African Union through two decades
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (PANA) - The African Union is marking the end of its second decade since taking over from the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), which achieved a feat by ensuring the end of colonialism on the continent.
A popular phrase: "This is our continental political organisation and it has served us well," has been used to demonstrate the potency of the revitalised African Union.
To mark the landmark 20-year milestone, the Chairperson of the AU Commission, Moussa Faki Mahamat, recalled the establishment of the revitalised organisation as a result of the Sirte Declaration.
"On this day 20 years ago, the Sirte Declaration called for the establishment of the African Union. The bloc was founded on 26 May 2001 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and launched on 9 July 2002 in South Africa to replace the Organisation of African Unity," Mahamat, tweeted on Monday.
The Commissions Deputy Chairperson, Kwesi Quartey, also recalled the landmark date, 20 years ago, on 9 September 1999 when the OAU gave way to the establishment of the AU.
"The AU is poised to build an Integrated, Prosperous and Peaceful Africa, driven by its own citizens and representing a dynamic force in the world," Ambassador Quartey, a veteran Ghanaian diplomat, tweeted.
Critics of the Union often regret the omission of the title "Organisation," from the name by suggesting that it has denied the AU Commission a critical focus on improving its organisational competences.
However, in its two decades of existence, the Union attained major milestones. It averted a near genocide in Darfur, Sudan's western region, by deploying peacekeepers.
The peacekeeping operation in Darfur remains one of the longest running operations, but it established Africa's capacity and capability of the African countries to stabilise volatile hot spots.
At the start of its existence, there were at least 14 active civil wars and conflicts within the continent, rampant poverty, disease and international isolation of Africa.
"Yes, we are not where we want to be, but neither are we where we used to be," remarked Quartey.
The AU Commission owes its successes to the transformative leadership and the resolve of some of its leaders to steer the continent to prosperity.
Nowhere in the world today, does an elaborate framework and scheme of dealing with political instability exist than in Africa, under the AU's charge.
President Alpha Konare, who steered the Union at the height of the civil war in Darfur where a scorched earth policy was in place, is most remebered for transforming the organisation and making it relevant.
It was under his leadership that the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), a regional organisation in the Horn of Africa, managed to create a regional peacekeeping operation in Somalia.
What was originally dreamt of as the IGAD Peacekeeping Mission to Somalia (IGASOM), quickly transformed into the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM).
To reach an agreement on the authorised troop numbers for Somalia's risky operation, the AU Heads of State and Government Assembly, then Chaired by Ghanian President John Kofuor, held an AU Summit which lasted for the entire night, before agreeing to deploy 7,000 troops. But the mantle fell on Gabonese, Jean Ping, who took on the task as Chairperson of the Commission to locate and deploy the troops to serve in Somalia.
At the time of its deployment, Somalia had just witnessed a more ruthless war and the Ethiopian troops had moved in to install the Somali Transitional Government (TFG).
Nigeria, arguably the biggest military force in Africa, would not barge on sending additional troops to Somalia. Senegal, was equally unhappy when leaders decided not to cooperate with the International Criminal Court (ICC), which had indicted Sudanese President Omar Al Bashir.
Rebels in Darfur, numbering about 1,000 fighters, had overrun the AU Peacekeeping headquarters in Haskananita, South Darfur on 30 September 2007 and killed 10 troops, including seven Nigerians and three others from Botswana, Mali and Senegal.
At the time the AU deployed troops into an active war one, the United Nations and its organs had never anticipated going to war. The UN kept on reiterating the need for peace agreements to provide the basis for the deployment of its blue helmets.
But it was the silent lobbying and diplomatic tactics which would lead the UN to join the Darfur Mission leading to the renaming of the African Union Mission in Sudan (AMIS) to the UN-AU Hybrid Mission in Darfur (UNAMID), which is currently winding down.
In East Africa, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, would deploy troops in Somalia, who were ruthlessly attacked upon landing. But the fighting of the Ugandan troops and their fire-power, would lead to the opening of the humanitarian relief corridors and expand the operational space for the fledgling Somali Government in Mogadishu. Algeria, whose able citizens had occupied the AU's security docket, would come in silently, even as it deployed another citizen, Ramtane Lamamra, to take over as Commissioner for Peace and Security.
Algeria often provides logistics and logistical support to airlift weapons or act by providing petroleum products used during the peacekeeping missions.
The entry of the Ethiopian troops into Somalia would further embolden a group of clan-led militias to change into armed groups while the Al Shabaab, rose to prominence in 2006, a year before the Ethiopian troops entry. Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, the man who entered into the big shoes of Nigeria's Olusegun Obasanjo, South Africa's Thabo Mbeki and Algeria's Abdelaziz Bouteflika, to steer the continental economic re-engineering, through the new Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) made enmity with Libya's Moummar Khadhafi.
According to the late Libyan leader, NEPAD, should have been abandoned because it was a Western ploy by the George Bush administration to fight the AU. But Khadhafi would later give in and accept that African countries required foreign direct investments to develop.
Khadhafi also recalled that the AU leadership had taken the bait from the West to discuss issues such as terrorism, a Western ideology at the time, according to him. The rise and rise of the African Union appeared unstoppable when the Union embarked into its relationship building with western powers and Japan and China, emerged as big competitors to the American and French influence in Africa.
Libya would host the European Union-African Union Summit, just months before the outbreak of the Libyan civil conflict. Washington DC would follow suit with a White House Summit with all African leaders and President Barack Obama's visit to the AU headquarters months later.
The political and diplomatic engineering within Africa continued to rise, reaching its peak in 2014, when on 30 September 2014, a man managed to travel to the US from West Africa, before testing negative to the Ebola virus. Between 2014 to 2016, the height of the West African Ebola scourge, at least 10 people were treated for Ebola on US soil. There was a chain reaction when the first Ebola case reached West Africa.
Sources later told PANA there was a deliberate effort by the African leadership to get global attention after months of no response from global powers, which culminated in the failure to stop the passenger from reaching the US. The US mandated the African Union to organise the first ever deployment of a non-military but a healthcare force to respond to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa.
The success of the operation established the credentials of South Africa's Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, Chairperson of the AU Commission at the time. She was instrumental in crafting the Agenda 2063, which defined a path for economic diplomacy, reinforcing the African resolve to implement a bold plan for economic development.
Moussa Faki, who would later emerge the victor of a cut-throat competition, has established his credentials by leading through quiet diplomacy and consensus-building, often shunning controversy, but never too timid to demand for respect for Africa.
-0- PANA AO/AR 9Sept2019
