The African Union at Fifty: Peace and Security
By <
http://www.chathamhouse.org/about-us/directory/70728> Jeremy
Astill-Brown, Associate Fellow, Africa Programme
Monday 13, May 2013
Fifty years since its original inception, the African Union (AU) reflects a
significantly changed African and global environment. Its predecessor, the
Organization of African Unity (OAU), established in Addis Ababa, on 25 May
1963, was dedicated to combating colonialism, promoting the economic and
political future of Africa, defending the sovereignty of African states, and
to promoting a better life for African people. But today, for many in
Africa, freedom and sovereignty have yet to translate into significantly
improved lives.
The OAU struggled with the challenges of decolonization and securing the
continent’s emerging states, buffeted all the time by Cold War politics. By
contrast the AU operates in a highly globalized environment, grappling with
many all too familiar security challenges – and some very modern ones too.
To a degree OAU Summits – and meetings of its various security organs – were
more like a reunion gathering of senior military officers than serious
intergovernmental efforts to address the complexity of life for ordinary
Africans. But the AU, wielding its new broom, tries - with varying degrees
of success – to hold its own in the cauldron of global insecurity and
economic meltdown. But, both were born of their time, and both played vital
roles in advancing Africa’s cause.
Despite the heavy hand of military leadership and apparently permanently
installed presidents, the OAU did a great deal to set the future scene for
the AU’s work: to promote the peace and security Africa needs to allow its
citizens to develop and prosper. The declining years of the Cold War allowed
significant African-led developments to take place in the continent’s peace
and security architecture.
In May 1991, the Africa Leadership Forum proposed the formation of an
African Peace Council. It proposed that the Council should 'move Africa from
the confinement of purely reacting to events, to a capacity of anticipatory
and containment measures for its security'. The Council, designed to operate
under the OAU framework, was to 'have discretion to effect a measure of
intervention in national security problems of participating member states'.
Building on this, African heads of state and government issued the 1993
Cairo Declaration on the Establishment of the Central Organ of the Mechanism
for Conflict Prevention, Management and Resolution. The declaration marked a
departure from previous OAU approaches to conflict by acknowledging the need
to introduce fundamental changes in order to achieve peace and stability
through preventing and resolving conflicts.
This trend away from state-centric, security-led approaches towards a more
citizen-centred, development-led approach continued with the signature of
the AU Constitutive Act on 11 July 2000 in Lomé, Togo. Departing from the
OAU's early emphasis on absolute sovereignty and non-interference, the
Constitutive Act empowers the AU with the right 'to intervene in a Member
State pursuant to a decision of the Assembly in respect of grave
circumstances'. In effect the Constitutive Act marked the final step in a
move towards formal conflict management structures.
Following its inauguration July 2002, the AU promulgated a Protocol Relating
to the Establishment of the Peace and Security Council, which articulated a
broad framework for implementing preventive diplomacy. This transformation
led to the development of the new and wide-ranging Africa Peace and Security
Architecture (APSA), marking the end of Africa’s conceptual journey away
from an elite club of undemocratic leaders to a much more citizen-centred
approach.
Since its establishment, the AU – from a zero base – has mounted peace
support missions of variable but generally improving quality in a number of
African conflicts. Key interventions have included Burundi, Darfur, the
Comoros and Somalia. Developing the capacity to design, mandate and deploy
these missions – along with the less visible work the Union has undertaken
on peace and security issues on the continent – has been far from easy. And
it has often been a highly frustrating experience for Africa's international
partners. But few visitors to Mogadishu now doubt the bravery and skill of
African civilians and soldiers working in one of the most complex security
environments on earth.
But even as Africa struggles to sustain some relatively classic peace
support missions, it is having to get to grips with an increasing range of
policy challenges. Understanding the role that security plays in promoting
development, and working to promote both in a global security environment
characterized by global terrorism, trans-national crime, maritime insecurity
and other cross-cutting threats such as climate change, migration and the
competition for economic growth, is Africa’s next great challenge.
If the last fifty years were about the continent’s security in a
conventional sense, the next fifty years will be about working to promote
human security in an increasingly complex environment. Africa should no
longer be the place where ideological battles between West and East or
secular and radical forces are played out, but the place where Africans
finally complete their decolonization – of the land and of the mind – and
become full partners in the global political, economic and security
environment.
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Received on Mon May 13 2013 - 17:40:46 EDT
