforts have led to blunders such as the delivery of a personal letter to Indonesian President Suharto about East Timor to the embassy of Portugal, the territory’s former colonial power, which leaked it to the media.

Mandela’s credibility was further dented by his announcement after talking of Kofi Annan on a cellular telephone that UN Secretary General would make a surprise visit to South Africa to discuss the East Timor initiative.

A number of interventions by the President himself in African crises have raised considerable doubts about Pretoria's ability to influence events, political analyst Greg Mills wrote in the Sunday Independent.

"The President's attempts to bring democracy to Nigeria and reconciliation to Angola and to nudge king Mswati III of Swaziland to introduce democratic reforms speedily must all be counted more as failures than success," he said.

Denis Venter of the Pretoria-based-Africa institute told a conference in Addis Ababa recently that South Africa was slipping dangerously from principles that underpinned the country’s own transition towards political pragmatics.

"South Africa should be uncompromising in its determination to speak out against genocide and other atrocities on the African continent," he said.

"It should be clear that South Africa does not accept that the spirit of pan-Africanism required it to keep silent about, for example, the phony democracies of Kenya and Zimbabwe."

Venter’s paper drew a written protest and a change of racism from the Organization of African Unity (AOU).

In another bitter rebuke, Nigerian Information Minister Walter Ofagoro told the Nigerian Guild of Editors recently that South Africa is “a white country with a black head of state”.

Tony Leon, leader of the small democratic party, said many people had feared a shift towards Marxism when Mandela was elected the country’s first black president in 1994.

“Instead, we’re getting the Marx Brother. This is Loony Toons, “he said.

Pahad, who is generally charged with the detail of Mandela’s often ambitious efforts to spread the gospel of reconciliation, insists south Africa does have an important role to play.

So far, Mandela has intervened to some extent in conflicts in or involving Lesotho, Swaziland Angola, Mozambique, Sudan, Algeria, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Libya, East Timor, Thailand, Northern Ireland and even the Middle East.

Pahad said the incidents of the letter and the misheard conversation with Annan were mistakes unlikely to be repeated.