25 May 2008
opinion
Kampala — THE African Liberation Day was celebrated yesterday. It honours the 1963 signing of the Charter establishing the Organisation of African Unity OAU), now the African Union. It pledges solidarity for the liberation of Africa.
The OAU was criticised for "doing nothing" or being ineffective in living up to the mandate of uniting Africa and responding to its various challenges. Many of the criticisms were understandable though not all of them were deserved.
The OAU was set up to finish the anti-colonial struggle of 1960's and also unite Africa. It was successful on the liberation agenda in its support for the liberation of Southern Africa from racist settler regimes and former Portuguese colonies of Guinea-Bissau, Angola and Mozambique.
The OAU mobilised human and material resources across Africa in support of these struggles and also won diplomatic and political support internationally. The weaknesses of the OAU, now AU, should not cloud some of its successes.
In becoming African Union, the OAU still has an important role, with a constitutive Act that removed non-interference on sovereign states. This article had allowed some African dictators to kill their citizens, but now African Union can intervene in a sovereign state on abuse of human rights.
The Charter signed in 1963 was a compromise between the radical Casablanca states led by Nkrumah of Ghana and Gamel Abdel Nasser of Egypt, who wanted immediate political union, the moderate and conservative alliance represented by the Monrovia and the group of states who found a credible spokesperson in Mwalimu Julius Nyerere of Tanzania.
Though Nyerere was not a conservative, he was opposed to Nkrumah's fast-tracking and argued for functional unity (that is economic unity before political union).
The division was superfluous because the economic co-operation did not happen largely due to lack of political will. It would have been a complimentary process of concrete political and economic programmes to advance a shared vision of unity.
The political compromise on the Charter also included agreement that the colonial borders inherited from colonialism remain inviolate, which was absurd.
Probably the situation on the ground dictated, because of having interstate conflicts and wars, sustaining colonial borders and the issue of non-interference rendered us prisoners of our Liberation(the Wambezi elite of Uhuru governments).
The OAU emerged as the most important trade union of 'dictators' backed by personal armies and militia. Consequently, the organisation was unable to sanction any of its members like the late Idi Amin Dada, chairman of OAU 1975 from summoning the late Mobutu Seseko of Zaire now the Democratic Republic of Congo.
This was because oppression of African peoples by their governments became internal affairs in which dictators had "sovereignty."
The international environment of bitter cold war and the emergence of neo-colonialism in Africa also constrained the room for manouvre for the various groups to achieve the total unity.
Thus, what mattered most then was whether regimes were pro-east or pro-west and not their Pan Africanists credentials.
The latter became victims of economic and political conspiracies as evidenced in the fate of Tom Mboya, Patrice Lumumba, Nkurumah, Modibbo Keita, Abdel Nasser and Ben Bella.
Today, the African Union, although a lame duck, the organisation, has managed to contain the conflicts on the continent although issues of Darfur, Somalia and northern Uganda are some of its challenges.
As we celebrate 45 years of the OAU now, African Union, we have reasons to smile, look forward to the future with optimism. Some of the constraints are being addressed.
Challenges like post-election violence should be tabled in the next African Union Summit.
Heads of state and government should abide by the treaty of African Union in order to achieve our fore fathers's dream of continental unity. I salute the efforts of all those who strive to to make this a reality.
The writer is the Political and International Affairs Officer, Pan African Movement
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