As African Union Strategises on Peace, Security - FES Ethiopia

<strong>As</strong> <strong>African</strong> <strong>Union</strong> <strong>Strategises</strong> on Peace, SecurityJuliana Taiwo, 05.22.2008Add To FavoritesPrint This ArticlePost CommentRecently, 26 journalists drawn from nine <strong>African</strong> countries assembled in AddisAbaba for the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung Foundation three-day capacity buildingprogramme on peace and security on the continent. Although plagued by a myriadof conflicts, top officials of the <strong>African</strong> <strong>Union</strong> say there is a silver lining on thehorizon. Juliana Taiwo was thereRight from the Addis Ababa airport, Monday night, May 5, 2008 when participantsstarted arriving in batches from West and Southern Africa, it was clear that theZimbabwe and Darfur issues were going to dominate discussions at the three-daycapacity building programme, "Journalists´ Training on the <strong>African</strong> Peace and SecurityArchitecture", by Friedrich Ebert Stiftung Foundation, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The twoparticipants from Zimbabwe (The Standard News Editor, Walter Marwizi and NationalConstitutional <strong>As</strong>sembly, Information officer, Patience Nyangara started the discussionright there at the airport. The cold from the air-conditioning units at the airport did notdouse the heated discussions from Nigerian and Zimbabwean journalists, who engagedeach other soon after formalities while waiting for the arrival of other colleagues fromGhana, Namibia, Botswana, Zambia, Madagascar and Mozambique.Walter stated clearly when Okey Ndiribe of Vanguard Newspapers asked what thesituation was when he left home adding that he was in Addis to find out why the AU hasbeen particularly silent on Robert Mugabe's rule in Zimbabwe.<strong>As</strong> far as they (Walter and Patience) were concerned, what was the use of EU sanctions ifit is not enforced? He said the sanctions from the West on Mugabe and his family has notaffected him much as he has found alternatives to meeting his personal needs andconcerns while the poor Zimbabweans in addition to poverty and hunger, are now beingkilled on daily basis for daring to vote against the same man who is supposed to protectthem.Walter said appointing South <strong>African</strong> President, Thabo Mbeki, as mediator was a disasterbecause he was Mugabe's friend. He also said neither Mugabe nor Morgan Tsvangiraiwere the messiahs the Zimbabweans were looking for but in their desperate need forchange, they were ready to settle for even 'Satan' just to be free again.So when the 26 participants including two from Ethiopia, gathered at the <strong>African</strong> <strong>Union</strong>Conference room in Addis Ababa, from May 6-8, 2008, many took turns in hitting backat the AU and their frustrating hurdles placed on the path of journalists trying to reporttheir activities.

The AU representatives most of whom happened to be the resource persons were quick tobeat their chests about the interventions of the AU in places like Zimbabwe, Somalia,Darfur and recently Comoros but most of the disclosure sounded like French toparticipants as no efforts have been made to publicise them.Mr. Charles Mwaura, an expert on Early Warning System with the AU, said it was nottrue that <strong>African</strong> leaders were closing their eyes to the happenings in Zimbabwe. He saidthough the leaders may not openly criticise bad leadership they were working behind thescenes to tell leaders like Mugabe the home truth. He said the success of SADC was as aresult of the backing of the AU Commission and the <strong>African</strong> leaders engaging of Mugabeat the <strong>African</strong> Leaders Summit in 2007, this he said led to Mugabe engaging in dialoguewith the MDC opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai.He also disclosed that no conflict in the continent that has not been foreseen and effortswere made to warn them like that of Rwanda and Zimbabwe.While hitting on the <strong>African</strong> media, Mwaura said while the western media markets theirnews with updates at intervals, some <strong>African</strong> media do not update their sites if they haveany at all. This, he said, was responsible for the poor reportage of the AU and otherdevelopment happening in the continent.Mr. El Ghassim Wane, Head of the Conflict Management Division of the <strong>African</strong> <strong>Union</strong>said the issue of peace and security was a priority for the <strong>African</strong> <strong>Union</strong>. "That is why asa matter of fact in the process of putting together the AU, the leaders made the request toreview the way we are working with the peace and security, look at the instruments thatexisted at that time and see how best we could improve on it. It was in that context that adecision was made to adopt the protocol establishing the <strong>African</strong> <strong>Union</strong> Peace andSecurity Council. And that protocol provided for the establishment of the Peace andSecurity Council and also established other key organs to support the peace and SecurityCouncil in its mandate and include the Panel of the Wise, the <strong>African</strong> Stand-by Force(ASF). But there are also provisions providing for closer cooperation with RegionalEconomic Communities (RECs) which play increasingly active role in the prevention andmanagement of conflicts. For example, Economic Community of West <strong>African</strong> States(ECOWAS), Southern <strong>African</strong> Development Community (SADC), IntergovernmentalAuthority on Development (IGAD), Economic Community of Central <strong>African</strong> States(ECCAS), Arab Maghreb <strong>Union</strong> (UMA)."I believe we have made progress significantly in putting together what we call the Peaceand Security Architecture which is made up of all these organs. The AU as of today ismore active than it has ever been in dealing with conflicts situation. There is hardly anyconflict situation that is not on the agenda of the AU. We sometimes play the lead roles inall these situations, we support the regional groupings, we work very closely with theUnited Nations, we are involved in conflict preventions, we are involved in conflictsresolutions, we are involved in post conflicts, we are involved in programmes aimed ataddressing the root causes of conflicts."In spite of the achievements clearly we also do face a number of challenges and one ofthe main constrains has to do with financial resources," he said.On what the AU was doing to address these challenges, Wane said "when it comes tofinance, of course we are trying to address it but within membership of the AU but alsowith our partners. You know the United Nations Peace and Security have a role to play.When the European <strong>Union</strong> act on the issue of peace and security it is also acting on

ehalf of United Nations and we need clearly a much bigger support from theinternational community. Already we have received significant support from theEuropean <strong>Union</strong>, United States of America, Japan, Canada, China, from individualmembers of EU and other member states. We are trying to generate enough support tobuild our capacity in terms of human resources and also to increase our resources. Maybeyou are aware that recently, the security council organised meeting on relationshipsbetween the UN and regional organisations particularly the AU and one of the focus ofthe meeting was precisely to see how best to enhance our resource base, how best toenhance our human resources capacity to make it possible for us to address or deal moreeffectively with the issues facing the continent in terms of peace and security", he said.Wane speaking on early warning system and why the AU wants to put it in the frontburner, said "You know one of the main objectives of the AU is prevention of conflictsand that is for two reasons. One of which is that it is always better to prevent than to curebecause many lives would be saved and of course prevent destruction of properties,killing of people. You know all the mayhem that goes with war. Second one is that it ischeaper to prevent than to send very expensive peace support operations. For instance theoperations in Darfur is a project of over $400 million a year, that is literally four times thebudget of the AU and it is the same for Somalia. So we have a keen interest in preventingconflicts and that is why in the peace and security council protocol I referred to earlier,there is provision on the establishment of continental early warning system that would bemade up of the AU and the Regional Economic Communities (RECs), to make it possiblefor us to anticipate and prevent all conflicts. We have made some progress in putting inplace the key components of the early warning system and again I think ECOWAS forinstance among the regional body is clearly the most advanced and we are working veryclosely with them and once the early warning system is fully in place, it will clearlyenhance our capacity to anticipate and also to put policy options to our leadership in theAU so that appropriate preventive action could be taken but there is still much to be done.The regional training, according to Dr. Sabine Fandrych, Resident Representative of FES,Addis Ababa office, is subordinate to the objective of creating a regional dialogue onsecurity issues, and specifically aims at raising awareness among journalists about thestructure, functioning and implications of the new regional security architecture in theframework of the <strong>African</strong> <strong>Union</strong>; its linkage to other sub-regional, regional and globalorganizations; the opportunities and challenges of conflict prevention, resolution andpost-conflict peace-building.Fandrych said the workshop was also intended to identify journalists as possiblemultipliers on these issues and to improve the networking of journalists in the Southernand West <strong>African</strong> region."This security architecture encompasses a Peace and Security Council (PSC) which,according to its founding protocol, is meant to be a 'collective security and early-warningarrangement to facilitate timely and efficient response to conflict and crisis situations inAfrica'. The PSC is to be supported by the Commission of the AU itself, via the Peaceand Security Commissioner as well as the Peace and Security Department, a ContinentalEarly Warning System (CEWS), an <strong>African</strong> Standby Force with five regional brigades aswell as a special fund. Apart from that, a Panel of the Wise and a military staff committeehave been set up to serve as advisory bodies for the PSC in all questions relating to thepromotion of peace and security in Africa.

"The creation of such a continental <strong>African</strong> system for Peace and Security is a remarkableand innovative development, and it is unequalled even on a global scale. However, thereis a long way to go to make the envisaged structure a functioning system, both intechnical as well as in political terms. In order for it to function effectively, closecooperation with the sub-regional organizations as well as with the United Nations andinternational partners is needed.At the end, it was agreed that <strong>African</strong> journalists need to take interest in the happeningsin the AU, efforts it is making in conflicts prevention and resolutions and bring it to theknowledge of the beneficiary states as well as the continents.While it was agreed that journalistic ethics such as credibility, balance, objectivity,neutrality and morality, must not be compromised, it was also stressed that responsibleand objective reporting will contribute to peace and security in the region.On 22/05/2008, Sabine Fandrych wrote:Dear all,FYISabineDr. Sabine FandrychResident RepresentativeFriedrich-Ebert-StiftungAddis Ababa OfficeTel.: 00251-11- 416 55 70416 55 74416 55 77Fax: 00251-11- 465 53 67P.O. Box 8786Addis Ababa

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