African leaders set to launch Peace and Security Council
By Victoria Engstrand-Neacsu
NAIROBI, May 22, 2004 (dpa) — African governments, set to launch a Peace and Security Council on Tuesday, could make a real difference in conflict prevention and resolution on the continent, experts believe.
“I believe so. The Peace and Security Council (PSC) will provide the African Union (AU) with teeth it didn’t have before. It might even avert situations like the one in Rwanda in 1994”, said Peter Kagwanja of the think-tank International Crisis Group (ICG).
Kathryn Sturman of the South Africa-based Institute for Security Studies (ISS), agreed:
“I think the PSC will make a difference in terms of crisis response, where the U.N is quite slow”, she said.
The Peace and Security Council is envisaged to serve as a collective security organ of the AU, with early warning functions to facilitate timely and efficient response to conflict and crisis situations in the continent.
One of the main tools of the PSC will be its African Standby Force, from which peacekeeping troops can be drawn when the need arises.
“If the standby force can get to a crisis spot quicker than the U.N. and hold the situation until the U.N. gets there, they could really make a difference”, said Sturman.
She too brought up the example of Rwanda:
“African governments care more about what is happening in their own back yard. When the genocide in Rwanda unfolded, for example, there was no international outcry. It was too remote”.
But both Kagwanja and Sturman agree that in the end, the success of the PSC will largely depend on the African leaders.
“Its (the council’s) limitations is the African leaders and their willingness to translate words into action”, said Kagwanja.
Leaders on the continent traditionally refrain from meddling in each other’s affairs. Presidents and prime ministers have often been able to treat their own populations as they please without being worried about interference from other African states.
“If they (the African leaders) continue to pat each other’s backs, nothing will happen”, added Kagwanja.
“Whether this culture will change with the launch of the PSC?, we will have to wait and see”, said Sturman.
As a gesture to African traditions, the PSC will include what is called a “Panel of the Wise”, an early warning and mediation panel manned by five prominent Africans.
“It is recognition of the role people like Nelson Mandela can play. He has been very active in conflict mediation even after his presidency”, commented Kathryn Sturman.
The 15-member Peace and Security Council will be formally launched by the continent’s heads of state in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa on May 25th. It will be followed by a review of conflict situations around the continent.
A major test for the new council will be the conflict in Darfur in western Sudan.
The AU announced Friday it would hold a two-day meeting of its Darfur Ceasefire Commission just after the launch.
Said Djinnit, the AU’s Commissioner for Peace and Security, said the Commission would work out details for monitoring, investigating and verifying allegations of violations of the humanitarian ceasefire agreement, which was signed between the warring parties in Darfur in April.
Another conflict to be discussed by the PSC is Burundi, where the AU has deployed an African peacekeeping mission from South Africa, Ethiopia and Mozambique.
The PSC is expected to reiterate its earlier call on the U.N. Security Council to take over the African Mission in Burundi as urgently as possible.
In April, the Council extended the mandate of the African mission in Burundi for two months until June, calling at the same time on the U.N. Security Council to urgently take over the peacekeeping in Burundi.