Africans face credibility test
By Andrew England, The Financial Times
Jan 20, 2006 — When African leaders gather in Khartoum on Monday for the African Union summit the theme of their two-day meeting will be education and culture. Both subjects fit easily with the AU’s vision of promoting the “socio- economic integration” of the world’s poorest continent.
Yet the AU’s sixth summit has the potential to be its most controversial and looks set to test the credibility of the organisation. It could also provide an examination of whether Africa’s leaders have genuinely bought into the idea of a new order on their continent.
Essentially, African leaders will be in a position to make judgments on their peers; deciding whether Omar Hassan al-Bashir, the oft-criticised Sudanese president, should become Africa’s top diplomat, and how a legal case against Hissène Habré, the former Chadian dictator accused of atrocities, should proceed.
The AU has already courted controversy simply by agreeing to hold the summit in Sudan, a country plagued by conflict, listed by the US as a state sponsor of terrorism, and with a government accused of human rights abuses.
The AU’s biggest test to date has been its intervention in the crisis in Darfur, western Sudan, where the government has been accused of genocide by the US. Its role leading peacekeeping efforts has earned it credibility and international goodwill. But by allowing Khartoum to host its summit, the AU was condoning “the Sudanese government’s complicity in crimes against humanity in Darfur,” according to Human Rights Watch.
The controversy could deepen further as Mr al-Bashir was expected to put his name forward to succeed President Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria as the AU’s rotating chairman. Under its predecessor, the Organisation of African Unity, whichever head of state hosted the summit traditionally became chairman.
But Patrick Mazimhaka, deputy chairman of the AU commission, said the relationship between the chairman and the host had been delinked and it would be up to the member states to select the next AU chief. The summit was being held in Khartoum to commemorate Sudan’s 50th independence anniversary and the signing of a peace deal to end the 21-year war in the south of the country, he said.
“We had a lot of good reasons to go to Khartoum, without condoning anything that is not right,” he says.
But the possibility of Mr al-Bashir becoming chairman is a concern for many. “Bashir becoming chairman would be a disaster for the continent,” says Peter Kagwanja, analyst at the International Crisis Group.
How the AU members handle the case of Mr Habré, who faces allegations of crimes against humanity, will be another challenge.
After a four-year investigation by a Belgian judge, an international arrest warrant was issued against Mr Habré, who lives in exile in Senegal, in September. But a Senegalese court said it had no jurisdiction to rule on the Belgian extradition request and Senegal referred the matter to the AU summit.
Reed Brody, of Human Rights Watch, says what action member states decide to take will reveal if African leaders come out in “favour of justice or impunity.” It could also highlight differences between the pace of change desired by the AU commission and the willingness of its 53-member states to keep up.
“The AU commission would like to see a legal solution and I think it doesn’t want this to become a political football, but ultimately it’s up to the heads of state, all of whom are going to be former heads of states themselves [one day],” Mr Brody says. “So a lot of people do not like to see a bloody tyrant brought to justice, while the commission sees the importance of not condoning impunity.”
Still, the AU has already gained much more credibility than the largely toothless OAU. Although hampered by meagre capacity and resources, it did send troops to Darfur and its officials have publicly criticised the Sudanese government for its role in the crisis.
The message it sends from the Khartoum conference will be crucial to ensuring it retains this goodwill.
“In certain respects it [the AU] has come far and is very different from the OAU. But as an organisation it is still quite brittle in many respects and is limited by how far it can be in advance of its member states,” says Jakkie Cilliers, director of the Pretoria-based Institute for Security Studies.