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African Union absent from 2nd meeting on Libya as its chief pleads for funds

March 29, 2011 (WASHINGTON) — The African Union (AU) on Tuesday failed to be present at international conference in London that was devoted to the situation in Libya where the government is seeking to quell an armed opposition that initially started as a popular uprising against the 41-years old rule of Muammar Gaddafi.

Britiain's Foreign Secretary William Hague (front C) stands with attendees for a family photograph, before a Libya Conference at the Foreign & Commonwealth Office in London March 29, 2011 (Reuters)
Britiain’s Foreign Secretary William Hague (front C) stands with attendees for a family photograph, before a Libya Conference at the Foreign & Commonwealth Office in London March 29, 2011 (Reuters)
The meeting held today saw the participation of 40 governments and international bodies. Delegations at the meeting agreed to press on with a NATO-led aerial bombardment of Libyan forces until Gaddafi complied with a U.N. resolution to end violence against civilians.

It also set up a contact group comprising 20 countries and organizations, including Arab states, the AU and the Arab League, to coordinate international support for an orderly transition to democracy in Libya.

In mid-March the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) approved the establishment of a no-fly zone (NFZ) over Libya following pleas from the Arab League and Libyan diplomats across the world who have defected from the Gaddafi regime and joined the opposition.

It also authorized using all necessary measures to enforce the NFZ and protect civilians from military attacks. Since then the Western dominated coalition flew hundreds of sorties including bombing missions and fired more than 200 Tomahawk cruise missiles on military targets.

A week before the commencement of the airstrikes, the AU released a statement expressing its opposition to foreign military intervention in any form. Despite this, African nations on the UNSC namely Gabon, Nigeria and South Africa voted in favor of the NFZ.

The AU formed a five-member panel with the mandate of seeking a peaceful settlement to the Libyan crisis. However, an attempt by the commission to enter Libya was blocked by the UNSC which had banned most flights to the North African country.

Tensions between the AU and the rest of the world became evident when AU commissioner chairman Jean Ping snubbed an emergency summit of world leaders in Paris called to discuss the implementation of the NFZ over Libya.

Afterwards Ping in an interview with the BBC HardTalk programme criticized the international community saying that the AU was not consulted before the Paris meeting and suggested that given these circumstances it was going to be meaningless.

Today, Ping also skipped the London conference for what appeared to be the result of disagreements within the AU on the position that should be adopted by the Pan-African body. The French foreign minister Alain Juppe has said that he regrets the absence of the AU at today’s Libya conference due to internal disagreements.

In the continent, Rwanda and Zambia have appeared to support the NFZ while Uganda, Mauritania and Namibia voiced strong opposition. Even South Africa’s president Jacob Zuma recently suggested that the military operation exceeded the UNSC mandate.

Some political analysts and commentators said they were puzzled by the AU’s no show.

“It’s an embarrassment that they would just not show up,” Francis Kornegay, a senior researcher at the Institute for Global Dialogue in Johannesburg told Christian Science Monitor (CSI). “It might be that they just don’t have a single African position on this issue.”

But many critics say that the AU will not be an honest broker given the influence of Gaddafi over the body. The Libyan leader, who has billions of dollars at his disposal, is one of the AU’s largest benefactors providing along with four other countries 75% of its budget.

Even South Africa which is a member of the AU panel on Libya has reportedly questioned the credibility of the commission.

“There are concerns here at home about this panel and whether South Africa should be part of it. It’s almost a given what they will say, given their relationship with that man [Gaddafi],” a senior government official told the Mail & Guardian newspaper based in South Africa this month.

The newspaper said that Government officials in Johannesburg are worried that should the panel return with a recommendation to the AU that favors Gaddafi, it will spoil the image president Jacob Zuma wants to portray on the continent — that of himself as a statesman who believes in brokering peaceful solutions that do not merely serve its strongmen.

In a related issue the AU chief sounded the warning bell over the financial resources of the organization as a result of the civil unrest that has swept through North African countries such as Egypt and Libya which together with Nigeria and South Africa are the main contributors.

Speaking in Addis Ababa, at the opening of the annual meeting of the Ministers of Finance, Planning and Development of the AU and the Economic Community for Africa (ECA), Ping called on countries to provide the institution with sustainable resources.

Some 77 percent of the AU resources is funded by foreign partners and the remainder by the member states.

‘It is imperative to secure resources and why not find another way to provide sustainable resources for the institution?’ Ping was quoted as saying by the Panafrican News Agency (PANA).

(ST)

4 Comments

  • Cibaipiath Junub Sudan
    Cibaipiath Junub Sudan

    African Union absent from 2nd meeting on Libya as its chief pleads for funds
    It does not make sense at all for AU to be absent from the meetings whose Agenda is based on African Affairs. AU had failed and thus undermined their mandate. AU can not solve its problems and that is why Democracy is not taking a full shape in Africa. The AU is a collective form of African leading Dictators with exception of South Africa whose leadership style and good governance had been established by Nelson Mandella and i do not understand why Jacob Xuma should be involved to comment such.

    It is just a matter of time for Africa to revert to recolonisation period because the AU does not take prompt action in any matters that violate rights of African Citizens. They are keeping silence in Ivory Coast and had taken long time to decide on Libyan uprising.

    I thought, African were highly educated to find appropriate strategies to solving their own Afairs. What will be the credit of African? Should they still hold illiteracy, Poverty, ignorance, Dictatorship and all sorts evil acts in Africa? I really doubt.

    Reply
  • Ahmed Binouf
    Ahmed Binouf

    African Union absent from 2nd meeting on Libya as its chief pleads for funds
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    Reply
  • Paul Ongee
    Paul Ongee

    African Union absent from 2nd meeting on Libya as its chief pleads for funds
    Folks,

    Can you imagine that 77% of the AU resources is funded by foreigners and the remainder by the member states such as South Africa, Egypt, Libya and Nigeria?

    Ya Jean Ping, what is another alternative to provide sustainable resources while you often brag about untapped immense African raw resources? Even 53 Japanese students who make money by manufacturing DVD players are better off than the African Ph.D holders who never even consider competing resourcefully in international money-making markets. Never attempt to say no to get African problems solved by the international bodies whenever the intervention needs are deemed necessary.

    In addition, let’s continue to comfortably rely on the West. Any attempt to exclude South Africa from being a member on the commission for reasons best known to you will never help you/Africa sir. It’s a matter of getting rid of dictators through democratic or forceful means. Libya’s issue is unique and beyond your understanding. It’s not like Darfur/CPA issues that you, Khartoum and Ibrahim Gambari often run the show.

    Paul Ongee
    Khartoum, Sudan

    Reply
  • aboubakr tandia
    aboubakr tandia

    African Union absent from 2nd meeting on Libya as its chief pleads for funds
    Unsurprisingly the AU has also stuck with its regressivism. All commentators have been totally right in pointing out the main problem of “collective power politics” embodied in the African Union. I don’t see how a club of dictators can stand against “democratic enforcement” which they took the oath to promote and even defend in the United Nation and yet refuse to admit as the sole potential driver of African “integration”, renaissance or whatever myth they construct again. Did not African Leadership claim reform of global governance, starting from the UN and the IMF and World Bank? What is happening in Libya and weeks ago in all over the North of Africa and in the Middle East has been happening in sub-Saharan Africa though in many different forms. The difference is that sub-Saharan African peoples are less equipped, less educated and perhaps less respectful for Western powers, and less threatening their strategic interests in the Gulf. What has been happening is sustained popular claims for deeper democratization and social justice. But in Sub-Saharan Africa the post Third-Wave flexible paradigm of Aid and Global democracy enforcement has always trivialized atrocity and impunity with which those claims have been crashed by authoritarian and oligarchic regimes. Now African Leaders and the AU have to choose which style and strategy is better, for democracy has to become , it is not a new fruit tasted in Africa, it is a matter of civilization and culture. Either enforce peacefully the democratic and economic claims of their peoples, or suffer military or armed enforcement of democracy. The second style is arguably the one to prosper as we are yet to be governed by democrats and patriots. International or liberal interventionism is not into question. The problem lies in using the pretext of intervention to secure and conquer strategic positions in Africa, and perhaps recolonization in a very near future. In the long run China will have to decide whether to singularize its “peaceful and Third worldly” option or to negotiate a new scramble for Africa with the Western Blocs.

    Reply
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