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)

ECOWAS--ECOWAS Community Court of Justice Frees Nigerien Slave

Rare is the case of civil society collaborating with regional bodies to bring about positive and constructive change; even more rare is when it is in Africa! So when I first heard the case of the 24-yr-old former Nigerien slave who was taking her case to court, I could only more than jump with glee upon hearing that she had taken the case to none other than the ECOWAS Community Court of Justice.

Established in 2005, the Court has not been as high-profile in the ECOWAS region as one would have expected. I believe the ususal red-tapism and lack of political will will have played their parts in good measure. That said, the only case that might have registered in the minds of the sub-region's citizens have been that of the murder of a Gambian journalist. Truth be told, it's been rather difficult following the case on account of its protacted nature.

As for this case of the Nigerien slave who has been mandated by the court to receive the equivalent of some $20,000 as compensation, this particular case is not just unique, but unprecedented. It is unique because though slavery is an old ghost in parts of West Africa, it took a committed individual to usher in necessary change for people like her; and it is unprecendented because not only has it shown that ECOWAS has potential to bare its teeth, but equally the potential to chomp hard on injustice in t he sub-region.

The news that the ruling is binding and that the young woman will receive compensation is equally interesting. As Aidan McQuade, the director of Anti-Slavery International, told the BBC about how the case would be crucial in highlighting the plight of slaves in Africa:

"This is very important in terms of the community of nations, and particularly the African community of nations looking at other countries within that region and saying: 'What standard are we expecting each other to be held to in relation to international and national law?'"

Bank of the South is Here, But Can Africa Bank on the Latin American Way of Regional Integration?

The new multilateral institution is considered as an alternative to the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank and seeks to satisfy development credits demand.

Seriously, it's more than an alternative; it's also yet another expression of Venezuela and its associate MERCOSUR members of their dissatisfaction with the prevalent neoliberal system.

I've written about this Bank of the South before and I explained that the Latin Americans had something that Africans certainly didn't. Beyond blood running through their veins, it's about a radicalism and conviction so unprecedented and emanating that any of their opponents feel it viscerally that these are people not to be toyed with.

If not, how is it that despite the articulations of Venezuela against the mighty US, Venezuela has -- along with Brazil; Argentina; Bolivia; Ecuador and Paraguay -- establish this Bank of the South [I notice no Uruguay!!]. Yet, Africans have allowed themselves to be fragmented on the so-called Economic Partnership Agreements?

The fallout of the signing of a so-called EPA-lite by the East African Community and SADC (without South Africa and Namibia) just leaves one speechless--not to mention a little bit less for wear the arduous efforts of civil society -- both in the North and the South.

That said, it's important to press on to stop the discussions between the bullying EU and the other regions.

In my view, the Bank of the South initiative, a formidable alternative indeed to the Breton Woods institutions of the World Bank and IMF in the sense that "each member country would have a single vote, irrespective of size and financial contribution" (from:http://www.nationnews.com/290175804330225.php) brings into sharp relief the necessity for greater collaboration between MERCOSUR in general/Latin America specifically and other AU regionalisms to learn lessons on how they were able to resist the Free Trade Area of the Pacific in 2005, yet AU/ACP countries allowed fragmentation by the EU.

While this issue of the Bank of the South, in my view, is one of the most progressive developments in global regional integration to date--bar the ASEAN charter-- Africans ought to contemporaneously reflect on whether there is that much of a difference between the EU and the US, for them to have allowed the EU--former colonisers at that--to hoodwink many of them into an interim agreement that will most likely destroy attempts at regional integration.

Venezuela' s Looking at the MERCOSUR Fine Print...

Grandiloquent pronouncements against imperialism nothwithstanding, it is very easy to think of Chavez as a deluded leader who only goes to confirm that socialism is going the way of the dodo. Seriously speaking, let's face it, Chavez might attract "right-wing" criticism, but he certainly has an idea about how to bring in the role of the state. Perhaps refusing to renew the operating license for RCTV, a private Venezuelan television station may have attracted cacophony among the right-wingers who feel it spells a categorical loss of free speech. However, no-one said he had to be perfect.

Today, sounds like he's a marked man. He's particularly irked by the right-wingers of the Brazilian and Uruguay camp who feel he has little to offer beyond pronouncements of imperialism left, right, and centre. Chavez himself believes:

Mercosur and the Andean Community of Nations (CAN) must be reformulated, Chavez insists, since both are marked by Capitalism and fierce competition.

from: http://www.vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=74234

He's currently in Iran, where he is said to have made the arguments above. Now, interestingly, if Venezuela choses to rescind his decision to join MERCOSUR, he is ready to join ALBA:

"If the Brazilian Right is stronger than the idea of integration, then we will withdraw from Mercosur ... our model is one of integration and we believe in it deeply and it is called the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA)."

With Rwanda and Burundi having joined the East African Community on 1 July from the quasi-defunct Economic Community of Central African States(ECCAS), it just goes, in my view, to underscore how the plethora of regional economic communities offer necessary comparative advantages--both economic and otherwise--to countries. Without a harmonisation, it is evident that countries might start withdrawing and crossing the carpet, as it were, whenever a dispute arises.

In the specific context of the African Union government, which radio reports indicate, at the time of writing, that the "gradualists" are taking the day, it brings into sharp relief the utmost importance of fine-tuning and harmonising the RECS so as to avoid situations like this one befalling Chavez and Venezuela.

ASEAN, for Youth and Posterity's Sake

It is a given that a regional organisation without adequate communication of its effects and/or its work is a regional organisation that has failed the people. So, it’s fantastic news to read that in its fortieth year, ASEAN is encouraging no less than the youth to "learn and understand Asean's history since its formation in 1967 until what it is today"


The Malaysian ASEAN Youth and Sports Minister Azalina Othman Said maintained at the end of a Youth convention :

"the younger generation must get ready to face regional and global challenges"

. The minister also stressed the importance of learning more than one language to face the challenges of globalisation, as well as being exposed to

the diverse cultures of the people in the 10-member grouping to better understand each other.”

This is very sound advice ALL African RECs (regional economic communities) need to post in their conference rooms—not to forget the youth who will come and inherit their problems some day!!