The African Union at 50: Missed opportunities and lessons for the future
Yves Niyiragira
2013-05-29, Issue 631 <
http://www.pambazuka.org/en/issue/631>
http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/87500
<
http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/87500>
Post-independent African leaders have failed to realise the aspirations and
hopes of self-determination and unity of the African people. There are five
basic steps that AU member states need to take now to put Africans on the
path to full integration
On 25 May 2013 Africa will remember 50 years of the establishment of the
Organisation of African Unity (OAU), which was replaced by the African Union
(AU) in 2002. While there are various opinions as to whether the OAU/AU
realised the vision of unity among Africans that founders of the continental
organisation sought to achieve, there is no doubt that Africa does not need
more five decades to learn from past mistakes.
At the 25 May 1963 founding summit of the OAU in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, it
was clear that the driving force behind the then African leaders was to
‘liberate all African people’ and form effective solidarity among them.
Leaders such as Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah and Algeria’s Ahmed Ben Bella and
their supporters, the so-called Casablanca group, wanted immediate
unification of all African people and the elimination of all tariffs and
boarders (The Africa Report, May 2013). The golden opportunity to start the
unification process was lost when opponents of the Casablanca group, under
the so-called Monrovia camp, took the day with their proposal of a much
looser organisation that would not prevent them from maintaining stronger
ties with their former colonial masters.
Even though Africa failed to take the route of a stronger federation at the
OAU founding summit, there have still been numerous opportunities over the
last fifty years to come back to the right path. Unfortunately, Africa is
not yet unified; it is a continent of fifty-five artificial entities, not
nations, some of which ought not to have been called countries in the first
place according to some commentators.
This article argues that leaders of post-independent Africa as well as their
successors failed to realise the aspirations and hopes of self-determination
and unity that African people had at decolonisation. Those dreams died in
May 1963. While recognising that the end of colonisation and South Africa’s
apartheid were strong steps towards African unity, the lack of political
will has since prevented Africans from being united. This article proposes
five basic but important steps that AU member states need to take now
without waiting another 50 years for Africans to be on the path to full
integration.
The Casablanca-Monrovia divisions did not end at the 1963 summit. Barely
three years after the establishment of the OAU, a military coup overthrew
President Kwame Nkrumah, thus weakening the pro-unification camp. Splits
among OAU leaders were further deepened by proxy wars between the United
States of America and the former Soviet Union during the years of the Cold
War. For instance, in the mid seventies AOU leaders could not agree on which
liberation movement to support in Angola out of União Nacional Para a
Independência Total de Angola, Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola and
Frente Nacional de Libertação de Angola. In 1984, when the OAU recognised
the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic, Morocco, one of the strongest
supporters of federalism, left the organisation. Until now, it has not yet
rejoined the continental institution.
Furthermore, another attempt to revive talks on the establishment of a
Government of Union at the 2007 AU summit in Accra, Ghana, did not achieve
any results. Those supporting an immediate federal government of Africa and
those favouring a gradual integration process through the strengthening of
regional economic communities could not agree on a decisive solution. AU
leaders contented themselves with a recommendation to transform the
secretariat of the AU, the African Union Commission, into a more powerful
secretariat, the African Union Authority, but that proposal has since then
been forgotten.
Apart from those divisions at the continental level, this half-century of
the OAU’s existence was also marred with regional divisions that made
continental integration just a far-sighted dream. For instance, the conflict
between North and South Sudan continued, over the decades, without any
solutions from African leaders. Even after the independence of South Sudan
in July 2011, there are still thorny issues between the two countries that
also continue to divide opinions among African leaders. The 1996 conflict in
the Democratic Republic of Congo is another example of how Africa did not
show any signs of walking towards the path of continental integration. In
that conflict, more than 11 African countries were involved and fighting in
two opposing camps. The war in the Democratic Republic of Congo is far from
being resolved.
African leaders have also failed to agree on principles and values that
would govern the united Africa that all Africans aspire to see. While there
are over 42 charters, conventions and protocols that OAU/AU member states
adopted, the implementation of these legal instruments is largely slow or
non-existent. Sadly, these instruments outline guidelines, values and
principles that ought to characterise a continent for the people and by the
people.
It would be very deplorable for African people if this 50th anniversary did
not provide an opportunity for the whole continent to learn from our past
mistakes and embark on an integration trajectory without waiting for 2063 to
realise what many independent movements fought for across the continent five
decades ago. There are five steps that African leaders can take now and not
in the next 50 years.
First, Africans should be able to finance all activities of the African
Union. It is an illusion to say that we are independent countries while the
institution that is supposed to foster our integration is still financed by
our former colonisers and their allies. The African continent has enough
resources to finance our integration process; we only need to know our
priorities. It is hard to comprehend how a continent that will soon have a
population of one billion people is unable to finance its integration
process. The same applies to individual AU member states when it comes to
financial independence. Political independence is incomplete without
financial independence.
The second step is to resolve issues around land and natural resources.
According to Sam Moyo’s The Land Question in Africa: Research Perspectives
and Questions, civil wars, inter-country conflicts, migration and
involuntary displacements are only symptoms of increasing land disputes
involving direct confrontation over access to key natural resources by both
domestic and external capitalist forces. It will be impossible for Africa to
unite if there are still conflicts over land and other natural resources in
many AU members. The AU has developed a number of instruments, such as the
African Convention on the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources and
the Land Policy in Africa: a Framework to Strengthen Land Rights, Enhance
Productivity and Secure Livelihoods, that, if well implemented by member
states, could significantly reduce conflicts on the continent. African
leaders should be brave enough to tackle these problems, many of which go
back to colonial times.
Thirdly, AU member states need to give teeth to the African Court on Human
and People’s Rights. The African Court on Human and People’s Rights was
established in June 1998 as a continental mechanism to ensure protection of
human and people’s rights in Africa. The lack of adequate funding from
African countries denies Africans from having a legal framework that
understands their contexts and that can promote and protect their rights and
those of their communities. Lack of funding and political will from AU
member states further prevent the continent from ending the bad culture of
impunity. The performance of the African Court on Human and People’s Rights
over the last 15 years also demonstrates the challenges that the continent
still has in bringing about justice and reconciliation among African people.
A fourth step towards the realisation of the aspirations and hopes of the
African people is to stop adopting more charters and conventions and instead
recommit to concentrating on genuine implementation processes. The idea of
financial independence is critical in this case as well because many AU
legal instruments and policies do not only require political will, but also
financial means. A relook at our priorities can solve this challenge of slow
or lack of implementation.
The fifth step that this article proposes is to allow free movement of
people and goods. Millions and millions of Africans wonder why an African
cannot freely move from one corner of the continent to another one while
some non-Africans have the freedom to do so. Ordinary Africans will not
understand the real meaning of a union of African states if there are still
these unsubstantiated restrictions to movement of people and goods. Some may
argue that some travellers may be a security threat or may bring social
burdens to nationals of the host state, but all these are excuses to
preventing Africans from achieving unity.
African leaders will not just wake up one day and start implementing the
above-proposed steps; African citizens need to consistently remind them to
do so. One of the major shifts between the AOU and AU is that the latter
calls for people’s participation in the affairs of the union. In the
Constitutive Act of the African Union, African leaders acknowledged that a
united and strong Africa needs partnerships between governments and all
segments of civil society including women, youth, and the private sector,
among others (Organisation of African Unity, 2000). Every African citizen
has a role to play in making sure that Africa is strong and united. Now the
question is, ‘What can you do and what will you do for Africa?’
In conclusion, what Africa needs now is the passion and dedication that
leaders such as Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser and Guinea’s Ahmed Sékou Touré,
among others, had for Africa’s unity. These leaders need to be visionaries
and avoid petty national politics that are based on hatred, negative
ethnicity, regionalism, nepotism and greed among other evils that prevent
them from seeing the bigger picture. As President Kwame Nkrumah said,
‘Africa must unite’, and this cannot wait until 2063.
*Yves Niyiragira is Programme Manager at Fahamu. The views in this article
do not represent those of Fahamu; they are solely those of the author.
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Received on Thu May 30 2013 - 10:37:34 EDT