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AFRICAN UNION -
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http://www.africa-confidential.com/article/id/4543/Dlamini-Zuma_takes_charg
e> Dlamini-Zuma takes charge
21th July 2012
South Africa finally won the battle for the AU Commission chair, amid high
hopes for reform and more effective interventions
Security crises in five countries and pressing economic problems confront
the new Chairperson of the African Union Commission,
<
http://www.africa-confidential.com/whos-who-profile/id/99/Nkosazana_Dlamini
-Zuma> Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma. Although she has three months to wind up in
South Africa, where she is Home Affairs Minister, before moving to the AU in
Addis Ababa, her transition programme is already under way.
After a fairly bitter election campaign, senior officials are urging the
defeated candidate and incumbent, Gabon’s
<
http://www.africa-confidential.com/whos-who-profile/id/3108/Jean_Ping> Jean
Ping, to work for a smooth handover. Since the veteran diplomat is searching
for another international posting, he may want to protect his legacy. Over
the coming months, the AU will play a central role in negotiations on
Congo-Kinshasa, Guinea Bissau, Mali, Somalia, and South Sudan and Sudan.
The style will be easier to change than the substance. At her swearing-in,
Dlamini-Zuma quoted the late Jamaican civil rights activist and writer
Marcus Garvey; at Ping’s departure, he quoted Shakespeare. Lauded for her
administrative record and conciliatory approach to politics, Dlamini-Zuma
can rely on considerable goodwill, in the early months at least.
Talk of a Francophone-Anglophone split and poisonous regional rivalries is
overblown. The voting on 15 July (see
<
http://www.africa-confidential.com/article/id/4544/A_diplomatic_coup_in_Add
is> A diplomatic coup in Addis
<
http://www.africa-confidential.com/article/id/4544/A_diplomatic_coup_in_Add
is> ) saw Dlamini-Zuma win over substantial numbers of French-speaking
governments, such as Algeria, Chad, Congo-K and Senegal. Her main opponents
– Côte d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Kenya and Nigeria – face too many demanding
internal matters to want to sabotage her tenure. They are likely to respond
to her conciliatory gestures, especially if she can offer some backing for
them in their respective regions. Between them, Côte d’Ivoire and Nigeria
dominate the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas), which leads
calls for intervention in Mali but requires support from both the AU and
United Nations.
Ethiopia and Kenya (alongside Uganda, which backed Dlamini-Zuma) are the key
players in the intervention in Somalia. As this enters a critical stage,
with the expected battle for Kismayo next month and the Transitional Federal
Government due to hand over to a still unknown successor on 20 August,
coordination with the AU will be vital here, too.
Officials in Addis expect a division of labour to emerge which would allow
Dlamini-Zuma to take charge of administrative reform in the AU, to boost
accountability and the capacity to monitor and evaluate what it does. The AU
has a better record on promoting norms and values than its predecessor, the
Organisation of African Unity: it has taken some steps on outlawing military
coups, though it slipped in countries such as Madagascar and Mauritania. Yet
its grand projects, such as the African Peer Review Mechanism and the New
Partnership for African Development, which South Africa championed when
Dlamini-Zuma was Foreign Minister and
<
http://www.africa-confidential.com/whos-who-profile/id/2/Thabo_Mbeki> Thabo
Mbeki was President, need rejuvenation and tougher management. The plan
behind those institutions, to link a country’s governance record as assessed
under the APRM to its ability to bring in investment in infrastructure
through NEPAD, took a hit from the chaos in Western financial markets and
treasuries and the growing availability of less conditional finance from
China and other Asian economies.
Central to the AU leadership transition will be its Deputy Chairman, Kenya’s
Erastus Mwencha, re-elected unopposed a few minutes after Dlamini-Zuma’s
victory on 15 July. He is also an effective administrator and after two
terms as Secretary General of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern
Africa (Comesa), he has an exhaustive knowledge of the trade dossier.
Overshadowed by the excitement of the election, the theme of the summit was
setting up a continental free trade area by 2017, one of Mwencha’s main
aims. At Comesa, he oversaw a sixfold increase in trade among members after
it set up a free trade area. The regional integration chief at the UN
Economic Commission for Africa, Daniel Tanoe, reckons a free trade area
could easily double intra-African trade, currently 10-12% of commerce on the
continent.
Another urgent economic matter is the financing of the AU itself. Next
year’s budget is US$278.2 million, with $122.9 mn. to come from member
states and $155.4 mn. from foreign (mainly Western) countries and
organisations. The arrears of states such as Congo-K, Libya (in the last
years of Colonel Moammar el Gadaffi, once a major financier) and Somalia,
stood at $43 mn. in 2010. Such dependence on foreign finance raises
questions about sustainability and is anathema to South Africa, keen to
strike out against lingering neocolonial ties to the West.
A high-level panel headed by former Nigerian President
<
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jo> Olusegun Obasanjo has recommended widening the financing base among
members: Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Nigeria and South Africa pay over two-thirds
of member-state contributions. The remaining members, including substantial
economies such as Angola, Ethiopia and Kenya, pay an average of $1 mn. a
year each. The bigger economies may be willing to pay more if that gives
them more influence. Obasanjo’s committee is also looking at private sector
financing and levies on insurance premiums, international travel and imports
from outside Africa.
As sources of finance tighten, especially in the West, a more creative
approach will be needed. For now, most AU peace and security operations are
critically dependent on outside finance. Germany is constructing the new
Peace and Security Council (PSC) Secretariat, across the compound from the
$200 mn. Chinese-built headquarters. It will include an operations room and
an elaborate early warning system to boost the AU’s surveillance and
intelligence capacity.
Above all, Dlamini-Zuma’s tenure will be judged on her successes in peace
and security. Her main collaborators here will be the Peace and Security
Commissioner, Algeria’s Ramtane Lamamra, and his deputy, Senegal’s El
Ghassim Wane. Experienced and assertive, they have set clear objectives for
the AU in ending or containing Africa’s conflicts. Not only do they manage
the AU’s military and peacekeeping operations but also strategy on
non-military interventions, an area which in the UN is jealously guarded by
the Department of Political Affairs.
Some robust discussions between Dlamini-Zuma and the PSC are likely over the
AU’s regional posture. It was concern about AU policy on the
UN-French-Ecowas intervention in Côte d’Ivoire and the UN-North Atlantic
Treaty Organisation operation in Libya that prompted South Africa to put
forward its own candidate last year to challenge Ping.
There may be little room for Dlamini-Zuma to manoeuvre. The AU’s most
important and probably most difficult dossier is managing negotiations
between the Sudans. The fact that negotiations are being overseen by
Dlamini-Zuma’s colleague Mbeki will not help her hugely. Juba distrusts him
as well as Khartoum and so wants issues settled by international
arbitration. African and Western governments insist Mbeki’s negotiations are
the only realistic option.
The largely ceremonial meeting between South Sudanese President Salva Kiir
Mayardit and Sudan’s President Omer Hassan Ahmed el Beshir late on 14 July
was an attempt by both sides to maintain appearances of good faith. The
threat of UN sanctions against any party deemed to be stalling negotiations
looks academic. The UNSC will not act against either, both of whose
economies are shrinking rapidly, without a steer from the AU. There, East
African countries will block sanctions against Juba and Egypt’s new Islamist
President, Mohamed Mursi, will block any action against
<
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Omer el Beshir, whom he met in Addis.
Dlamini’s own political skills will be tested in managing AU action in Mali.
The technical team in Bamako to prepare a political and military strategy is
led by Ecowas and supported by the UN and AU. With outsiders such as the
United States Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, Johnnie
Carson, also in Bamako this week, Ecowas is pressuring Prime Minister Cheick
Modibo Diarra and ailing and absent Interim President Dioncounda Traoré to
broaden the political base of the transitional government and radically and
rapidly restructure the army (see Mali Feature).
After that, Ecowas officials want to send 3,000-5,000 troops to back the
newly strengthened army in a march on the north, push out the Islamist
groups, notably Ansar Eddine, the Mouvement pour l’unicité et le jihad en
Afrique de l’Ouest and Al Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb. Ecowas planners
expect to take a detailed operational plan to the Security Council early
next month. Backing from the AU will be critical to its success. Algeria and
Mauritania, which are planning their own military strategy, are far less
enthusiastic about an all-out military confrontation. Balancing that concern
with Ecowas’s primacy over policy in its region could be Dlamini-Zuma’s
first major diplomatic test as she takes over the continental body.
Received on Sat Jul 21 2012 - 20:39:46 EDT
