An Ineffectual REC: Arab Maghreb Union

With Libyan leader al-Qaddafi focussing his interests in the African Union and CEN-SAD, you kind of wonder how much effort he would want to put into the Arab Maghreb Union.

Here's a five-member regional organisation that is twenty this year, yet has made scant effort to re-formulate its vision.

I took the liberty of reading the African Union's Status of Integration
, and was profoundly shocked by the fact that of the 8 major RECs on the African continent that had write-ups of them (ECOWAS/CENSAD/East African Community/IGAD/AMU/SADC/COMESA/ECCAS/AMU), AMU had nothing about it. The report suggests that it did not participate.

Elsewhere on the AU website, another report--the Minimum Integration Programme--indicates that in the matrices that have been set up to monitor progress of RECs, this-same REC had failed to deliver on them.

Surely, it's time to disband the Arab Maghreb Union from the AU's established RECs?

ECOWAS Community Citizens Celebrate ECOWAS Day

You could be forgiven for thinking that the front page of Wednesday's Business and Financial Times newspaper is an indication that all is not necessarily well on the ECOWAS front. If you couple it with the news that ECOWAS common currency can only be achieved by 2020(!) That Niger is behaving in a way that might merit its suspension can only further buttress the fact that regional integration in West Africa has failed.

Wrong!

The West African sub-region remains one of the more vibrant regions on the African continent. You do a google search, and consistently, ECOWAS, SADC, and East African

Community (EAC) are cited as three of the more successful regional blocs out of the eight RECs that exist.

Just in case you might not know, German academics have written this of ECOWAS:

Being the prime engine of regional integration on the African continent, ECOWAS is currently undergoing impressive transformations aimed at defining new priorities and objectives. The ECOWAS priorities and objectives may also serve as a source of inspiration for other regional groupings anywhere else in the world.

The news also that the Ghana Investment
Promotion Council is doing serious outreach work to get Ghanaians to form
cooperatives and link-up with businesses in Burkina Faso and Niger suggests that this forward-looking vision can only facilitate ECOWAS integration. You can read the news of this here: http://www.ghananewsagency.org/s_economics/r_5968/.

What of the ECOWAS Parliament?

I daresay few people might be cognisant of the ECOWAS Parliament. I took the liberty of copying some of the "achievements" from the publication to the left:

In addition to providing parliamentary opinion on matters referred to it by ECOWAS Institutions, the Parliament has recorded the following achievements:

• Brokered peace process in the Mano River Region of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.

• Sped up the process of adoption and implementation of ECOWAS decisions, protocols
and treaties.

• Widened the scope of participation of the ECOWAS peoples through its collaboration
with the civil society and the bringing on board of many Non-Governmental Organizations and Community-Based Organizations, a very focal point and nexus of democratic integration process.

• Advanced the cause of democracy and good governance through its support, mediation,
and diplomatic shuttles and peace missions to conflict zones in the region.

• Made texts, drafts and resolutions and amendment of protocols, and treaties in
compliance with a people-oriented integration of the region.

• Partnered, collaborated and shared experiences with the African Union Commission,
NEPAD Secretariat, the UN Agencies,the European Union, the African-Carribbean Pacific (ACP) Secretariat, etc to draw support for the region’s integration and development process.

• Critical engagement in election monitoring in many countries of the region like Nigeria, Benin Republic, Sierra-Leone, Liberia, Guinea, Togo, the Gambia, Ghana etc.

• Made key inputs in the administration of ECOWAS institutions through the timely
sharing of experiences and feed backs to the parliament by the heads of such institutions or their delegates at the House Sittings.

• Institutional re-engineering of the organs and institutions of ECOWAS through the
setting of some criteria or standard of conformity and capacity building.

• Convened parliamentary sittings in different countries of the region to bring the integration process closer to the people and build confidence; rather than holding all the sittings in Abuja, Nigeria; which is the seat of the parliament.

• Surveillance on the economic and political developments within the region and intervention at appropriate times where need be.

• Early warning and proactive measures to forestall full blown crises through its shuttle diplomacy and country-specific collaboration.

• A program of Action at advanced stage to kick-start the process of membership election through universal suffrage to give the parliament legitimacy.

• Promotion of youthful activities and participation across the region.

• Budget Appropriation for ECOWAS Institutions.

• Facilitation of payment of development levy by Member States.

• Image making for ECOWAS and the integration process and deepening of relations
among Member States and with development partners.

• Contributed to the processes of Trade Liberalization, Macro-economic convergence,
creation of customs union and free movement of persons, goods; and investment across
the borders.

• Raised awareness through the Mass Media and mobilized Media establishments within and outside the Community to support ECOWAS institutions and agencies.

• Engaged the private sector, which is the driver of economic growth, to invest in the region.

I'm not quite sure what else to add, except whenever you read this, I hope you've learnt something more than you knew about the 34-yr-old institution, which WE all --community citizens of ECOWAS--have a stake in building up.

Happy ECOWAS day!

Going Undercover Till African Unity Day on 25 May

The time of the year has come when I am compelled to legally hibernate for a while. Will be swotting up on African regionalism, AU citizenship, and tryng to avoid getting angry over Ghanaian media's propensity to unwittingly encourage political polarization!

Till then...when I come back with a bang!

___sent: e.k.bensah (OGO device)+233.208.891.841/ekbensah@ekbensah.net

These words brought to you by Ogo.

FW: Going Undercover Till African Unity Day on 25 May

The time of the year has come when I am compelled to legally hibernate for a while. Will be swotting up on African regionalism, AU citizenship, and tryng to avoid getting angry over Ghanaian media's propensity to unwittingly encourage political polarization!

Till then...when I come back with a bang!

___sent: e.k.bensah (OGO device)+233.208.891.841/ekbensah@ekbensah.net

These words brought to you by Ogo.

Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO): A Contender to Nato, A Substitute to SAARC?

Any discussion on regional integration in Central Asia will inevitably prompt a discussion of key actors like SAARC; ASEAN and SCO.

These days, I don't mince my words on SAARC; I humbly suggest that the 8-member regional group that was established in December 1985 better get its act together or, like Nato, dwindle into irrelevance.

I spent the better part of the weekend reading through wikipedia's rendering of the Shangai Cooperation Organisation, and have to say I was pretty impressed. I couldn't for the life of me understand how an organisation that was established in 2001 had, eight years down the line, a Regional Anti-Terrorism Structure (RATS), yet SAARC that has been 23.5 years in existence had no such structure to fight terrorism when Pakistan, a member, had since 2001 been the bane of the organisation's development insofar as security of the region was concerned!

Remember that discussion on sub-regional imperatives that I've been banging on about? Looks like the gutsy SCO has plenty of that!

Some observers claim that SCO is everything and nothing in the sense that it is a security/political/cultural organisation that comprises non-democracies. Security and political aspects are important because Russia and China are key members, along with some members of what I call the "Stan Family", comprising--Kazakhstan; Kyrgyzstan; Tajikistan; and Uzbekistan. You might have guessed that there are no anglophone countries--unlike the ASEAN Regional Forum, which comprises the USA and Australia.

To top off the fear and loathing of SCO, Iran and India are observers.

I cannot help but wonder why India does not also put some of its efforts into re-dynamising SAARC, as it remains the putative hegemon of that part of Asia. I guess to each his own?

In the specific context of regional integration in Central Asia, observers writing about SCO believe it to be a great contender to Nato. One Michael Bendetson, writing in The Tufts Daily is one of them:

After analyzing NATO’s past actions and future plans in Afghanistan, it appears that only the United States is living up to the lofty expectations established by the

organization. European members are pledging their moral support; however, the future of NATO will depend on the alliance backing up their word with strength. If the majority of members continue to project an image of weakness, the alliance will falter.

He goes on:

In addition to the pressure of internal fragmentation, the power of NATO is being challenged in all areas of the globe. When the Cold War concluded in 1991, NATO was the strongest alliance in the international arena. The Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact had been dissolved, and NATO had been left unchallenged. Unfortunately, a lot has changed in two decades. The most significant of these changes pertains to the establishment of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).

The question of Nato is relevant here because as observers have been writing, the elements of Russia and China as powerful members within SCO are equally united in ensuring that Nato does not expand to that part of the world. With the SCO firmly ensconced in Central Asia, desires by Nato to expand eastwards further will be seriously inhibited.

As for Afghanistan, the less said about it the better! It joined SAARC in April 2007, with SAARC playing no central role in its development. However, in November 2005, the SCO-Afghanistan Contact Group was established as a platform to help Afghanistan for reconstruction.

Latest news indicate that the SCO can continue to play a role in Afghanistan, and it makes sense as a stable Afghanistan can only augur well for the rest of the SCO members.

Whatever the case may be; and whatever Western leaders will propound, it is clear that any progressive and critical look at regional integration in Central Asia will continue to encompass a greater role of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation.

Much Ado About Nato

I lost interest in the alliance the every day Nato decided to transgress the UN Security Council in 1999 and invade Kosovo. I was far from chuffed: here was an alliance that was seeking to re-establish its raison d'etre against the face of what was an explicit illegality. It was just not on.

Suffice-to-say, ten years on, my attitude about Nato has far from changed: Nato, in my view, remains a relic of the Cold War--caught between a rock and a hard place of providing humanitarian assistance in Afghanistan (and even the African Union!!) and needing to expand to perpetuate the fallacy that it still has a reason to exist.

Let me be clear: the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation will celebrate a far from happy sixtieth birthday this month. Three articles have conspired to remind me that I am not far from the mark of wishing it as dead as a dodo.

The first is that of Mitchell A. Belfer, of The Prague Post, who writes:

It is interesting to note that since the Afghanistan episode NATO's priorities have shifted. At a time of growing geopolitical threats, it is remarkable to watch NATO squabble about maintaining troop levels capable of delivering humanitarian aid to the far reaches of Afghanistan, and deploy state-of-the-art equipment as part of a "hearts and minds" strategy, but not do what NATO is meant to do: namely, win wars and provide security for its members.

In the writer's view, Nato should have been focussing on ensuring security for its alliance members instead of seeking to reward what he calls Russian "belligerence". That Nato has adopted a rather lukewarm attitude towards Russia, in his view, only provides a fertile view that Nato has lost the plot.

The two other articles are more explicit about what they feel about Nato.

The second is by Andrew J. Bacevich of the LA Times which title of the article is sufficiently explicit: The US must simply quit the alliance.

Ofcourse, coming from where it's coming, it was always going to be normal that the United States would consider it a kind of albatross, what with the global recession and all.

His article is an insightful one, providing one with a survey of Nato from 1949 to 2009. He mentions implosion, which really is about Nato needing to resist from going further Eastward. That this is already happening--as the BBC has reported today--with Albania and Croatia joining to becoome the 27th and 28th member respectively, you cannot help but wonder whether any putative implosion will not come any time soon!

The La Times avers that the EU is more than capable of managing its own defence matters:

The difference between 1949 and 2009 is that present-day Europe is more than capable of addressing today's threat, without American assistance or supervision. Collectively, the Europeans don't need U.S. troops or dollars, both of which are in short supply anyway and needed elsewhere. Yet as long as the United States sustains the pretense that Europe cannot manage its own affairs, the Europeans will endorse that proposition, letting Americans foot most of the bill. Only if Washington makes it clear that the era of free-riding has ended will Europe grow up.

I believe that's a fair point, but I believe that the mess that Nato is transcends the paternalistic role of the US in EU defence matters; it has a lot more to do with failing to re-evaluate and re-formualte a vision of where Nato needs to go in 2009 and beyond!

Finally, there is Mark Medish's article in the New York Times, which actually mentions regional integration in the following context:

"Since the Soviet collapse, NATO has been a useful tool of regional integration, although it has done little in this regard that the European Union could not do better."

Regional integration? Come on, now. I would never go so far as saying that Nato has been a tool of regional integration in the sense that we have expressed it here on t his blog; I don't even know whether an alliance can foster or facilitate regional integration by simply expanding, without deepening, which if we are frank with ourselves, the EU does not do. It has always expanded very well, and deepened its regional inegration process rather well.

In the specific context of Nato, though, the writer uses the words "iconoclast"; " institutional fetishism"; and "radical re-branding". What he means in using these words is to explain that the iconoclasts "view [Nato] as a hollow alliance that has plainly outlived its usefulness and represents a misallocation of scarce reosurces."

As regards "institutional fetishism", the writer suggests that there will always be proponents of Nato; he believes that these proponents practice "institutional fetishism", which he thinks they should go beyond, adding "Nato should not be considered too big to fail."

Finally, on "radical re-branding", Medish offers a humorous rendering:

Instead of disbanding or expanding, a better option would be radical re-branding. It is not necessarily too late for this. Re-branding could start with a new name, such as POTATO, which would be far less neuralgic, at least in Moscow.

In short, Nato needs not just a re-think, but a very sober one if it choses to go forward. If it were for me, I think Brussels could do with a nice park at its headquarters in Evere!

Reflections on Regional Integration: Creating Sub-Regional Imperatives for SADC & SAARC, While IGAD/ECOWAS Forge Ahead

I have been trying so hard to write about Madagascar without elaborating on the latest developments of the country having been suspended. Not that I am not happy that SADC has suspended the Indian Ocean country, or that the AU has equally done so, but that I was hoping that the issue of Madagascar ought to be a watershed for SADC to re-formulate where it needs to go in terms of its sub-regional imperative.

You might re-call that I have made a lot of noise about ECOWAS and Liberia and how it has developed a conflict prevention imperative, on account of the number of conflicts it was compelled to go through, as well as the transformation of what was essentially an economic organisation into something that would become a force for peace enforcement through ECOMOG.

I could not help but wonder whether the headaches that SADC had over Mugabe and power-sharing has perhaps forced SADC to look at a new imperative for it--governance! Think about the fact that Zimbabwe is in power-sharing mode now, and how Ravalomanana could have "power-shared" with Andry Rajoelina if SADC had intervened earlier.

I believe that as the regional economic communities move ahead, they needs must develop imperatives that lend them a degree of credibility; for surely regional integration cannot only be about bringing tariffs down within a collective group?

So when I heard yesterday of the Lahore bombings, I couldn't help but wonder how profoundly SAARC had failed in a possible regional imperative of tackling terrorism, and how it quickly needed to get its act together! If you have been reading some of my writings about SAARC, you'll know that I don't suffer it gladly--so to speak.

In my view, it remains one of the weakest regional unions that exist in the world. I cannot for the life of me understand how Afghanistan would seek to join it last two years, yet fail to use SAARC as a focal point to rationalise counter-terrorism activities in the region! Is it a political thing or what? If the 15-member ECOWAS could establish protocols on peace and security, what is stopping the seven-member SAARC?

Constrast SAARC's execrable performance on regional integration and the search for imperatives, and you are confronted with IGAD, which I wrote about a few months ago. IGAD, in all fairness, has gotten very serious about using the imperative of conflict prevention to its advantage. That it comprises SUDAN, SOMALIA, ERITREA as countries representing some of the inter-necine conflicts suggests that this was the only rational solution to pursue. SAARC must take cue. India, as the putative hegemon, should be less imbued by its own country's growth, and be more concerned about leading SAARC to be what it can be--an effective tool for the resolution of conflict in South East Asia!

Regional Crises, Regional Solutions

Regional Crises, Regional Solutions
By E.K.Bensah

In 2008, West Africa had the distinction of being the only sub-region to have experienced two coups within months of each other.

On 6 August 2008, Mauritanian troops overthrew the country’s first elected leader that had been freely-elected, adding that they had formed a state council to rule the country. Four months later in December, the death of Guinea’s Lansana Conte would prompt young, military officers to storm the country’s radio and TV station announcing the seizure of power.

If it is arguable that these two incidences have reared the spectre of coup d’états in the ECOWAS region, especially noteworthy is how they have accentuated the efficacity of the mechanisms within the regional economic communities – including the African Union.

Precedents
The hurried announcing and swearing in of Kenya’s Kibaki by the Kenyan Electoral Commission (KEC) after the country’s presidential elections in December 2007 would trigger several weeks of chaos, where the so-called tribal hatred with a thousand-plus senseless killings would play out to the world’s media.

By March 2008, the crisis was all over—thanks to the AU-sponsored intervention of former UN secretary-General Kofi Annan. His several weeks in Kenya deep in discussion both with opposition party Orange Democratic Movement (ODM)’s Odinga, and then-incumbent Kibaki would prove to set the precedent of “power-sharing.”

In Zimbabwe, when after presidential elections of March 2008, Mugabe increased intimidation of political opponent Morgan Tzvangarai in order for him to concede defeat against the face of a second round, rumours abounded that the country should go the “Kenyan way”, triggering what would now be called the craze of “power-sharing.” Several regional attempts by the fourteen-member SADC would prove futile, leaving observers and commentators to finger-point a suspected pusillanimity of veteran freedom-fighter Mugabe as the root cause for the non-condemnation of his antics.

Tale of Two Outcomes
Elsewhere on the continent, the coups of Mauritania and Guinea elicited interest, with attempts by regional organizations of the African Union(AU) and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) respectively proving to yield altogether-different outcomes.

Days after news of the coup broke in Mauritania, the African Union was quick to condemn it, demanding a return to constitutional rule. It further added that it was sending an envoy to the nation’s capital Nouakchott immediately. Apart from the usual Western condemnations associated with the EU and the US, AU heavyweights Nigeria and South Africa were equally quick to voice their concern for the coup. Days after, the AU suspended Mauritania.

Shortly after the December coup in Guinea, the exhortations by coup-leader Army Captain Moussa Camara did little to assuage the fear of AU diplomats that they were going to revert to constitutional rule; neither did promises by the junta that none of them would run for public office. Camara had promised elections within two years—to which top AU diplomat Jean Ping would consider insufficient towards civilian rule.

Even Camara’s promise that he would reinstate Guinea’s previous constitutional limit of two , five-year presidential terms, repealing the seven-year, unlimited terms imposed by the late President Conte would wash little with AU officials, who promptly suspended the country mid-January. ECOWAS followed suit on 12 January, by suspending Guinea from the fifteen-member sub-regional group.

It must be said that these outcomes have not just shown how far mechanisms have come, but brought into sharp relief the ever-evolving and dynamic nature of the AU in the resolution of electoral conflicts. Furthermore, it has highlighted a symbolic departure from erstwhile ad-hoc solutions between 1963 and 2003 that amounted to nothing more than non-interference in the affairs of then-OAU countries.


In fact, it could be argued that the transformation of the OAU into the AU in 2003 has led to a kind of Zeitgeist where African countries, keen to march on with their democratic dispensation, have largely developed coup d’état-fatigue. That said, these latter-day coups have enabled regional economic communities (RECs) not just gain needed experience on how to better develop the paradigm of conflict prevention—both electoral and otherwise—, but also pointed the way on how to consolidate and strengthen the regional mechanisms at both the sub-regional and continental level.

REC’s Reaction
In the case of Mauritania, the mechanism found expression in a non-tolerance by the AU of the country’s coup as well as deadlines and proposition of steps to revert to constitutional rule; these steps have certainly helped the West African country get serious on holding elections—as exemplified by the January 23 announcement by Mauritanian State Council President General Mohamed Ould Abdela Aziz of elections on June 6 2009.

Six days later, the Council approved the formation of an independent national electoral commission. It is fair to say that had the AU adopted a lackadaisical approach to the follow-up of the coup, such measures—despite a 10-point communiqué issued by the AU’s Peace and Security Council (that gave a strong deadline that failure to move ahead on constitutional rule by 5 February would elicit significant sanctions, including “travel restrictions and freezing of assets”) – would not necessarily have come to pass so soon after the August 2008 unconstitutional ousting of President Abdallahi.

In Guinea, the regional mechanism through ECOWAS has been more elaborate. Like Mauritania, Guinea was ready to bluff and bluster: after having proposed a six-month deadline to conduct elections to return the country to civil rule, it suddenly reneged, setting a new deadline of December 2010. ECOWAS acted quickly to prevent any further tergiversation by Guinea; it insisted that the junta has just 2009 to return the country to civilian rule in the election process.

Calling for an early ratification and implementation of the ECOWAS Supplementary Protocol on Democracy and Good Governance and the 2007 AU Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance at the December 2008 ECOWAS Ordinary Summit, the regional bloc went further to secure the suspension of Guinea from all meetings of ECOWAS Heads of State and ministerial levels, until civilian rule had taken root.

At the Abuja summit earlier in January, ECOWAS set the record straight on what it felt about the Guinean situation. Nigeria’s foreign minister for foreign affairs, Chief Ojo Maduekwe, chairing the meeting would say “there is no patriotic coup as distinct from unpatriotic coup. The ECOWAS protocols we are all parties to, leave no room for those distinctions…”

To this end, ECOWAS leaders agreed on a comprehensive set of measures for the restoration of Guinea back to the ECOWAS fold. These included the leaders resolving to push for the inclusion of Guinea on the agenda of the UN Peace Building Commission; the launching of a comprehensive security sector reform; the maintenance of a permanent and constructive dialogue with the CNDD party; the completion of voter registration exercise and the provision of voter identification cards to facilitate the holding of elections this year; as well as the authorization of ECOWAS President Ibn Chambas to submit regular reports on the situation in Guinea to the Chairman of the AU Commission as well as to the AU Peace and Security Council for information and appropriate action.

SADC’s Stagger
It was an altogether different affair with SADC over Zimbabwe, for despite the announcement three months earlier for Tzvangarai and Mugabe to power-share, it would only be in late January this year for any agreement to finally be agreed at. This delay had been fuelled by the sharpened divisions and mistrust that prevailed. SADC’s prevarication can arguably be construed as a reflection of its relative inexperience as a mechanism for the resolution of a conflict that potentially had ramifications for the region.

In Kenya, it would yet again be the African Union—not the East African Community--that would help resolve the crisis. Lack of movement and the near-silence by the EAC (save for the Central bank governors of the East African Community (EAC) who called for a quick and effective resolution of the political crisis in Kenya, saying the impasse has negatively impacted on the region’s economy) reflects—as in the case of SADC—a possible inexperience on bringing pressure to bear for a regional solution.


Imperatives
Conversely, the six-member IGAD played a more significant role. With a delegation comprising Ethiopian, Ugandan, and Somalian foreign ministers, they met with former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan who was leading the mediation talks. Despite the fact that Odinga claimed that Kibaki was not the legitimate head of state, they pressed on with the talks to the extent of eventually backing the Annan-sponsored discussions.

This desire to play a proactive regional role was predicated on two reasons. First, Kenya happened to hold the rotating chairmanship of IGAD and had built up “goodwill” in the bloc for its regional peace efforts; and secondly, as Ethiopian Foreign Minister Seyoum Mesfin indicated just a few days before the a breakthrough in the talks, IGAD’s experience in Somalia, Sudan, and Ethiopia meant that its imperative for conflict resolution was very important in bringing to bear a solution that at least had the backing of the regional leaders.

The same imperative for conflict resolution could be attributed to the ECOWAS countries. The turbulence of ECOWAS countries Liberia, Sierra Leone and Cote d’Ivoire in the 1990s has lent the West African REC an ineluctable imperative to resolve the recent Guinean crisis that it has acted as what consultant for election assistance and organizational development Tim Bilfiger has called a dual role of mediator and election observer.

The future of regional mechanisms
Bilfiger believes that if ECOWAS is to move forward on election monitoring, it must reconcile these two roles. His proposition for an Election unit has already become reality: Ghana’s Daily Graphic newspaper of 31 January reports that a regional network of electoral commissions has been established in the West African sub-region to harmonise election standards among ECOWAS countries.

As the RECs continue to standardize and harmonise as part of their democratic dispensation, election-monitoring –as exemplified by the roles played by the Pan-African Parliament and ECOWAS in Ghana’s December elections – will become more relevant. If Guinea, Mauritania, and Zimbabwe are any indicator, we see that there remain significant regional mechanisms that are as robust as they are sound and credible. Strengthened election-monitoring will only serve to complement the already-existing ones. That the ECOWAS Network of Electoral Commission has finally been established can only go to offer one a glimmer of hope that the facilitation of a development of a healthy and democratic sub-region is possible.

ENDs

This article appeared in an edited form for Third World Networks' African Agenda, Edition 12.1 (January 2009)