African Union_Reading Memo

The new policy of both the African Union (AU) and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) embraced, in the early 2000s, the Responsibility to Protect (R2P), notion about the conflict and security issues in Africa that can lead to different debates about its hypothetical efficiency. Indeed, if it seems to give back to the African continent it righteous place in the international relations, especially about the issues of the continent, this new policy has not so far proved a concrete and total success in the different conflicts and issues it had to faced.

• First of all, such policies and decisions from the African and regional organization is a good way to finally undermine the place and interventionism of Western and former colonial powers in the African issues, and then to fight the neo-colonialism and paternalism that is still going on in Africa between the former colonies and countries such as France. These new policies are supposed to give back to Africans their independence over the Western powers when it comes to international relations and security issues. However, if this new policy of Responsibility to Protect has been accepted by Africans, and even if it is still a recent modification of African organizations policies, different issues or questions could be already point out.

It is for example possible to wonder if the issue about the implementation of this policy within the continent will be possible since it seems that trust into these organizations is not effective yet. It appears that some governments could be more tempted to call Western powers such as France to help when the internal situation is going out of their hands, as it was the case for Mali or Central African Republic. This could be understand by the fact that France as a powerful state with military capabilities on the continent and interests within the country is more likely to react quicker and more effectively than a regional or continental institution that is composed of a plurality of states with all different interests and possibly less military capabilities – or a least less will to deploy enough troops. But the question is then, should the African State that call France or France be considered as responsible for the failing of the efficiency of the Responsibility to Protect policy in Africa? Indeed, if France is intervening for its interests and in accordance with its France-Afrique policy, the fault might not be totally on this country. We have the example of the intervention in Mali that shows a complex situation where France in the first part of the issue was favorable to a African answer to the internal conflict, and at the time the different African organization were already taking measures against the military coup and for more democracy and dialogue within the country in order to stop the conflict. If the main issue was probably here the military coup that blocked a concrete and rapid answer of the African organization that support democracy above all, and if the new Malian power had then no choice but to call France to help to preserve the integrity of the State against militias, France has also little choices but to intervene or loose all its economic and politic interests within the country, and did so as an answer of the Malian call. This intervention led then to totally fail the previous strategies of the African organizations but in the mean time helped to save the integrity of Mali as a state. This kind of complex situation does not really show whose fault led to the failure of an effective African answer to the issue and seems to prove that both France and the new Malian power were there responsible. It could then open an interesting debate about the question of the failure of the African Union R2P policy in the existing examples such as Libya, Ivory Coast, Mali or Central African Republic, to understand if it is the Western powers, the African States concerned by internal issues or a lack of efficiency of the organizations that led, so far, to no successes of the new African policy. 

• A second point that could be bring to discussion would be the organizational efficiency of such policy and the question of how and when it should be conduct. This aspect leans more on the internal process that lead organization such as the African Union or the ECOWAS to decide to act on the continent in accordance to the Responsibility to Protect policy. Indeed, if the new policy is very clear about when the organization is supposed to intervene in a foreign country and use force, that is in case of grave abuses such as genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing or crimes against humanity, the organization seems to lack in capacities to act when more conventional instabilities or conflicts occurs in the continent. It appears that the Article 4 (j) of the Constitutive Act of the African Union for example, states that “the right of Member States to request intervention from the Union in order to restore peace and security”. The UA is then, in theory, capable to take measure and use force or military intervention to help any member in an instable intern position but only if this country calls for help. But then comes a question, how the African Union should deal with conventional internal conflicts on the continent? If the first statement about grave abuses is pretty obvious – even if it concerns crimes that should be considered as graves and then should lead to an international agreement about what is going on – the Article 4 (j) could easily be problematic in the African context that concern also countries with a lack of democracy, whereas the African Union consider the democracy as the principal value to defend. Indeed, in the case of a member state with a lack of democracy and a regime close to an authoritarian stage that faced an armed opposition threatening the integrity of the state, what kind of measures the African Union or any other regional organization should take? We have in one hand a regime that could ask for help in accordance with the Article 4 (j), but on the other hand an armed opposition that is fighting to bring a better democracy in the country. If it is more than likely in this kind of situation that the regime use measures that could be considered as grave abuses by the African organization or just do not call for any help and then close the debate, we can think of a situation where both solution would be against at least one principle of the organization and lead to take less efficient measures such as mediation, that could push the government to ask Western power to intervene. It is then possible to notice that if the African Union or the ECOWAS decided to move on from the old-fashioned principles of non-intervention and non-interference, it appears that in practice, the hands of such organizations seem to be still globally tied compared to the Western ones and could easily lead to what already happened in Mali with the French intervention.

• Finally, another point that could be bring here for discussion would be to know if the complexity and plurality of (African) actors involved in security in Africa is helpful or an issue for the efficiency of the Responsibility to Protect policy in the continent. Even if such situation apparently never happened yet, it is possible to wonder if organization such as the UA and ECOWAS – and possibly the United Nations – could follow different interests, point of view or support different measures about a case of instability or conflict in (West) Africa. For example the countries of ECOWAS could agree on the fact that an intervention is needed whereas the UA could disagree on every measures. If the countries in the ECOWAS are also present in the UA, the differences between institutions as well as the other actors in the UA could lead to opposition between the two organizations and possibly then even more tensions and instabilities within the continent. A debate about the question if such plurality of institutions is benefit for the application of successful and efficient measures concerning security could then be ask.