Washington, D.C. — As Organization of African Unity Secretary General Salim Ahmed Salim announced Friday that the OAU will be replaced by a new "African Union" in a year, a senior U.S. official traveling with Secretary of State Colin Powell accused Libyan leader Muammar Qadafi, who first proposed the Union, as responsible for much of the instability in West Africa.
Mali President Alpha Konare and Secretary Powell had a "brief" discussion about Libya, the official said, and Konare "recognized that Libya is involved in a lot of [West Africa's] problems." But while President Konare "thinks Qadafi has the potential to change, Secretary Powell said he has not seen any evidence of any change."
The idea of African union, even a United States of Africa, has been a powerful one on the continent, long before Colonel Qadafi began to promote it. An African parliament, currency, defense force and coordinated economic strategy were part of African anti-colonial discussions for decades and intensified as the first nations became independent in the late 1950s and 60s.
But when Qadafi first proposed an African union at an extra-ordinary Summit of the OAU in Sirte, Libya in 1999, many observors and analysts dismissed it as unlikely. Thirty-six of the OAU's 53 member states were required to ratify it by voting on a "Constitutive Act of the African Union" as adopted at an OAU Summit held in Lome, Togo in July 2000.
Qadafi, at the time, was under a political cloud. His efforts to win recognition from other Arab nations as an important leader had met with failure. To some in Africa, his turn toward sub-Saharan Africa was the response of a man on the rebound from rejection.
At first, the newly broached proposals for a unified Africa failed to gain momentum. Nigeria and South Africa were noticeably cool toward Qadafi's Union idea. Just last month as his legislature was formally ratifying the African Union agreement, Cameroonian parliamentarian Dr. Kamssouloum Aba Kabir told the Panafrican News Agency, "To date, we don't know anything about it." But the plan had been quietly gathering wide-spread backing across the continent.
Cameroonian ratification was soon follwed by a yes vote on the act by South Africa and then by Nigeria, whose approval on April 26 gave the Union the necessary 36 votes needed to come into existence. Secretary General Salim declared that the Act had become a legal treaty that would go into force 30 days later - on May 26, one day after "African Liberation Day" when the charter of the OAU was signed in 1963.
"This thirty-eighth anniversary of the OAU, therefore, aquires a special significance," said Secretary General Salim in a Friday speech commemorating the 1963 gathering, "because it also marks the beginning of its own re-birth into a new entity, much stronger, more capable and closely connected to the people of this continent."
Observors on and off the African continent remain skeptical as to whether the new organization will result in any significant improvement in Africa's ability to act collectively.
One element of the union - free movement across borders - will be a challenge with border conflicts in so many regions across the Continent. "The big shots will get together as a 'Parliament' now," said one African diplomat who asked not to be named. "A little more pomp, definitely more smoke and mirrors."
Learned Dees of the National Endowment for Democracy wonders how the European Union model will work. "This is definitely an idea created by Qadafi and carried forth by his willingness to put up the money," he says. "The EU resulted from years of discussions. What will the Union be able to actually do?"
With democratic reform now the watchword in U.S. policy utterances on Africa, it is still not clear how a new organization, if it fails to challenge the dictators in its midst, will gain much U.S. support. Speaking at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa Friday afternoon, Secretary Powell told the audience: "The true test of a democracy is not the first election. Democracy takes root when leaders step down peacefully, when they are voted out of office or when their terms expire."
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With Colonel Qadafi the designated "leader for life" of Libya, his promotion of African Union is widely seen as a liability rather than an asset by Western governments. But there is also a sense that the current push for unity has an independent existence, rooted in the need for Africa to gain an advantage in a globalized economy.
U.S. officials are not prepared to comment on the implications of a Qadafi sponsoring the Union idea. In general, however, it is not thought that whatever bragging rights the Libyan may have will confer any meaningful control of the new group.
