John Haberson
27 April 2008
analysis
Nairobi — In the midst of contentious domestic politics in many African countries, a quiet continent-wide revolution has been in process since the first years of the new millennium.
African states have been organising to strengthen their collective military capacity to respond to insurgencies threatening political stability within or between countries.
This initiative has followed from the formation of the Africa Union to replace the old OAU, the New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD) and the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM), all of which centred on strengthening African collective international capacity to guarantee each other's political stability and respect for democracy and human rights, and to promote economic development.
Specifically, African states have moved to organise the African Standby Force (ASF), supported by sub-regional and country-level military units. One of such sub-regional units, the Eastern African Standby Brigade (EASBRIG) has been the collective responsibility of Eastern African and Indian Ocean countries, except Burundi. The whole structure is to be governed by an assembly of East African heads of state and government.
What are the specific objectives of this new security architecture and how is it to be structured, organised, funded and implemented? In January 2004, African defence ministers met in Addis Ababa to formulate the "Draft Framework for a Common African Defence and Security Policy."
This policy reflected the adoption two years earlier of the AU "Protocol Relating to the Establishment of the Peace and Security Council" that also included establishment of a military staff committee to advise this new council, the creation of the ASF to implement the Council's decisions.
But the idea goes back still further to the 1994 Cairo Declaration on the Code of Conduct for Inter-African Relations, the 2000 AU Declaration on Unconstitutional Changes of Government and the Kampala declaration in the same year of the Conference on Security, Stability, Development, and Cooperation in Africa (CSSDCA).
As designed, the multinational ASF would consist of five sub-regional brigades of 3000-4000 troops plus a sixth one based in Addis Ababa.
The specific objectives of this new force were to be to
(1) conduct and observe peacekeeping missions,
(2) intervene in member states when their internal security is gravely threatened,
(3) conduct preventive deployments where such security threats loom in the horizon,
(4) conduct post-conflict peace-building operations, including disarming and demobilising warring militias,
(5) provide humanitarian assistance in conflict and disaster areas, and
(6) perform such other functions as the Peace and Security Council may authorise.
Although one of the objectives has been to enable African countries to reduce dependence on UN-sponsored missions, co-deployment with UN missions for these purposes has been contemplated. Indeed the ASF has been modelled on the UN's Multinational Standby High Readiness Brigade (SHIRBRIG) established for similar purposes.
The UN itself recognised in 2000 in the report of a commission chaired by Lakhadar Brahimi that "there are many tasks which United Nations peacekeeping forces should not be asked to undertake and many places they should not go."
A 2003 Joint African-G* Action Plan to enhance African capacities in these areas has also been an important contributor to this initiative. The ASF has also been inspired by prior work in these areas by the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).
Of great importance is the broad underlying conception of "security" on which this project has been founded, one that goes beyond armed conflict to include peacekeeping missions centred on HIV/Aids, gender, children's rights, human rights, civil-military coordination, war crimes, genocide, and crimes against humanity.
The objectives seem to embrace also the Africa Union doctrine on Responsibility to Protect (R2P), which includes all the foregoing purposes plus promoting and encouraging democratic practices, good governance, and the rule of law.
In a word it implies amendment of the 350-year-old Westphalian principle of absolute state sovereignty and non-interference by states in each other's affairs to embrace a new doctrine of what Ambassador Francis Deng has termed "responsible sovereignty," - that is states are sovereign as long as they behave themselves.
Among the several rationales for this initiative have been (1) promoting more cooperation and less conflict among African states, (2) more transparency and defence policies, and (3) cost savings through economies of scale and reducing duplication of security-promoting activities among member countries.
Who can question the value and importance of this continental and regional security initiative? In some ways it gives organisational meaning to the oldest African traditions of pan-Africanism. It also parallels in some respects the purposes underlying NATO expansion.
But what good would I be as a columnist if I did not point out some areas of concern that do not appear to have been examined as closely as they need to be. Clearly, gaining the requisite human and financial resources has been, and will remain, a major challenge. But there are deeper issues.
1. It is likely to be extremely difficult for an ASF brigade to intervene neutrally, as between the warring forces producing destabilising conflict. ASFs are very likely, in appearance if not in fact, to be intervening on behalf of one side or another. Presumably the first objective of any such intervention would be to subdue the military conflict so broader peacebuilding activities can begin. How will any such tamping down of violent conflict not, in fact of appearance, benefit one side or the other.
2. Some African conflicts have proven lastingly intractable, for example Somalia, Ethiopia-Eritrea, eastern Congo, and Zimbabwe. The danger I see here is that for ASFs to be mired in conflicts that the international community at large has been unable to resolve risks draining the resources of already financially stretched African states, possibly exposing them to political challenges within the countries contributing to that ASF. In other words, there may be limits to how far such an architecture of collective action can transcend the underlying weakness and financial stresses of the component states.
3. How will balance and integration be achieved between the military and non-military objectives of an ASF intervention. How will military manoeuvres be conducted in support of larger humanitarian and democratisation objectives rather than the military "tail" being allowed to wag the large democracy and state-building "dog."
Thus, there are some very large philosophical as well as practical policy issues embedded in this initiative that these comments do little more than hint at. Good ideas can be very complicated, even dangerous, when it comes to implementation.
John Haberson is a professor of political science at City University of New York
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