A case for greater African unity

The biggest solution to these challenges is probably the invocation of the spirit of independence and sovereignty of African states and unity and brotherhood among themselves that Kwame Nkrumah dreamed of.
This can only can lead to a more stable continent that determines its own future and destiny rather than the ignominy and curse of being clients and lapdog allies of the former slaver and colonialist.

The Herald

By Tichaona Zindoga
The just-ended African Union summit, which was foreshadowed by sad events unfolding on the continent like the recent crises in Cote d’Ivoire (laced with that tragicomic Raila Odinga undiplomatic incident) as well as Tunisia and Egypt, proves the one important need for greater unity, cohesion and responsibility among African states.

The 16th annual summit was held under the theme “towards greater unity and integration through shared values” – which provides the just hope that the continent can be unified and integrated under the aegis of common set of values, hopefully pan-African values.

And were fears not expressed that the African Union, the successor of the liberating Organisation of African Unity, had lost way and needed to rededicate itself towards the ideals of the founding fathers towards total liberation of the continent?

Significantly, one might be forgiven to perceive on one hand Tunisia and Egypt as an “Arab world” problem against unpopular regimes and on the other Cote d’Ivoire as a legitimacy crisis following a disputed poll.

Little did the common denominator of Western influence in the cases tend to matter: here a backlash on western influence in Tunisia and Egypt and there an ironic attempt to bring on another western darling on the people Cote d’Ivoire, even with the threat of arms.

Nor so did the three countries’ belonging to the greater African institution, behooving greater continental responsibility.

On one hand, Cote d’Ivoire thus became a West African problem in which regional leaders joined hands with former coloniser France to find solutions to the situation that stemmed from the disputed November 2010 polls pitting incumbent Laurent Gbagbo and rival, ex French-armed rebel leader Alissane Outtara.

It will be recalled that the two’s rivalry derived from anomalies in the counting of the November 28 presidential run-off ballot.

The two claimed wins resulting in Alissane being controversially declared victor by the electoral body which decision was reversed and Gbagbo was constitutionally sworn in by the Constitutional Council.

The west, the United Nations and the AU endorsed Alissane.

The resultant cul de sac ominously saw threats by Cote d’Ivoire Ecowas neighbours of military intervention to “dislodge” Laurent Gbagbo, who “refuses to hand over power”.

The West also has imposed a raft of sanctions on the country.

Then there was that decision to engage lowly Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga to “mediate” in the crisis, which he did in the most unflattering fashion ending with drama at the AU headquarters in Ethiopia as Odinga clashed with AU Commission chair Dr Jean Ping.

Odinga had unprocedurally convened a press conference before briefing Heads of State and Government on the issue of Cote d’Ivoire, leading to Dr Ping barring him from addressing the same and firing him.

A five-member panel has been set up instead.

The majority of the African community who were left out as the Ecowas and the “AU”, meaning but some members thereof, and their western handlers must have been left justifiably slighted by how the Ivorian question had been handled, at least before that seemingly judicious five-member panel decision.

It will be difficult to imagine many African countries, many noted for their sobriety, proudly associating with the controversial “endorsement” of Outtarra and the call for Nato invasion of the West African country.

Or the greater membership of the UN being dragged into the same muck by the usual philandering western countries.

One writer lamented that the “meticulously” planned election in Cote d’Ivoire, which followed the bloody foreign-driven civil war that ended in 2006, “ended in an impasse, which will have to be one day investigated dispassionately in order to provide unbiased information to the African and international public opinions.”

As the threat of military intervention to ‘dislodge’ Laurent Gbagbo from office loomed, the writer, Pierre Sane decried, “…for the first time ever in Africa, one would resort to external forces to ‘restore democracy’ following a polling dispute!”

He posed: “Can democracy be imposed from abroad, and moreover through foreign armed forces? And what would be the cost for the populations, the country, and our region? That is the challenge for African leaders and intellectuals alike.”

Another writer, Ade Sawyerr counsels that, “options are varied” to solve the Ivorian crisis and warns Africa “…not (to) allow itself to be bounced or pressured into behaving like the former colonial powers who always threaten military action but are almost always complicit in most of the abuses of democracy in Africa.”

Local columnist and academic Dr Tafataona Mahoso was equal to noticing the destructive tendency of calling for sanctions and external interference as well as the African Union’s (or part thereof) complicity in the crisis.

“And from that hotel protected by foreigners,” wrote Dr Mahoso recently, “Ouattara wants the population starved to death for refusing to stage an uprising to install him on behalf of Nato. In other words Ouattara, in relation to the people, is no different from that whore who begged Solomon to cut the one living child into two dead halves so that she, as the false ‘mother’, would reduce the real mother to the ‘equal’ status of childlessness.

"Unfortunately the AU Commission is also another whore. Instead of looking for a Solomon to mediate, they rushed to ask that Judas, Raila Odinga, knowing very well that he is another client of the US and EU and would happily deliver the head of Gbagbo on a platter.”

That the farce of the deployment of “AU mediator” Odinga played out as it did, with embarrassment to show for it, shows just how bad the mischief of bringing the lowly Kenyan premier, who caused the death of over 1 000 people after an election dispute, could get.

Beautifully, the idea of a panel of leaders from across the continent was instituted (even though one can sense some suspicious character or two in the panel).

Egypt and Tunisia should have called for a measure of responsibility among African states, or at least the unequivocal statement that Western influence must be banished from the continent, as the founding fathers of the continent would have loved.

It is small secret that the people of these countries were rising against their client leaders who had been manipulated to the detriment of their countries’ wellbeing.

But ahead of the summit Dr Ping who said his commission had not had enough time to prepare a report on the two countries by the time of the summit, was quoted as saying: “We cannot go into every country.

The countries remain sovereign. We are preoccupied…but the Egyptian authorities tell us the situation is under control.”

He added of the situation in the two countries: “It is a very alarming situation. We have demonstrations; at what time do these demonstrations become revolutions? We are concerned.”

What is more alarming, to use Dr Ping’s word, is the fact that the two countries had become model US client states.

Consider the following as one writer perceptively put it: “More recent(ly), under the 31-year rule of dictator Habib Borguiba (predecessor of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali), his regime received circa $750 million annually, and then advanced military support as well. Between 1987 and 2009, under Ben Ali, the US signed $349 million in sales of military hardware to Tunisia.

After 2009, with Obama in office, Tunisia was to be sold military helicopters in a $282 million sale.”

Egypt’s case is phenomenally outrageous, being the second largest recipient of US “aid” after Israel.

The writer cited: “The US has provided Egypt with US$1.3 billion a year in military aid since 1979, and an average of US$815 million a year in economic assistance. All told, Egypt has received over US$50 billion in US largesse since 1975.

“This report from the Congressional Research Service, put the economic assistance figure at over US$2 billion annually, a sure sign to Mubarak that he could put off any ‘reform’ indefinitely as long as Washington bankrolled his power. The US has also invested a large amount of advanced weaponry into Egypt’s so-called ‘defense’”.

The result: “the spontaneous, self-organizing, youth-driven protests in Egypt, emerging from a gigantic part of the population that has borne the brunt of extreme levels of unemployment, miserably low wages, and harsh state control over their daily lives with nearly 30 years of ‘emergency’ rule in force.”

The biggest solution to these challenges is probably the invocation of the spirit of independence and sovereignty of African states and unity and brotherhood among themselves that Kwame Nkrumah dreamed of.

This can only can lead to a more stable continent that determines its own future and destiny rather than the ignominy and curse of being clients and lapdog allies of the former slaver and colonialist.

tichaona.zindoga@gmail.com