African Regional Peacekeeping

The United Nations pacific dispute settlement system is supposed to be supplemented by coordination with regional agencies or arrangements.¹⁶³ Although the Charter does not define these, they have been understood as including the AU.¹⁶⁴ Since its overtaking of the OAU in 2002, the AU has given emphasis and priorities to the transformation of its conflict resolution mechanisms towards more protection of human rights of civilian populations within the context of the African region.¹⁶⁵

Many reasons explain the need to embark on African regional peace and conflict resolution initiatives. In the first place, conflict prevention and management in Africa is the responsibility of Africans. African states and governments must take a leading role in bringing peace and managing conflicts in determined ways, without sole dependence on the West or the UN.¹⁶⁶ But other reasons relate to the current trend of responses to conflicts and security crises in Africa. In general, there is non-equal treatment, which is a consequence of ongoing marginalization of Africa and political scepticism arising from Western stereotypes. Africa is still perceived in the West as backward, primitive, brutal and tribal. As can be seen from Soyinka-Airewele Western discourse analysis in the former Yugoslavia, people were killed in ethnic conflict, in Rwanda; they were massacred in tribal violence.¹⁶⁷ The International community was spending 1.50 USD per day per refugee in Kosovo, while at the same period in Rwanda and Sierra Leone the amount was 0.11 USD.¹⁶⁸

163 See Article 33(1) and 52(2) of the UN Charter; the Manila Declaration on the Pacific Settlement of International Disputes of 1982 A/RES/37/10; See further Evans, supra note 34, p.547.

164 See this clarification in Evans, Ibid, p .614.

165 The old OAU lacked a clear vision on human rights conflict situations, as it was state-centric, emphasising on respect for territorial integrity, sovereignty and non-interference on states’ internal affairs as its founding principles. See the idea developed in the Cairo Declaration of 29 June 1993 on the establishment of a Mechanism for Conflict Prevention, Management and Resolution in Africa adopted by the 29th Session of the OAU Conference of Heads of State and Government; AHG/DECL. 1-3 (XXIX), AHG/Res. 218-227 (XXIX)

166 Albaugh, E. ‘Preventing Conflict in Africa: Possibilities of Peace Enforcement’ in Rotberg, R et al (2000), Peacekeeping and Enforcement in Africa: Methods of Conflict Prevention, Cambridge/Massachusetts: The World Peace Foundation.

167 Soyinka-Airewele, (2001). ‘Western Discourse and the Socio-Political Pathology of Ethnicity in Contemporary Africa’. in Udogu, E. (Ed.). The Issue of Political Ethnicity in Africa. Alderchot: Ashgate, p.174

168 Boulden, J (Ed.) (2003), Dealing with Conflict in Africa, New York: Palgrave MacMillan, p. 25

When any politician from almost any country mentions the holocaust, the following sentence says usually something as “never again”. However, the International community, represented by members of the UN Security Council, was for a long time immersed in a debate whether the situation in Rwanda should be called genocide or not. Bleak immediate testimony that it comes from an article by the former Czech delegate at the Security Council, Karel Kovanda.¹⁶⁹ Because it was still debating what to call the events in Rwanda instead of addressing them as genocide, the result has been that these events have destabilized the GLR up to the present moment.¹⁷⁰

Subsequent reviews by the United Nations, the Organisation of African Union Unity (OAU) and national legislatures of some troop-contributing states have all agreed that there was ample early warning and opportunity for response to the preventable genocide of April 1994 in Rwanda.

Estimates by the UN Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR) force commander at the time, General Romeo Dllaire that a deployment of approximately 5,000 troops to Rwanda a few days before the genocide would have been sufficient to halt the genocide have been borne out in subsequent investigations.¹⁷¹ United Nations actions during the 1994 Rwandan genocide create an almost criminal blame on the Organization, both for its failure to prevent the Genocide and for its double standards. The UN Security Council as well as UN staff sent a directive from the Headquarters in New York to General Dallaire indicating that the UN forces could, if necessary, exceed their mandate in one solitary circumstance, namely: the evacuation of foreign nationals.

Such a directive was not only viewed with incredulity, but it was also a shocking double standard as there was no such a similar directive issued to rescue the Rwandans.¹⁷² This is not surprising, as permanent members of the UNSC usually have no particular interest in rapid, flexible and effective steps leading to manage conflicts in Africa.

Admitting some of these realities, the former UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan states:

"The United Nations does not have, at this point in its history, the institutional capacity to conduct military enforcement measures under Chapter VII of the UN Charter. Under present conditions, ad hoc

169 Vladimír, K.(2004) ‘UN Peacekeeping Operations in Africa’ Jan Masaryk Centre of International Studies, University of Economics, Prague, available at <http://www.ceeisaconf.ut.ee>, last visited, September 8, 2009.

170 Almost all of the conflicts in the Africa’s Great Lakes Region have some close connections to the 1994 Rwanda genocide. See further Mollel, A. (2007). ‘Judicial Settlement of Armed Conflicts in International Law: Reflecting the 2005 International Court of Justice Decision in the Democratic Republic of Congo’ in Nordic Journal of international Law, vol. 76, No. 4, pp. 407-434.

171 See Report of the Secretary-General on Prevention of Armed Conflict, United Nations, A/55/985–S/2001/574, available at <http://www.reliefweb.int/library/documents/2001/un-conflprev-07jun.htm>, last visited, September 8, 2009.

172 See more elaborate discussion on this issue in the Report of the Independent Inquiry into the Actions of the United Nations During the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda, S/1999/1257, New York: United Nations, December 15, 1999.

Member States coalitions of the willing offer the most effective deterrent to aggression or to the escalation or spread of an ongoing conflict ... The Organization still lacks the capacity to implement rapidly and effectively decisions of the Security Council calling for the dispatch of peacekeeping operations in crisis situations. Troops for peacekeeping missions are in some cases not made available by Member States or made available under conditions, which constrain effective response.

Peacemaking and human rights operations, as well as peacekeeping operations, also lack a secure financial footing, which has a serious impact on the viability of such operations."¹⁷³

In view of the above reasons, and with the apparent UNSC double standards with regards to peacekeeping deployment in African conflicts situations,¹⁷⁴coupled with the unwillingness of developed states to provide troops, the only viable solution is to avail a standby African regional peacekeeping force. The failure of the UNAMIR to prevent the genocide in Rwanda in 1994, the sluggishness that overshadowed the establishment of a peacekeeping force to intervene the conflicts in Somalia (the UNISOM I)¹⁷⁵ and the premature withdrawal of UNISOM II¹⁷⁶ amidst high tensions and continuous deadly conflicts in Somalia in 1991 to 1993 support this line of argument.

Furthermore, the long delays in the deployment of the MONUC and the UN Assistance Mission to Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) in the DRC and Sierra Leone respectively in 1999 with consequential serious loss of human lives and property in the said countries add more to the reasons why the AU should and must develop its own regional peacekeeping and peace building capabilities.

The development of regional peacekeeping operations capabilities in Africa would play a central role as it reflects the different political and security environment of Africa. Since its inception, the AU has taken important steps in developing peacekeeping, human rights and security on the continent. The most significant AU organ when it comes to peacekeeping capabilities is the Peace and Security Council (PSC), established in 2003.¹⁷⁷ The establishment of the PSC, which becomes a higher authority mandated to intervene in internal conflicts,¹⁷⁸comes as a response to the need for the coordination of the African Regional Mechanisms for Conflict Prevention, Management and Resolution, which was previously incorporated as one of the Central Organs of the of the former

173 UN Report on Reform, 16 July 1997.

174 See this argument emphasised by Evans, supra note 34, p.613.

175 UN Operation in Somalia I.

176 UN Operation in Somalia II.

177 Established under Article 2 of the Protocol Relating to the Establishment of the Peace and Security Council of the African Union of 2003, pursuant to Article 5(2) of the Constituting Act of the African Union (CA), 2002.

178 See Article 7, of the PSC Protocol, reaffirming the AU’ right to intervene as already stated under Article 4(h) of the CA, that the PSC can recommend to the Assembly of Heads of States and Governments intervention on behalf of the Union, in a Member State in respect of grave circumstances, namely, war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity, as defined in relevant international conventions and instruments.

OAU.¹⁷⁹ The PSC is composed of an African Standby Force, a body of multidisciplinary military and civilian ready for rapid deployment.

So far, the AU has mandated and fielded two missions: the African Union Peacekeeping Mission in Burundi (AMIB)¹⁸⁰ and the African Union Peace Mission in Sudan (AMIS). The two cases are pivotal in terms of reflecting how human rights are more centrally placed in the African Peace and Security agenda in the present organization. Although full success of the two missions cannot be asserted here, AMIB was able to oversee the implementation of the ceasefire agreements, contributing to the creation of conditions suitable for the deployment of UNOB on June 1, 2004.

Similarly, despites the crisis faced by AMIS as the situation in Darfur continued to escalate, its deployment and its repeatedly extended mandate, paved way to the establishment of a joint African Union/United Nations Hybrid operation in Darfur (UNAMID), which was authorized by Security Council resolution 1769 of 31 July 2007.

Additionally, the possibility of establishing peacekeeping operations on a regional level is not a novel phenomenon in the African continent. One example of Africa’s regional peacekeeping operation under Chapter VII before the birth of the AU was under the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), a sub-regional organisation of the OAU. It established the ECOWAS Cease-fire Monitoring Group (ECOMOG) in Liberia and Sierra Leone in (1990-1997) and (1997-2000) respectively.¹⁸¹ Although this peacekeeping operation has been criticized on its legitimacy, impartiality and for going beyond the generally accepted spheres of peacekeeping operations,¹⁸² its achievement for paving way for peace in the region cannot be totally dismissed. Its intervention in Sierra Leone saved thousands of lives by providing a buffer between the combatants and hundreds of thousands of forcibly displaced persons.¹⁸³

Although there might be some disadvantages in the larger involvement of regional organizations in keeping the peace, the advantages are immense. The proximity of the AU to conflicts areas in the African continent gives it knowledge of the genesis of African conflicts and of the players involved.

The shared culture and history can support conflict resolution as well.

179 See Decision AHG/Dec.160 (XXXVII) adopted by the 37^th Ordinary Session of the Assembly of Heads and Governments of the OAU in Lusaka Zambia in 2001.

180 The deployment of AMIB in 2003 aimed to achieve synergy in peace efforts within the Great Lakes

181In cases, ECOMOG successfully undertaken humanitarian intervention and restored democracy in the two countries.

182 It is claimed that the force involved itself in enforcement actions without the authorization of the UNSC. See more critics on the force in Katayanagi, supra note 12, p.33.

183 See further discussions on the success of ECOMOG in Rotberg, R et al, supra note 166, p.169.

However, although the AU and some of its sub-regional organizations are now capable of deploying military forces, they generally lack the staying power and multidimensional capability of forces like the UN’s. Many of the new structures are yet to be fully operational. One of the most significant shortcomings of the AU is the lack of institutional capacity, especially the human resources, to adequately develop policy, and plan and manage peace operations. The AU has only a handful of staff dedicated to managing peace operations, significantly less than its UN and EU counterparts.

Investing in African peacekeeping capacity through training and equipping peacekeepers is a worthwhile thing for the rest of the world to consider.

One of the critical challenges for an African regional peacekeeping force is financing. As can be seen from the first two AU peace operations, the AMIB and the AMIS, which were mainly donor funded, it is clear that, for the foreseeable future, the AU will be dependent on donor support for its peace operations. This is problematic because it denies the AU the independence to make decisions about some of the strategic, operational and even tactical aspects of peace operations it may wish to undertake.

As we shall see later, the performance of any peacekeeping that is deployed is dependent on, among other things, the resources at its disposal in the course of its operations. One comment is worth making at this juncture about the lessons learned from some of the AU regional peacekeeping operations, particularly the AMIB, which stands so far as the AU’s first fully-fledged peacekeeping operation. Despite the need for regional peacekeeping initiatives, the UN should still retain its primary role of maintenance of international peace and security by involving itself in the planning and close consultation with regional peace initiatives.