A responsibility to protect Africa from the West? South Africa and the NATO intervention in Libya

This article will argue that South Africa’s approach to conflict mediation and peace building is informed by the ANC’s experience of the transition to democracy in South Africa and is widely misinterpreted. This was particularly evident in the Libyan crisis, where South Africa was widely accused of exhibiting a morally duplicitous and ideologically rudderless foreign policy because of the manner in which it initially supported intervention and subsequently became one of the fiercest critics of the NATO campaign. It will be argued that this is an inaccurate caricature of South Africa’s foreign policy and that South Africa’s approach could in fact inject vital pluralism into debates about the future of humanitarian interventions in Africa. The article draws upon interviews with senior officials in the ruling African National Congress (ANC) and South African officials who negotiated the UN Security Council resolutions that sanctioned intervention in Libya.