SUMMONING THE
NECESSARY POLITICAL WILL FOR PROTECTING CIVILIANS IN AFRICA
"With
the united and determined will, mountains can be moved"
By Joseph Yav Katshung
1. Introduction
In September
2005, world leaders at the United Nations endorsed a historic
declaration that the international community has a “responsibility…
to help protect populations from genocide, ethnic cleansing, war
crimes and crimes against humanity” and expressed a willingness
to take timely and decisive action when states “manifestly
fail” to protect their own populations from these threats.i
Member states of
the African Union have been even more categorical in their support
for humanitarian intervention in the context of their own continent.
The AU Constitutive Act declares “the right of the Union
to intervene in a Member State in respect of grave circumstances,
namely: war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity”.ii
However, the
statements of some African leaders have suggested very different
interpretations of their commitment to protect vulnerable civilians.
For instance, President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe has declared that:
The vision
that we must present for a future United Nations should not be one
filled with vague concepts that provide an opportunity for those
states that seek to interfere in the internal affairs of other
states. Concepts such as “humanitarian intervention” and
the “responsibility to protect” need careful scrutiny in
order to test the motives of their proponents.” iii
Yet President Paul Kagame of Rwanda
has asserted:
Never again
should the international community’s response to these crimes
be found wanting. Let us resolve to take collective actions in a
timely and decisive manner. Let us also commit to put in place early
warning mechanisms and ensure that preventive interventions are the
rule rather and the exception. iv
Clearly, the
current circumstances and recent experiences of these respective
countries have a major influence on their leaders’ approaches
to Responsibility to Protect (R2P). Nevertheless, these conflicting
attitudes raise serious questions over African leaders’
willingness to fulfil their responsibilities to protect endangered
civilians in practice. Ultimately, the proof of the pudding is in the
eating and the AU will be judged on its responses to humanitarian
crises on its watch.
This paper
assesses the level of support among African leaders to follow through
on their commitment to R2P in practice and makes recommendations on
how to enhance the will to act where it is seen to be lacking.
Generating the political will to protect civilians remains a priority
in Africa. The emerging African peace
and security architecture provides a structure for African efforts to
implement R2P in practice. This paper
traces the evolution of Africa’s peace and security capability
within a continental political context, focusing on shifting
approaches to civilian protection. Yet the involvement of the
international community – and of African states in particular –
in seeking to promote peace and security remains ad hoc and
inconsistent. One of the challenges is the gap between the
commitment of governments to respond to humanitarian crises and the
embodiment of this commitment into national foreign and defense
policy. Given political realities in the world, intervention on
humanitarian grounds in Africa will in all likelihood still depend on
the political will of key member states that dominate both the
decision to intervene and the decision to make funds, troops, and
equipment available, whether to the UN or an ad hoc multinational or
regional force. Therefore, as there is a link between the political
will to intervene and capacity to deploy, this paper relates
political will and capacity to the continental preparedness to
intervene for humanitarian purposes. It is notable that having
a more robust, at-the-ready capacity to intervene would affect the
political equation by removing the lack-of-capacity obstacle and
excuse, thereby unambiguously testing political will: whether member
states would still say “no” in the face of a humanitarian
disaster.
2. The
Responsibility to Protect Civilian Populations in African Crises
Conflict,
violence and religious radicalism continue to undermine the
maintenance of peace and security and the promotion of human rights
in Africa. Generating the political will to protect civilians remains
a priority in Africa. Yet the involvement of the international
community – and of African states in particular – in
seeking to promote peace and security remains ad hoc and
inconsistent.
Dictated by
realpolitik, the timing and nature of appropriate collective
security action remains contentious. As the ICISS report stressed,
controversy over intervention relates both to inactionv
and actionvi
(ICISS 2001). However, in recent years, many stakeholders in Africa
and in the broader international community have recognised that
serious questions of principle and practice relating to civilian
protection need to be confronted in a much more comprehensive way.
In 2000, the International Commission
on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS) was established to help
shake the world out of its indifference and political paralysis. The
ICISS report released in 2001 advocated a duty upon the international
community to protect populations when the government of a country
fails to do that for themselves. It argued that:
…there
are exceptional circumstances in which the interest that all states
have in maintaining a stable international order requires them to
react when all order within a state has broken down. Also when civil
conflict and repression are so violent that civilians are threatened
with massacre, genocide or ethnic cleansing on a large scale...'
vii
This emerging doctrine of the
responsibility to protect was reflected in the UN’s High-Level
Panel Report on Threats, Challenges and Change, which called for a
recognition of the international community’s legitimate right
to intervene in internal conflicts to prevent the loss of life and
further deterioration of the situation. Thus:
…history
teaches us all too clearly that it cannot be assumed that every state
will always be able, or willing, to meet its responsibilities to
protect its own people and avoid harming its neighbours. And in those
circumstances, the principles of collective security mean that some
portion of those responsibilities should be taken up by the
international community...viii
At the 2005
Millennium Review Summit at the United Nations, the proposal to
enforce a clear framework for humanitarian intervention and a clear
duty to act was highly controversial.ix
After protracted negotiations, the declaration from the Millennium
Review Summit did include specific reference to this duty to act,
stating that:
‘Each
individual state has the responsibility to protect its populations
from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against
humanity… The international community should, as appropriate,
encourage and help states to exercise this responsibility.’x
The African Union (AU), having
deliberated at length on the Report of the High-level Panel on
Threats, Challenges and Change, adopted a Common African Position
(known as “The Ezulwini Consensus”), stating that:
‘ …
It is important to reiterate the obligation of states to protect
their citizens, but this should not be used as a pretext to
undermine the sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of
states.’xi
Africa has a mixed record on
humanitarian intervention. Efforts to prevent the escalation of
nascent conflict, including crisis diplomacy and the imposition of
sanctions, have often proved inadequate or ineffective. And once a
crisis has escalated to the point of imminent or outright disaster,
the impulse of many African states to provide troops to intervene to
stop the suffering has often been deflected by resort to the norm of
‘non-interference’.
Recent efforts to move forward to a
culture of ‘non-indifference’ in Africa have focused on
the development of the various components of the African peace and
security architecture. This is a difficult process for Africa, where
the experiences of colonialism and subsequent weakness of many states
have made issues of sovereignty and non-interference particularly
sensitive. The next section outlines continental and regional efforts
to develop its peace and security capacity.
3. Towards
Africa’s Responsibility to Protect
The African Union and the various
sub-regional organisations have adopted an ambitious peace and
security agenda and are establishing a bold new architecture designed
to take the continent more proactive and effective in preventing and
responding to serious crises both within and between African states.
3.1. The
OAU principle of ‘non-interference’
From its
inception, and as stated in article 2 of its Charter, the OAU was
guided by two main principles: the ‘sovereign equality of all
member states’ and ‘non-interference in the internal
affairs of member states’. Further more, the member
-states agreed to maintain and respect inherited colonial borders.
While these
principles aimed to enhance stability in Africa and to deter
superpower adventurism, they also had a negative implications.
Principles of non-interference were exploited by many African leaders
and their allies to bolster the position of elites against the
consequences of dissent among their populations. The OAU was often
criticised as a ‘Heads of State club’ as it tended to
focus more on protecting Africa’s leaders from its citizens
rather the other way round.xii
The organisation’s adherence to the cardinal principle of
‘non-interference in internal affairs’ led to a failure
to act aggressively in the face of egregious violations within
states, most famously in the cases of Uganda, Equatorial Guinea and
the Central African Republic.
More progressive
approaches to peace and security that have emerged since the end of
the Cold War and have sought to shift focus from protecting states’
security to protecting their citizens (i.e. human security) continued
to be resisted by the OAU under the guise of ’non–interference’.
It developed conflict resolution mechanisms that privileged the use
of soft power and presented less of a threat to sovereignty, such as
its Commission of Mediation, Conciliation and Arbitration in 1964 and
subsequently the Conflict Prevention, Management and Resolution
Mechanism in 1993.xiii
Between 1963 and 2002, the OAU was
faced with many occurrences of border disputes, inter-state
aggression or subversion, separatist movements, and in extreme cases,
state collapse. The OAU’s Commission of Mediation, Conciliation
and Arbitration lacked the capacity and commitment to manage and
resolve conflict and protect civilians. In general, this structure
remained largely ineffective in protecting civilians and quelling
conflicts in Africa.
Where the
organisation decided to act to defend member states’
sovereignty and territorial integrity, civilian protection was seldom
a priority. During the 1967-70 Civil War in Nigeria, the OAU created
an ad hoc Consultative Committee that helped to prevent Biafra's
secession. When Portugal attempted the re-conquest of Guinea in 1970,
the OAU rendered financial and military aid to Guinea, declared war
on mercenaries in Africa and waged a reasonably successful
information campaign that galvanised international opinion against
the aggression. In Equatorial Guinea, OAU support enabled the young
republic in 1977 to reinforce its newly-won independence.
The magnitude of instability that
continued to plague Africa and the political circumstances of the
post-Cold War continent led to a re-evaluation of the mechanisms for
conflict prevention, management and resolution, and –
ultimately – the establishment of the African Union.
3.2 The
African Union and the ‘non-indifference’ principle
The
AU, inaugurated to replace the OAU in 2001, was designed to
explicitly confront both the central weaknesses of the OAU and the
need for a reinvigorated African ‘ownership’ of the
challenges facing the continent. Importantly, the first objective of
the Union is to ‘achieve greater unity and solidarity between
the African countries and the peoples of Africa’. This
recognition of the fundamental importance of peoples, rather
than just states, in continental affairs is indicative of the
drafters’ determination to replace the OAU’s ‘Heads
of State Club’ with an institution aimed at overcoming the
challenges faced by people and their communities.
Moreover, a
major aspect of the AU is a new spirit of “non-indifference”
towards massive crimes against humanity and genocide in Africa, as
opposed to a policy of non-interference. Collective security
innovations of the AU Constitutive Act include: the establishment of
a Common African Security and Defence Policyxiv;
affirmation of the right of the Union to intervene in a member state
to restore peace and security in respect of grave circumstances such
as war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanityxv;
and respect for democratic principles, human rights, the rule of law
and good governancexvi.
Encouragingly, the new AU has put in place a
number of important mechanisms to support its bold new mandate to
confront the continent’s serious peace and security problems.
These include a standing African Peace and Security Council, an
advisory ‘Panel of the Wise’ made up of eminent former
statespersons, a Continental Early Warning System, an African Standby
Force to provide for quick and effective ‘humanitarian
intervention’ in extreme circumstances.
The
establishment of these new African means of preventing and responding
to crises on the continent represent a bold step forward and offer
the hope of a new era of collective African responsibility to the
most vulnerable. These provisions are a radical departure from
the peace and security arrangements of the OAU, and reflect an
emerging recognition of the “responsibility to protect”,
resulting in the transformation of the absolute right of state
sovereignty that dominated the era of the OAU.xvii
However, seasoned observers of African affairs know that, on both
fronts, the gap between rhetoric and action can often be
overwhelming.
3.3 The Ezulwini Consensus and
the use of force
In February 2005,
15 African foreign ministers gathered in Swaziland to forge an
African Common Position on the UN reform.
Having deliberated at length on the Report
of the High- level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change, they
adopted “The Ezulwini Consensus”, which contains the
following elements:
On the legality
of the use of force in order to protect civilians, the Ezulwini
Consensus reiterates that it is important to comply scrupulously with
the provisions of Article 51 of the UN Charter, which authorises the
use of force only in cases of legitimate self-defence. Additionally,
Article 4(h) of the AU Constitutive Act authorises intervention in
grave circumstances such as genocide, war crimes and crimes against
humanity. Consequently, any recourse to force outside the provisions
of these treaties should be prohibited.
However, since
the General Assembly and the Security Council are often far from the
scenes of conflicts and may not be in a position to accurately
evaluate the nature of crisis situations, it is imperative that
Regional Organisations are empowered to take action in certain
circumstances. The African Union agreed with
the High- level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change
that the intervention of Regional Organisations should be done with
the approval of the UN Security Council; although in certain
situations such approval could be granted “after the fact”
where urgent action is required. In such cases, the UN should assume
responsibility for financing such operations.xviii
IV. From Rwanda to Darfur: Lessons
for Political Will to Protect Civilians in Africa
Civilians in
Africa bear the heaviest brunt of acts of terror, civil wars, violent
suppression of political opponents and criminal violence. The most
heinous examples of the failure of civilian protection in Africa were
the genocide in Rwanda in 1994 resulted in the deaths of an estimated
800,000 people, mostly women and children,xix
and the war in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) between 1998
and 2003, resulted in one of the world’s worst humanitarian
crises, with over 3.4 million persons displaced from their homes and
an estimated 4 million killed.xx
Those are a tragic part of Africa’s contemporary history.
4.1. Darfur
and political will in Africa
Despite African leaders’ pledge
to never let another Rwanda happen again, they have not demonstrated
the will to exercise the African Union’s right to intervene to
stem gross human rights violations in either a concerted or
consistent manner.
In the Darfur
conflict that started in 2003, estimates of numbers killed range from
180,000 to 400,000. At least two million people have been forced to
flee from their homes and are displaced in Sudan or in camps in
neighbouring Chad.xxi
Significantly, Rwanda was the first African country to deploy a
protection force to Darfur as part of the AU mission. However, it is
clear that the African
Union Mission in Sudan (AMIS) has – despite its best efforts –
clearly not been able to provide effective protection or prevent
massive human rights abuses.
AMIS’
role in Darfur has been a critical test case for the AU’s
capacity and willingness to protect civilians on the continent. Its
mission has been an enormously difficult and complex one. AMIS has
been tasked to monitor, as far as possible, the humanitarian
ceasefire agreement of April 2004 and to report on violations; remain
in touch with local authorities to build confidence and increase
dialogue; monitor humanitarian convoys (these are often attacked);
and establish police stations in various locations to reduce attacks.
Despite some limited achievements, AMIS has largely been unable to
provide effective protection to most of the population of Darfur.xxii
Effective
civilian protection is also hampered by a lack of will to implement
and comply with existing standards and principles. For instance,
despite the AU being the only international organisation that has
given itself the right to intervene for human protection purposes,xxiii
it is increasingly becoming clear that its good intentions need the
political will to see them through. Unfortunately, the on-going
crisis in Darfur has shown that few African countries can be counted
upon to answer calls for civilian assistance.
Political will
for intervention is a major concern for the protection of civilians
especially in Africa. General Romeo Dallaire, UN force commander
during the Rwandan genocide, has recently argued that “Darfur,
is a ‘perfect example’ of a ‘lack of political
will’ to prevent crises developing”.xxiv
Meanwhile, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has observed that
“everybody is looking to see if world leaders will make good on
their World Summit pledge last September to protect vulnerable
communities…. A certain political will is required for action
- and I don’t think we have the kind of political will that is
required to drive things home… African leaders…will
have to work collectively with the Sudanese government to convince
them that it is in their interest to cooperate with the international
community."xxv
4.2. Darfur
and international political will
Political will
to resolve African crises is lacking more generally at the
international level. A recent report from Action Africa argues that
in 1994, the Clinton Administration refused to name the unfolding
genocide in Rwanda and failed to act decisively to stop it. It
blocked international intervention in Rwanda, claiming that there was
neither domestic constituency nor compelling foreign policy interest
to support U.S. action.xxvi
In Darfur, the
Bush Administration is the first government to have publicly
acknowledged that what is happening constitutes genocide. There is
controversy on this notion of genocide in Darfur and one could
support the position of the then President Olusegun Obasanjo
of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, who noted, there is little doubt
that, despite the hair-splitting of the proper description of the
unfolding tragedy, there is a developing genocide in Darfur.xxvii
Yet although the
U.S. has contributed diplomatically and financially to the peace
process in Sudan, it has not implemented a comprehensive strategy to
protect the people of Darfur from the ongoing crise.
The Action
Africa report concludes that despite some key differences in the
domestic and international dynamics today compared to twelve years
ago during the Rwandan genocide, the U.S. response on Darfur reveals
that important lessons remain unlearned. The U.S. is the most
powerful country in the world, with an unmatched capacity to respond
to crises and to mobilize a broader international response. If the
U.S. were to do everything it could to stop genocide, it is certain
that it would succeed in doing so. However, in the realm of U.S.
foreign policy priorities, Africa is most often absent or
marginalised, and the human cost of this myopia is most clear in the
death toll of these two genocides.xxviii
In Rwanda in
1994, the Clinton Administration was more focused on the crisis in
the former Yugoslavia, and was still reeling from the disastrous
intervention in Somalia the previous year. In Darfur at present, the
U.S. is focused more on the crisis in the Middle East, on the war in
Iraq and on the so-called “War on Terrorism”, which are
estimated to be more pressing policy priorities than genocide in
Africa.xxix
It is hard to imagine another part of the world where killings would
be left to continue, and where the loss of hundreds of thousands of
lives would be tolerated.
To sum up, one
could say that the failure of the international community to
intervene in the 1994 Rwandan genocide provided many lessons for the
AU’s current mission in Sudan. The AU’s intervention in
Darfur has revealed the limitations in the current peace and security
structures both at its headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and on
the ground. While the AU’s deployment of a force in the region
demonstrates a strong commitment to the protection of citizens across
borders, logistical problems as well as the lack of political will to
challenge the government in Khartoum make the situation stark. This
highlights the need to strengthen continental capacity in such
scenarios and call for the international community to intervene
effectively in conflict situations in Africa.xxx
V. Lessons from the Regional
Economic Communities (RECs) in garnering the political will to
protect civilians
Created
primarily to forge regional economic partnerships, RECs have, over
time, embraced peace and security mandates and developed mechanisms
for conflict prevention, management and resolution These mechanisms
form part of the overall security architecture of the AU, and are
tasked with adapting continental visions and policies to their
regions, and providing guidelines for implementation of various
activities by national governments. Africa’s
sub-regional organisations such as the Southern African Development
Community (SADC), the Economic Community of West African States
(ECOWAS), the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS),
the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) and the Arab
Maghreb Union (AMU), are often touted as the pillars of development,
yet real development and stability remain elusive.
Increasingly, both the UN and the AU
are looking to regional organisations as the initial respondents in
preventing, managing and resolving conflicts occurring in their
backyards. Among the comparative advantages of regional organisations
is their ability to intervene in situations where there are political
constraints to UN action; their speed of response; flexibility or
improvisation; and their familiarity with issues on the ground.
Examples of
African regional intervention include IGAD has been central in the
negotiations that sought settlement of two of the most delicate peace
agreements on the continent, namely the Comprehensive Peace Agreement
between the Government of Sudan and the SPLM, and the agreement that
led to the formation of the Somali Transitional Federal Government in
Kenya, both in 2005. Meanwhile, ECOWAS has been involved in numerous
complex peacekeeping missions, such as the ECOMIL operation in
Liberia in 2003. The collaboration with the Economic Community
of West African States Monitoring Group (ECOMOG)
helped to restore peace in Liberia and protect civilians. This is a
model of cooperation that could usefully be applied to other
situations
Yet in other
circumstances where forced intervention has occurred, results have
been mixed. The capacity of African regional organisations to conduct
peacekeeping missions is substantially affected by the political and
social environment of the region. For instance, the weakness of ECCAS
is reflective of the instability in the Central African region and
the lack of a strong state that can chaperone the peace and security
agenda. SADC’s ability to act in concert is hampered by
distrust and lack of a common normative framework for dealing with
security issues in Southern Africa. And in the Horn of Africa, IGAD
is a cautious and frequently paralysed regional organisation.
If the RECs are to play their role as
the building blocks for the AU Peace and Security architecture, their
capacity must be developed and sustained. Increased training
opportunities are necessary to meet the enormous demand for
peacebuilding that is being placed on these organisations. There is
also a need for stronger ties and better information-sharing between
the AU, UN and RECs in addition to enhanced co–operation
between RECs themselves.
However, one
should not draw the conclusion that such responsibilities can
henceforth be delegated solely to regional organisations, either in
Africa or elsewhere. Regional organisations can face political,
structural, financial or planning limitations. At times the
impartiality or neutrality of their member states might not be
assured, for a variety of historical, political or economic reasons.
Furthermore, the AU and the RECs can only be as efficient and
effective as the states that comprise them. Therefore, the political
will for intervention must first be generated in states themselves.
VI.
Challenges for Responsibility to Protect in Africa
6.1.
States ‘interests’ as barrier for intervention in Africa
One might
conclude from the evidence above that states prefer not to intervene
unless there are compelling reasons for doing so. Experience shows
that states will not usually intervene against allies, friendly
governments, major powers, or states within major powers’
immediate sphere of influence, however badly their governments may
behave. The situation in Darfur is illustrative of this fact. Aaron
Tesfaye notes that Sudan has so far rejected the UN resolution
authorising the replacement of the AU Mission in Sudan (AMIS) by a
stronger UN force. Pointing out that Khartoum has been able to block
this development because it has powerful allies on the UN Security
Council, namely China and Russia.xxxi
There are economic and political reasons behind Russian and Chinese
support of Sudanese sovereignty. Russia is a major arms supplier for
Sudan and therefore lacks incentive to assist in resolving the Darfur
crisis.xxxii
Meanwhile, China’s demand for natural resources and extensive
investment in Sudan’s oil industry has prevented it from taking
a firmer stance on the conflict.
It seems that
the unwillingness of states to intervene on other states’
territories is connected to governments’ political uncertainty
about actions that do not directly serve their national interests.xxxiii
This reluctance is all the greater when the crisis is taking place in
an area that is geographically remote or of little interest to the
media. Conversely, it seems that the closer the crisis is to home,
the greater the pressure to intervene. This was a key reason for
NATO's involvement in Kosovo. The effects of such crises are clearly
visible and may, moreover, undermine regional security. Such
considerations almost inevitably result in a selectiveness which in
itself is difficult to reconcile with the collective responsibility
to protect endangered civilians.
6.2. The question of State
sovereignty
Like President
Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, many Africans believe that the principles
of “responsibility to protect” and “use of force”
pose potential threats to the sovereign independence and security of
less powerful African states. This is regrettable in a period where
the entire community is looking for ways to prevent further human
rights abuses in Africa. Pillay suggests that “the protection
of human rights of all people is unquestionable, but there has to
be a clearer, more sensitive and careful articulation of a collective
responsibility to protect. Unless this principle is open to debate
and negotiation, African and other developing states, will likely
perceive the idea of collective security as an instrument of coercion
and intervention, rather than of global co-operation".xxxiv
The
deteriorating situation in Darfur demonstrates how urgent it is for
African leaders and communities to resolve this debate over semantics
and to reach a consensus on when a defence of 'state sovereignty' is
patently unacceptable. From the outset, the AU’s involvement in
Darfur was conditional upon receiving consent from Khartoum. Surely
this is not the “last resort” type of intervention that
is envisioned in the ICISS report and the AU’s Constitutive
Act.xxxv
How can intervention be subject to the consent of a state which is
incapable of protecting its own citizens, or is committing human
rights abuses itself? This example of conditional intervention is
illustrative of the lack of political will to implement the
Responsibility to Protect principles.
The situation in
Zimbabwe is another case of a state oppressing its own people but
hiding behind the shield of sovereignty. According to the ICISS
report, sovereignty is responsibility. This implies that the primary
duty of the state is to ensure the well-being and safety of all
people under its jurisdiction.xxxvi
This includes taking into account their actions towards their own
citizens and towards the rest of the world. These responsibilities
are clearly not being fulfilled in countries such as Sudan and
Zimbabwe.
VII. The way forward
Despite the collective shame and
regret expressed over the genocide in Rwanda, gross violations of
human rights, and mass killings continue. It is a failure of
governments, international organisations and the UN Security Council
to generate the necessary political will to protect the world’s
citizens.
In Africa, the
development of law, norms and political mechanisms to allow
collective intervention in crisis situations is of little more than
academic value if it is not accompanied by a strengthening of the
practical means of carrying out such interventions. In certain cases,
this ‘capacity gap’ is one of the most significant
challenge facing the implementation of the “responsibility to
protect” in Africa. That is true as there is a link
between the political will to intervene and capacity to deploy. It is
notable that having a more robust, at-the-ready capacity to intervene
would affect the political equation by removing the lack-of-capacity
obstacle and excuse, thereby unambiguously testing political will:
whether member states would still say “no” in the face of
a humanitarian disaster.
The AU should,
in the name of non-indifference, make efficient use of its Peace and
Security Council (PSC) to interfere in the internal affairs of member
states in the event of an imminent threat to peace, security and
stability. As Musifiky Mwanasali has observed, the AU’s
15-member PSC is legally empowered to implement the “responsibility
to protect” in Africa. The Protocol Relating to the
Establishment of the Peace and Security Council of the African Unionxxxvii
confers to the PSC with “the authority to use its discretion to
intervene” or “entry into” and “take
appropriate action to address potential or actual conflict
situations”.xxxviii
This is an unambiguous legal framework with which to operationalise
the “responsibility to protect” in Africa. Yet in both
Rwanda and Darfur several African states were willing to deploy men
and material, but most lacked the military capability to be fully
effective and the financial and logistical wherewithal to sustain
their forces for the long term. To strengthen African states engaged
in humanitarian interventions, more thought must be given to the
challenge of developing regional capacities to act.
VIII. Conclusion
On a continent
where gross human rights abuses and violence are rampant, it is more
critical than ever to protect civilians. African conflicts not only
kill more civilians than soldiers but also deliberately target
civilians and use children as combatants. With sufficient political
will - on the part of Africa and on the part of the international
community – to protect civilians in Africa can be enhanced.
Governments must not wait to act until images of death and
destruction are shown on TV screens. With political will, rhetoric
can be transformed into reality. Without it, not even the noblest
sentiments will have a chance of success. Political will is also
needed from the international community. Whenever the international
community is committed to making a difference, it has proved that
significant and rapid transformation can be achieved. Yet significant
progress will require sustained international attention at the
highest political levels over a period of years.
The responses to
protect civilians would immensely benefit from Vaclev Havel’s
sagacious words, “we live in a new world, in which all of us
must begin to bear responsibility for everything that occurs.”xxxix
This means that civilian protection is not just a responsibility of
the government, armed forces, and other security apparatus but rather
a collective and shared responsibility of the state, civil society
groups and the international community. Besides a strong commitment,
effective protection of civilian requires resources. Over time,
civilian protection must not only become a norm but also a practice.
Its success as a norm will rightly be judged on whether it has
reduced the vulnerability of civilian populations to armed conflict,
and on the extent to which human rights and humanitarian obligations
are observed and enforced. Successful implementation of protection
strategies requires the development of a comprehensive and holistic
approach to security combined with the necessary political will.
i
Expressed in the United Nation Resolution
A/60/L.1 referred to as the 2005 World Summit Document (or, simply,
the Outcome Document)
ii
African Union (2002), Consitutive Act of the African Union, Article
4(h)
v
Cases where states lack the political will to intervene such as in
Rwanda
vi
Cases where the Security Council is deadlocked in the face of a
humanitarian crises: Kosovo
vii
International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty,
The Responsibility to Protect, Ottawa, Canada: IDRC, 2001, para.
4.13.
viii
Report of the Secretary-General’s High Level Panel on
Threats, Challenges and Change, A More Secure World: Our shared
Responsibility, New York: United Nations, 2004.
ix
The Economist, ‘The United Nations – Can its
creditability be repaired?’, 8 September 2005.
x
United Nations, ‘Declaration of World Summit’, New
York: United Nations, 2005, para 138.
xi
African Union, The Common African Position on
the Proposed Reform of the United Nations: The Ezulwini Consensus,
Seventh Extraordinary Session of the Executive Council, Ext/EC.CL/2
(VII), Addis Ababa: African Union, 7 and 8 March 2005, p.6
xii
See Ben Kioko, “ The right of intervention under the African
Union’s Constitutive Act: From non-interference to
non-intervention” in International
Review of the Red Cross (IRRC), December 2003, Vol. 85 No
852, p. 810
xiii
Rachel Murray, Human Rights in Africa: From the OAU to the African
Union, (Cambridge University Press, 2004).
xiv
Article 4 d of the AU Constitutive Act
xv
Articles 4 j and 4 h of
the AU Constitutive Act
xvi
Article 4 m of the AU
Constitutive Act
xvii
See Musifiky Mwanasali, “The AU and the
Responsibility to Protect”, paper presented at the Centre for
Conflict Resolution (CCR) policy seminar, Building an African
Union (AU) for the 21st Century: Relations with Regional Economic
Communities (RECs), the New Partnership for Africa’s
Development (NEPAD) and Civil Society, Cape Town, South Africa,
20-22 August 2005.
xviii
The Ezulwini Consensus, p.6
xx
A report from the International Rescue Committee found that 3.5
million people had died in the DRC since 1998 from direct and direct
violence, making this the most deadly war in the world in terms of a
civilian death toll since the World War II. See International Rescue
Committee “Mortality in the DRC: Results from a Nationwide
Survey”, April 2003. See also Joseph Yav Katshung,
“Prosecution of Grave Violations of Human Rights in Light of
Challenges of National Courts and the International Criminal Court:
The Congolese Dilemma” in Human Rights Review (Transaction
Periodicals Consortium, Rutgers, the State University of new
Jersey), Volume 7, Number 3, April-June 2006, p. 6
xxi
Although, the Africa Action report estimates that some 500,000
lives have already been lost in Darfur. See, Ann-Louise Colgan:
"A Tale of Two Genocides:
The Failed
U.S.
Response to Rwanda and Darfur", Africa Action Report release on
9 September 2006, available for download
at http://www.africaaction.org/
xxii
Stephen
Baranyi and David Mepham, Report from a high-level symposium on
“Enhancing Capacities to Protect Civilians and Build
Sustainable Peace in Africa”, Addis Ababa, 16 March 2006, p.10
xxiii
The norms underpinning the AU’s emerging peace and security
agenda draw on elements of a protection framework as articulated in
the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty
(ICISS) document The Responsibility to Protect. The AU, like The
Responsibility to Protect, clearly lays out provisions for
intervention in the internal affairs of a member state through
military force, if necessary, to protect vulnerable populations from
egregious human rights abuses… See, Kristiana Powell, The
African Union’s Emerging Peace and Security Regime:
Opportunities and Challenges for Delivering on the Responsibility to
Protect, ISS Monograph series, Number 119, May 2005, p.1
xxiv
Quoted in Business Day (Johannesburg), 25 February 2005.
xxv
See “Annan
decries lack of political will on Darfur”, Sudan
Tribune,
01 July 2006.
xxvi
Ann-Louise
Colgan: "A
Tale of Two Genocides: The Failed
U.S.
Response to Rwanda and Darfur", Africa Action Report release on
9 September 2006, available for download
at http://www.africaaction.org/
xxviii
Ann-Louise Colgan, op.cit.
p. 9
xxx
Adebajo, A. & Scanlon, H (eds.): A Dialogue of the Deaf:
Essays on Africa and the United Nations (Fanele, South Africa,
2006, p. 278)
xxxi
Eric Reeves, "China in Sudan: Underwriting Genocide"
Testimony by Eric Reeves before the US-China Economic and Security
Review Commission: "China's Role in the World: Is China a
Responsible Stakeholder?" Aug 3, 2006
xxxii
See Amnesty International, "Sudan: Arming the Perpetrators of
Grave Abuses in Darfur," Nov. 16, 2004.
xxxiii
Freedman, L., ‘The
Changing Forms of Military Conflict’, in: Survival, Vol. 40,
No. 4 (Winter 1998-1999), p. 41
xxxiv
See, Vaneshri Pillay, Reflections on the
UN Secretary-General’s Reform Report and its Implications for
Africa’s Peace & Security Agenda (PDF Document)
xxxv
See, Kristiana Powell, The African Union’s Emerging Peace and
Security Regime: Opportunities and Challenges for Delivering on the
Responsibility to Protect, ISS Monograph series, Number 119, May,
2005, p.4
xxxvi
ICISS
report, op.cit. p. 12-13
xxxvii
AU Protocol Relating to the Establishment of
the Peace and Security Council of the African Union, 1st Ordinary
Session of the Assembly of Heads of State, Durban, South
Africa, 9 July 2002.
xxxviii
Musifiky Mwanasali, “The AU and the
Responsibility to Protect”, op.cit.
Articles
