African Union_Reading Memo

Throughout the years African continent has suffered and unfortunately is still suffering from many conflicts considering two Sudans, Uganda or Democratic Republic of Congo and other states and regions. That is why there have been many discussions on how to deal with all these conflicts properly to bring peace and stability to the many conflict regions within the continent. One of many proposals includes the approach framed with the title “African solution to African problems”. With these regards I would say I am starting to lean towards that type of frame, however, it often seems to me like “mother-daughter” problem when we consider the United Nations (UN), as a global peacemaker, and the African Union (AU). The Western powers or better in this case the United Nations permanent 5 members are not willing to let African states to lead their continent and deal with their problems claiming most probably the unpreparedness of African countries for such a role. One important fact why these powers do not want to let Africa go, as pointed out by Linnea Bergholm, is the interest-based cause and strategic thinking. These include most notably foreign affairs interests and issues such as migration regulation, mineral and energy resources, global war on terror or fighting the save heavens of terrorist organizations in Africa and many more. With this regard the “African solution” ascribed to the AU is certainly tied up with the term decentralisation.

In other words, when someone mentions decentralisation, it may also be translated into the debate over burden sharing vs. burden shifting. There is variety of factors that determine to what extent the actors, such as the UN permanent five members, are willing to decentralized or transfer some burdens to others, such as members of AU. Some may oppose the decentralisation arguing that the more multilateral the more powerful the international organization is. Or the more multilateral the organization is the more it works to avoid any „superpower“to dominate the organization. But does this really work in practice, particularly when we consider the permanent five members and their veto power. Also there is the question on the part of the UN and its credibility and legitimacy as the global actor when it comes to crisis management if it hands over the responsibilities or “burdens” to the AU?  From the universal point of view but some may argue the Western point of view the AU as a regional organisation with less inclusive membership lack the kind of collective legitimacy that the UN possesses. However, from the point of African states the UN perceived particularly as tied to Western interests and ideas lack the kind of regional legitimacy to pursue any kind of operation on the African continent. To put it in other words, the UN does not aim at “African solution to African problems”. On the other hand even African organizations and African states may not lean towards “African solution” and rather seek an international organization to deal with African problems or at least seek the approval of the international organization so the international legitimacy of the particular peace operation deployed could not be contested. This relationship between global and regional organizations has been labelled by Katharina Coleman with the term “the global legitimacy pyramid” on the top of which certainly stay the UN and its permanent five members of the Security Council.

As follows, I certainly agree with the realist statement that the international organizations such as the UN or on the more regional level the AU present kind of interstate platforms that server the interests of their member states. On the other hand, from the view of institutionalists or liberals these organizations also work as cooperation forums where all kinds of burdens are shared among their member states. In the case of the UN and AU the “burdens” to share may include humanitarian catastrophes, conflict resolutions or peacekeeping missions or more generally the restoration and maintenance of peace, stability and security as described in the UN Charter as well as in the Constitutive Act of the African Union. Cooperation between the UN and the AU on the African continent can surely provide at its best great opportunity to pursue such crisis management that would be most effective, most credible and that could serve the best the interests to maintain security, create stability and restore peace. Furthermore, in the case, as for example the crisis in Darfur, the AU can be seen as the middle actor. In this particular example, when the Khartoum government oppose the involvement of the UN in relation to the crisis in the Darfur region the AU served as a kind of “substitute” for the UN, of course with the support of the UN. On the other hand the cooperation can go also in a more negative way. The AU as the regional organization on the African continent should work and has been created of ideas such as pan-Africanism, solidarity and unity of African states. Nevertheless, the cooperation can make such ideas hard to pursue when we consider different relations between the UN superpowers, especially the permanent five member states and the member states of the AU. As it was explained in the work of Jonathan Fisher on the example of Uganda, in many case the perceptions of Western powers matters when it comes to many African leaders and governments. In relates mainly to development or humanitarian aid and various findings to support the economy of African states.

Moreover the funding also aims to persuade the African governments to cooperate in prevention of the spill-over of instability and insecurity in various forms such as migration, illegal trafficking of drugs or weapons or spread of terrorist activities and many more. In this way the African leaders invented or better used to their benefit a kind of a weak spot of Western powers. It is possible for them to exploit these threats which are in many cases over-securitized by Western governments in order to create cooperative arrangements with these governments that would best serve their interest and maintain their power. The fact that these threats present many times the highest agenda of Western powers works in favour of African governments mainly if Western governments from time to time oversee or do not raise critical claims against the practices of African leaders.

The African leaders are willing to support the over-securitization if it means that the aid and donor funding smoothly continue to support their causes and maintenance of their power. Otherwise, if the funding and aid would be cut by Western donors, they would most probably face an increase rebellion on the account of ordinary citizen or rebel opposition movements that would be hard to suppress without additional support. Moreover, I think that the Western powers just simply need to make these “donor darlings” such as Uganda and Museveni´s government in order to sustain their influence on the continent. In this way it may not be even the strategic image management of some African leaders that matters that much as the interests of Western powers to create such images. In this way they may simply find the way and causes to justify their cooperation with some African governments. With this regard the frame of African states made by Western governments is what matters, too, and it is created to appeal International community  such as may be the frame of an ally in the global war on terror or to appeal other regional states through the frame of economy success story.