Introduction
In
the last five decades, both inter and intra-state conflicts of variegated
magnitude with different humanitarian implications confronted the African
continent. According to a recent study 16 wars
took place between 1990 and 1997 in Africa. Of these, 14 were intrastate
conflicts (Algeria, Angola, Chad, Ethiopia, Liberia, Mozambique, Rwanda, Sierra
Leone, Somalia, South Africa, Sudan, Uganda, Western Sahara, and the Republic
of Congo). Only 2 were interstate (Chad/Libya and Rwanda/Uganda) (Tadesse,
2009). This situation necessitated numerous peace-making and peacekeeping
interventions in Africa especially from the United Nations.
The
UN Charter gives the Security Council primary responsibility for the
maintenance of international peace and security. In fulfilling this
responsibility, the Council can establish a UN peacekeeping operation. UN
peacekeeping operations are deployed on the basis of mandates from the United Nations Security Council. Their
tasks differ from situation to situation, depending on the nature of the
conflict and the specific challenges it presents (http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/operations/pkmandates.shtml).
Peace-making interventions are often administered along with peace-keeping
operations when conflicts have passed prevention stage so as to build peace
after a ceasefire.
The
peacekeeping tasks however must fall within:
- Chapter VI which deals with the “Pacific Settlement of Disputes”.
- Chapter VII which contains provisions related to “Action with Respect to the Peace, Breaches of the Peace and Acts of Aggression’.
- Chapter VIII of the Charter which provides for the involvement of regional arrangements and agencies in the maintenance of international peace and security provided such activities are consistent with the purposes and principles outlined in Chapter I of the Charter.
As
part of ensuring international peace and security, the Responsibility to Protect
which was endorsed in the 2005 United Nations World Summit is another locust
standing for peace-keeping operations. Article 138 and 139 of the resolution of
the summit holds that:
138. Each
individual State has the responsibility to protect its populations from
genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. This
responsibility entails the prevention of such crimes, including their
incitement, through appropriate and necessary means. We (UN) accept that
responsibility and will act in accordance with it. The international community
should, as appropriate, encourage and help States to exercise this
responsibility and support the United Nations in establishing an early warning
capability
139. The international community,
through the United Nations, also has the responsibility to use appropriate
diplomatic, humanitarian and other peaceful means, in accordance with Chapters
VI and VIII of the Charter, to help to protect populations from genocide, war
crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. In this context, we are
prepared to take collective action, in a timely and decisive manner, through
the Security Council, in accordance with the Charter, including Chapter VII, on
a case-by-case basis and in cooperation with relevant regional organizations as
appropriate, should peaceful means be inadequate and national authorities are
manifestly failing to protect their populations from genocide, war crimes,
ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. We stress the need for the General
Assembly to continue consideration of the responsibility to protect populations
from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity and its
implications, bearing in mind the principles of the Charter and international
law. We also intend to commit ourselves, as necessary and appropriate, to
helping States build capacity to protect their populations from genocide, war
crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity and to assisting those
which are under stress before crises and conflicts break out.
This all important
responsibility of the Security Council questions its capacity to deliver,
bearing in mind the need to discharge the responsibility, acting in a
timely and decisive manner and the fact that “decisions to deploy peace-making and peacekeeping forces cannot be made
without the unanimity of the Security Council's five permanent members (the
United States, Great Britain, France Russia and China)” (Tadesse, op. cit.). This
raises the question of the suitability of the structure of the UN in addressing
the peace issues in Africa.
This
paper probes into peace-making in Africa. Its central argument is that the
operational procedure of the UN as well as other political vicissitudes within
the organization challenge peace-making operations in the African continent. It
studies cases of cooperation between the UN and the African regional and
sub-regional bodies as contained in the Chapter Eight of the UN Charter and as
referred to in the responsibility to protect provision of the 2005 World
Summit; bringing out their successes. It recommends greater cooperations that
will promote timely interventions and local solutions in peace-making.
The United Nations and Africa in Peace-making
Peace-making
and peacekeeping undertaken by the UN and the Security Council historically,
has had mixed results. The deployment of UN peacekeeping troops has tended to
be both tortuous and highly problematic because decisions to deploy
peacekeeping forces cannot be made without the unanimity of the Security Council's
five permanent members (the United States, Great Britain, France Russia and
China). This has made rapid deployment of UN forces very often impossible
(ibid.).
The Chapter VIII
of the UN Charter provides
for the involvement of regional bodies, agencies and organisations in the
maintenance of international peace and security provided such activities are
consistent with the purposes and principles outlined in Chapter I of the
Charter. By this provision, the involvement of African Union (A.U.) and the Economic
Community of West African States (ECOWAS) by the United Nations on conflicts in
Africa is justified.
Even
at this, it has been observed that while the UN sought for common grounds on
decisions on peace-making interventions in Africa, the regional bodies in most
of the cases below were already on ground in the conflict areas making and
keeping peace.
The
beauty of it is the mantra, “Solving African problem by Africans.” A Zambian
proverb says that the local blind man knows the local bush
paths more than any stranger.
Case
study 1. Côte d’Ivoire: Numerous factors were behind the
political crises in Côte d’Ivoire including the instrumentalisation of
citizenship; the north/south divide; cocoa land and farming rights; competition
between landowners and migrant workers; and the impact of economic cycles,
particularly the price of cocoa. The latest crisis is rooted in Henri Konan
Bédié’s effort to exclude Ouattara from running for the 1995 elections which he
won by clamping down on the rival. Relations among various ethnic groups, as
well as within the army, became strained in the aftermath of the elections and,
in late 1999, General Robert Guéï seized power. Despite violent protests,
Ouattara was disqualified from participating in the subsequent elections in
October 2000 due to his alleged Burkinabé nationality and Laurent Gbagbo
replaced Guéï. Guéï was, in turn, killed during a failed armed uprising in
September 2002 that left the country divided. The country was only stabilised
after intervention by French troops (Operation Unicorn), although warlords and
fighters from Liberia and Sierra Leone occupied parts of the west. The Accra
and Linas-Marcoussis Agreements (facilitated respectively by ECOWAS and France
with the blessing of the AU and the United Nations) yielded a government of
national reconciliation. ECOWAS subsequently deployed the ECOWAS Mission in
Côte d’Ivoire (ECOMICI) to ensure that the ceasefire was respected. In November
2004, the government of national unity effectively collapsed despite the
presence of ECOMICI and later UN peacekeepers (UNOCI). The 2005 Pretoria
agreement negotiated by former South African President Mbeki on behalf of the
AU was an important African-brokered achievement. It allowed the main
opposition leader, Allassane Ouattara, to run for elections; it introduced the
notion of certification into the electoral process; and contributed to solving
important problems within the electoral commission. However, President Gbagbo
remained intransigent and the peace process again reached a deadlock when he
rejected UNSC Resolution 1721 of 1 November, 2006 (which extended the transitional
mandates of Gbagbo and Prime Minister Charles Konan Banny for no more than a
year) on the grounds that it infringed on Ivorian law. On 4 March 2007,
President Blaise Compaoré, acting on behalf of ECOWAS, brokered the Ouagadougou
peace accord and the AU launched a number of subsequent mediation attempts to
break the deadlock. Eventually, in February 2011 the AU set up the High Level
Panel on the Resolution of the Crisis in Côte d’Ivoire – composed of Heads of
State from Burkina Faso, Chad, Mauritania, Tanzania and South Africa, and a
High Representative for the implementation of the overall political solution.
The results from the November 2011 Presidential elections, certified by the
United Nations Secretary General (UN SG), showed that Gbagbo had lost, an
announcement subsequently retracted and overturned by the electoral commission.
The constitutional court, favourable to Gbagbo, announced different results.
When Gbagbo was hastily sworn in, African regional organisations responded
rapidly with suspension and targeted sanctions against him and his close allies
including a travel ban and the freezing of financial assets. Africa was not
united, however, and some countries outside the region acted individually. In
March 2011, civil war resumed between forces loyal to Gbagbo and Ouattara. On
30 March, UNSC Resolution 1975 – which reiterated that UNOCI could use “all
necessary measures” in its mandate to protect civilians under imminent threat
of attack – was strongly supported by ECOWAS (with some dissenting voices, even
from within ECOWAS). Eventually, with military support from UN and French
forces, Gbagbo was arrested at his residence and later deported to the ICC
where he is currently standing trial for alleged war crimes and crimes against
humanity. In responding to the situation in Côte d’Ivoire, there was
significant co-operation and complementarity between ECOWAS, the AU’s PSC and
the UN, although there was also considerable divergence in policy during the
post-election period. A lack of coherence within ECOWAS weakened its strong
rhetorical stance and presented mediators with obvious difficulties in terms of
agreeing on the way forward. Clear differences about next steps also emerged
within the AU as some countries (South Africa and Angola) took a contrasting
position on the crisis to that of ECOWAS and the UN (See Cilliers and Handy
2013).
Case
study 2. Libya: The 1969 revolution led by Muammar
Gaddafi’ effectively concentrated all power (and much of the oil wealth) in his
hands. Touted as a form of direct democracy, no elections were held and any
opposition was brutally supressed. Apart from significant progress in education
and infrastructure, Gaddafi used his country’s enormous wealth to support armed
groups in neighbouring countries and international terrorism, eventually
leading to United Nations sanctions. In February 2011, inspired by the Arab
spring, popular protests against Gaddafi started in Benghazi (the former
headquarters of the monarchy and known for its strong opposition to Gaddafi’s
regime). It soon spread westward to Tripoli, rapidly took a violent turn and
received various forms of support from external actors. In response, Gaddafi’s
regime prepared a robust response to what it considered an Islamist and terrorist
insurrection. But the brutal repression of popular protests by Gaddafi’s
security forces only increased the resolve of protestors, widened the
geographic scope of the insurrection beyond the rebellious eastern part of the
country, and resulted in widespread international condemnation. The UN
expressed concern that the disproportionate use of force could amount to crimes
against humanity. Gaddafi’s intention to regain control of the eastern cities,
especially Benghazi, by armed force eventually triggered rapid international
mobilisation. On 23 February 2011, a week after the Libyan uprising started,
the AU PSC met in Addis Ababa. The PSC decided to immediately dispatch a
fact-finding mission to Libya to assess the situation on the ground – a
decision that was soon overtaken by events. On 26 February, the UNSC passed
Resolution 1970, sending the signal that it would be in the lead regarding
Libya. The PSC only reacted on 10 March, at which point it established an AU
High-level Ad Hoc Committee on Libya comprised of five Heads of State and
government, together with the Chairperson of the Commission, to facilitate an
inclusive dialogue and to work with external partners towards an early
resolution of the crisis. In the meantime, events were unfolding rapidly, both
in Libya as well as in the UN. On 17 March, UNSC Resolution 1973 was adopted
and authorised the establishment of a no-fly zone and the use of “all means
necessary” to protect civilians. Three African non-permanent members of the
UNSC voted in favour of UNSC 1973 supported by the Arab League. At the time,
many African countries appeared to be in favour of Resolution 1973. The
establishment of the no-fly zone effectively disallowed the entry into Libyan
airspace of the members of the High-level Ad Hoc Committee on Libya and their
efforts were aborted. After several months of NATO strikes (and clear efforts
at unilaterally expanding the UNSC mandate in favour of regime change), rebel
fighters entered Tripoli in August 2011. Gaddafi was killed in Sirte a few
months later. During August 2012, the National Transitional Council that had
run the country handed over power to an elected General National Congress,
tasked with the formation of an interim government and the drafting of a
constitution. The conflict in Libya highlighted major differences in approaches
to conflict resolution between the AU and the UN, as well as among AU Member
States. At least three UNSC permanent members were determined to use this
opportunity to effect regime change and were not willing to allow the AU (or
anyone else for that matter) to thwart them in the process. The absence of an
effective, functioning Regional Economic Community also prevented a more direct
African involvement in the conflict while other actors – the UN and the Arab
League, of which Libya is also a member – did not share the AU’s approach. No
clear African position on the Libyan crisis was crafted to allow meaningful
diplomatic intervention that would forestall a brutal recapture of Benghazi. In
any case, neither the AU nor any of its members (with the possible exception of
Egypt) had the military means with which they could have halted Gaddafi’s march
eastward. The AU Commission should, in retrospect, have moved much more quickly
in the deployment of its fact-finding mission as well as the AU High-Level Ad
Hoc committee, a problem compounded by a clear lack of communication between
African members of the UNSC in New York and the PSC in Addis Ababa and vice
versa. The AU’s principled objection to the use of force, even in the face of
planned mass killings, would subsequently raise questions about the
interpretation of Article 4 (b and h) of the Constitutive Act which deal with
the need for early responses to contain crisis situations and the right of the
Union to intervene in a Member State. Eventually the limited scope and depth of
UN/NATO solutions (predicated, in retrospect, on the removal of Gaddafi)
contributed to the current deterioration in the Sahel, where arms from Libya
supply a multitude of armed groups whose actions continue to undermine state
security. Here too, tensions and frictions between the AU and the UNSC
prevented an international consensus. In the process, Libya highlighted the
inability of the UN/international community to respond to complex post-Cold War
security challenges using traditional tools of peacekeeping and peace
enforcement when key UNSC members were intent on using the opportunity to make
geo-strategic gains, thereby defeating the aim of collective security action in
the common international interest (ibid.).
Case
study 3. Mali: The express corrosion of peace in
2011/12 in Mali, hitherto considered a democratic success story, reflects the
apparent inability of the international community (including African
institutions) to adequately monitor governance trends and anticipate their
implications. Unlike the situation in Libya, key actors (ECOWAS, the AU and the
UN) were all deeply involved in the crisis that emerged in Mali early in 2012.
In the period leading up to October 2013, ECOWAS met over 30 times at various
levels (Heads of State and Government, ministerial and technical) to define a
framework to restore the constitutional order and fight the Islamist armed
groups.
As for the AU
PSC, it issued over 16 communiqués on the situation in Mali and the AU
Commission organised several meetings focusing on various aspects (political,
humanitarian and military) of the crisis. The UNSC remained seized of the
situation as reflected in the number of resolutions (3) and the various reports
of the Secretary-General. To recap, in January 2012, shortly after a joint
UN-AU mission in the Sahel to assess the situation in the region, an armed
conflict broke out in northern Mali during which Tuareg rebels, supported by
Islamic extremists, took control of the northern regions of Gao, Timbuktu and
Kidal and declared the secession of a new state, Azawad. In March 2012, the
conflict was complicated by an unexpected military coup which ousted President
Amadou Toumani Touré a month before scheduled Presidential elections. Fighting
between Tuareg and Islamist rebels complemented the picture of a country
rapidly descending into chaos. In the aftermath of the coup d’état, the AU PSC,
suspended Mali from AU activities in accordance with its doctrine on
unconstitutional changes of government. On 27 March, ECOWAS called an
extraordinary meeting of Heads of State and Government with the aim of seeking
the return to constitutional order, the implementation of a mediation process
under the auspices of President Blaise Compaoré of Burkina Faso, and the
activation of the ECOWAS standby brigade.
On 6 April, the
military junta and ECOWAS signed a framework agreement that led to the
resignation of President Touré; the appointment of the Speaker of the National
Assembly, Dioncounda Traoré, as interim President; and eventually to the
establishment of a transitional Government, headed by an interim Prime
Minister, Cheick Modibo Diarra. On 20 August, the Prime Minister announced the
formation of a government of national unity. Whereas ECOWAS managed to move
quickly in appointing a mediation team and helping Mali to establish a
transitional government, the activation of a military response to the crisis
met with several challenges. ECOWAS Member States struggled to deploy committed
and combat-ready troops as part of the ECOWAS Mission in Mali (MICEMA) and tensions
were evident between ECOWAS and the UN. MICEMA never went beyond the planning
stages, having faced several obstacles including the junta’s hostility to any
armed presence in Bamako; the absence of consensus on the way forward with
Algeria and, to a lesser extent, Mauritania, accentuated by the fact that these
two countries do not belong to ECOWAS; and logistical and financial constraints
that made it impossible to deploy troops in the absence of international
support. The AU, which initially limited its efforts to supporting ECOWAS, was
eventually able to unlock the problem. The AU moved the planned operation from
MICEMA to a continental level, bringing the Malian army on board and seeking to
overcome Algeria’s reluctance. It transformed MICEMA into the African-led
International Support Mission in Mali (AFISMA) which the UNSC authorised for an
initial period of one year and which was due to be operational by September
2013. In the meantime, the absence of clear authority in Bamako enabled the
rebels and jihadists to increase their hold on the northern part of the
country. The jihadist groups took advantage of the unstable situation as well
as the international community’s hesitation and the inability of ECOWAS to
respond militarily. They took control of northern Mali, marginalised their
former Tuareg allies, and started a southward offensive to the more populated
and strategic parts of the country. On 10 January 2013, twenty days after the
UNSC adopted the resolution authorising the deployment of AFISMA, the armed
groups launched their offensive on Kona. This called for urgent action because
the Malian army, whose reorganisation by the EU had not yet started, couldn’t
respond effectively or in time. AFISMA, then still in the planning stages,
could also not respond. Eventually a French intervention, Operation Serval,
halted the advance, regained control of the major northern cities and tracked
the armed groups to their northern hideouts. The intervention was not meant as
a long term solution, but aimed to address the urgent crisis. Hence the
emergence, at France’s initiative, of the idea of a UN mission with more secure
funding to take over from AFISMA. Although ECOWAS expressed its desire to lead
international efforts, it was soon confronted by financial, capacity and
logistical constraints.
On 7 March 2013,
the AU and ECOWAS expressed their support for the planned transformation of
AFISMA into a UN operation but added a number of conditions, subsequently
ignored by the UNSC, including calls from the AU to appoint an African to lead
the UN operation. This, and other factors, led the AU PSC to issue a
particularly sharp communiqué on 25 April 2013: “Council notes that the
resolution does not take into account the concerns formally expressed by the AU
and ECOWAS and the proposals they constructively made to facilitate a
coordinated international support for the ongoing efforts by the Malian
stakeholders.” On 25 April, the subsequent United Nations Multidimensional
Integrated Stabilisation Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) was established by UNSC
Resolution 2100. It absorbed UNOM, undertook a number of security-related
stabilisation tasks, prepared for elections and took over from AFISMA on 1 July
(ibid.).
Problems
Posed by Peace-making in Africa
It
can be argued that the greater challenge for the United Nations with regards to
Africa is in peace-making rather than peace-keeping. There are a number of
reasons for such an argument:
- First, and despite the resources and emotion that surround them, there are only three United Nations peace-making operations in Africa whereas there are about 18 or so conflict situations in Africa.
- Second, peace-making efforts tend to be less glamorous but they are no less time consuming than peace-keeping and they cover more grounds in Africa with varying degrees of intensity of violence.
- Third, peace-making efforts are far less costly in financial, logistic and human terms but ultimately they are more enduring.
- Finally, even in conflicts to which United Nations send peace-keeping forces, the need for peace-making efforts do not diminish; on the contrary, they often need to be intensified as can be seen with respect to Western Sahara, Sierra Leone and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Therefore,
while we need to focus on both current and potential United Nations
Peace-keeping Operations in Africa, broader attention need to be paid to the
challenges of United Nations peace-making in Africa which also covers
preventive actions and post-conflict peace-building endeavours. In this regard,
it is my belief that United Nations' peace-making efforts are unlikely to
succeed unless the root causes of conflicts are properly addressed.
This
was highlighted in Secretary-General Kofi Annan's Report (A/52/871 -
51998/3180) of April 1998, which noted that peace and developments are indeed
closely inter-related. Most serious disenchantment with existing political
order in several countries emanates from problems of power sharing, religious
intolerance, ethnic chauvinism or feeling of marginalisation, and of course,
mis-management of national resources. Hence, the Secretary-General's Report of
September 1999 recommended that good governance, promotion of public health
priorities, investing in human resources, and focusing on social justice and
promotion of human rights are essential ingredients to promote durable peace
and security in Africa. In this regard, he identified what African countries
should do and what the international community should do to assist them in
realising these objectives including:
- Increased trade and greater access to the markets of developed countries,
- Debt relief and debt cancellation,
- Increased direct foreign private investment,
- Increased Official Development Assistance (ODA).
At
the moment, Africa is being confronted with the multiple armed conflicts during
a period when the Continent cannot depend on a large international community to
provide the necessary human, logistic and political resources to resolve them;
therefore the need to resort to regional and sub-regional organisations
peacemaking initiatives to deal with such conflicts becomes obvious. An example
is ECOWAS under the leadership of Nigeria which successfully brokered peace
agreements in Liberia and the successful restoration of President Kabbah to
power and the continuing efforts to promote peace in Sierra Leone through the
basic aspects of the Lome Peace Agreement. Also, the SADC and OAU active
mediation efforts in Angola which culminated in the Lusaka Peace Agreement of
1994 as well as the 1999 Lusaka Cease-fire Accord on the crisis in DRC,
although that Accord is now faltering. It is true that the Security Council has
the primary responsibility of maintaining the international peace and security.
This is based on the concept of collective security that consists of a common
commitment to the proposition that a threat to peace in Africa or elsewhere
should be considered a threat to peace everywhere. Yet, there is a recognition
that the United Nations cannot do everything; hence, the importance of Chapter
VIII of the United Nations Charter which encourages the enhancement of the
co-operation between United Nations and regional arrangements (working closely
with regional leaders such as Nigeria in West Africa and South Africa in
Southern Africa) and the need to improve their relative capabilities in
undertaking certain peace-making initiatives. The latter has the advantage of
proximity and familiarity with such conflicts in their respective regions while
the United Nations has the advantages of universality, relative impartiality
and greater financial resources.
Conclusions
and Recommendations
Peace-making in Africa
should not be trusted on the UN as the structure of the organization does not
ensure timely interventions. African problems are better solved by Africans. Africa should therefore rise up to the expectation
with unity of purpose and solve their problems. There is need for greater
political will to enhance a peaceful resolution of conflicts. In this regard,
clear commitment to the promotion of peace must be demonstrated individually
and collectively in co-operation with United Nations efforts to resolve African
crisis. The bottom line to promote lasting peace is democratisation, good
governance, better management of natural resources and economies.
References
Addo, P. (2005), “Peace-making in West Africa: Progress and Prospects.”
http://www.kaiptc.org/Publications/Monographs/Monographs/mono-3_Addo.aspx
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