Disband the African Union without further ado!

By Peter Wuteh Vakunta

Introduction

As Libyans bury their dead and tend to their wounds, the international community holds its breath in anxious anticipation of what the country’s deranged megalomaniac, Muammar Ghadhafi, will do next in his desperate attempt to cling onto power in the face of mounting pressure from the opposition to oust him.  Like all tragic heroes that history has known, Ghadhafi has resorted to large scale carnage of genocidal proportions.

No matter how many times we warn that dictators will stop at nothing to stay in power, it is still shocking to see the gory images of brutalized civilians and dead bodies which have been flooding CNN, al-Jazeera and circulating on the internet. Ghadhafi's heavily armed forces, reinforced by mercenaries, have killed at least 1000 anti-government protesters over the past few days. Helicopter gunships, tanks and snipers have backed up the troops, who are armed with heavy artillery, and assault rifles.  Libyans are crying for help. Are their pleas falling on deaf ears?  This is apparently not the case.

UN Secretary-General has expressed deep concern at the escalating scale of violence in Libya and emphasised that it must stop immediately. He has reiterated his call to Libyan authorities to respect basic freedoms and human rights, including peaceful assembly and information. The UN Security Council met on February 25 to consider a resolution that would indict Ghadhafi for crimes against humanity. On her part, US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton says the world is watching the situation in Libya with alarm.  She reiterates that the government of Libya has a responsibility to respect the universal rights of the people, including the right to free expression and assembly. She will be in Geneva  on Wednesday for talks on what to do about human rights violations in Libya. Her boss, President Barack Obama, said he was considering the full range of options to stop the bloody crackdown ordered by Libya's delusional despot Col. Muammar Ghadhafi. The President did not stop at that. His administration is freezing all assets held by the Libyan leader and four of his children in the United States. The Treasury Department says the sanctions against Ghadhafi, three of his sons and a daughter also apply to the Libyan government. The action was taken under an executive order signed Friday by President Barack Obama. The United States has also shuttered its embassy in Libya. Gadhafi's legitimacy has been "reduced to zero," the White House said as it announced the steps.

French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, condemns the unacceptable use of force against Libyans who are only exercising their fundamental right to protest and express themselves freely. The president calls for an immediate end to the violence and a political solution that responds to the Libyan people's aspirations.The Brits have taken the unprecedented step of freezing Gadhafi’s UK assets.  According to The Telegraph, British Ministers have traced a 10 million pound ($16 million dollar) London Mansion back to Gadhafi, and have found an additional 20 billion pounds ($32 billion) in “liquid assets” belonging to the “Libyan regime.” In a similar vein, while rumors that Libyan ruler Muammar Gadhafi had been shot surfaced, the Swiss Department of Foreign Affairs announced it would freeze any and all assets held by Gadhafi or his environment” to avoid any “misuse of state funds.”The move by Switzerland’s Foreign Ministry comes amidst increasing violence in Libya.

Amidst these vehement reactions coming from the Western world, the question that begs to be asked at this juncture is what has been the African Union’s pronouncement on the Libyan crisis?  To the best of my knowledge, nothing!  The AU was established on 9 July 2002 as a successor to the Organization of African Unity (OAU). It has adopted a number of key documents establishing norms of operation at continental level. These policy documents include the African Union Convention on Preventing and Combating Corruption (2003), African Charter on Democracy, Elections and  Governance (2007),  New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) and its associated Declaration on Democracy, Political, Economic and Corporate Governance. Some major objectives of the AU include:

• to promote and defend African common positions on issues of interest to the continent and its peoples;
• to achieve peace and security in Africa; and
• to promote democratic institutions, good governance and human rights.

Is it not an irony of sorts that while the West is weeping more than the bereaved, Bingu wa Mutharika, president of  Malawi, current chair of the AU elected at the tenth ordinary meeting of the Assembly in January 2009, is having a good time in his bunker in Lilongwe? What will it take to stir this inert body called the AU out of its slumber? Does the AU have a track record? Since its creation, the AU has recorded failure after failure. I will start with the succession question in the Republic of Togo in 2005. In response to the death of President Gnassingbé Eyadema of  Togo, on February 5, 2005, AU leaders described the naming of his son Faure Gnassingbé as the successor as a military coup. Togo's constitution calls for the speaker of parliament to succeed the president in the event of his death. By law, the parliament speaker must call national elections to choose a new president within sixty days. The AU's protest forced Faure Gnassingbé to hold a simulacrum of elections. Under heavy allegations of election fraud, he was officially elected President on 4 May. Failure on the part of AU!

Next on stage is Zimbabwe. The political crisis in Zimbabwe was another fiasco for the African Union. Zimbabwe was a major bone of contention at the 11th AU Summit held in Sharm el Shaik, Egypt, in July 2008, with some states, including Senegal, Benin, Burkina Faso, Zambia, Botswana, Nigeria, Kenya and others backing strong action against Zimbabwe in light of the problematic second round presidential elections held in June. Among others, Raila Odinga, the Prime Minister of  Kenya, called for suspension of Robert Mugabe  and Zimbabwe from the AU. However, the summit eventually adopted a resolution that did not apply any sanctions against the government of Robert Mugabe but merely urged the two main parties in Zimbabwe to negotiate a solution to their differences. Was this victory or failure for the AU? Your guess is as good as mine. Darfur is another case in point. In response to the  Darfur crisis in Sudan  the AU deployed 7,000 peacekeepers, many from Rwanda  and Nigeria, to Darfur . While a donor's conference in  Addis Ababa in 2005 helped raise funds to sustain the peacekeepers through that year and into 2006, in July 2006 the AU said it would pull out at the end of September when its mandate expired. Critics of the AU peacekeepers, including Dr. Eric Reeves , said its forces were largely ineffective due to lack of funds, personnel, and expertise. Monitoring an area roughly the size of  France made it even more difficult to sustain an effective mission. The under-funded and badly equipped AU mission was set to expire on December 31, 2006 but was extended to 30 June 2007 and merged with the  United Nations African Mission in Darfur in October 2007. In July 2009 the African Union ceased cooperation with the  International Criminal Court , refusing to recognize the international arrest warrant it had issued against Sudan's leader,Omar al- Bashir, who was indicted in 2008 for War crimes.   Yet another blooper by the AU!

The Kenyan crisis, the worst in 25 years that killed about 1000 people in a month, was a litmus test for the AU. Mr. Mwai Kibaki, widely believed to have rigged the elections to rob Mr. Raila Odinga of his victory could not be prevented from attending the AU summit that year! The case that continues to stare us in the face at this point in time is the tussle between President-elect, Mr. Ouattara and outgoing president Mr. Gbagbo in Côte d’Ivoire. The African Union has asked Kenyan Prime Minister, Raila Odinga, to lead its efforts in resolving the political dispute in Côte d’Ivoire. So far, Mr. Odinga has not been able to make a breakthrough. Reports state that Côte d’Ivoire is in turmoil, gradually becoming a battlefield again between forces loyal to the two ‘presidents’. Violence has spread to the capital city Yamoussoukro in the Western part of the country. In sum,  the AU stands hands akimbo, helplessly watching an African country sink into  civil war  for the second time!  

Conclusion

When all is said and done, we need to ask ourselves this vexing question: Why is the contraption called the African Union so dysfunctional?  There are several responses to this interrogation, not least of which is financial mismanagement and mutual distrust among member-states. But the most convincing is this one: African autocrats are better off without a policing body.  African dictators tend to close ranks when faced with imbroglios like the Libyan crisis.  That is why Zimbabwe’s state broadcaster has pronounced its verdict on Libya: The situation is “stable” except for some “incidents of violence” in the “outlying towns.”The website of the state newspaper has even less to say. It features a lengthy report about roosters in Ecuador, but not a word about the hundreds of deaths in Libya. No word about the mercenaries gunning down protesters. No word about Muammar Ghadhafi’s threat to go “house to house” to eliminate the “cockroaches” and “rats” who oppose him. Like many other African autocrats, Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe is doing his level best to silence the news from North Africa, especially news about a long-time friend who has funnelled more than $500-million in gifts, loans and oil subsidies to Zimbabwe over the past 15 years. It is lame duck leaders like Robert Mugabe, Paul Biya, Yoweri Museveni, and ilk that make the AU look like a gigantic fraud.  As I see it, the African Union is an albatross around the necks of Africans and should be scraped forthwith.

 About the Author

Dr. Vakunta is Professor of Modern Languages at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey-California, USA.

 

 

 

Comments

[J. S. Dinga]

A camel does not make fun of another camel's rump!

[Va Boy]

Amen. Muammar Daffy was one of the prime movers in creating the AU. It is his baby and he really did pass a lot of money around.

[Musa]

It is all embarassing to see that for the pass two months, so many crisis is going on in Africa, for example Egypt, Libya etc. and the Afriac Union is doing nothing.

The AU is made up of the very same thelf, embazzeler in Africa in the name of presidents. There is hell going on right now in Libya and the members of the AU sit quite in the houses doing nothing while the rest of the world is so angry with what Gadhafi is doing to his people.

Why are african president so heady to step down?

It is time for all the executives of the African Union step down as well for they are not doing their work.

Most of this african leaders will not dear to talk against Gadhafi because they are in the same category.

The time has come and before the end of 2011, the whole of african will start taking sharp because this dictators will be thrown out and will all face charges.

[Gan Charles]

OAU was a great idea that was doomed to fail. The concept required compromise which all the actors viewed with distrust and a possible interference with their individual powers rather than a means to collectively bargain on the world stage for the benefit of their people - look at the EU.
African leaders are froth with greed and willful disregard for civil liberties and human life. They will go at great length to serve their selfish agenda.
Some western psychotherapists have raised the specter that Africans (people of Color in general) may be genetically predisposed to regress which leads to inferior governance and societies.
Before you dismiss this a racist or call for my head - look at all the institution governed by people of color and figure out the success rate!

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