Time to Project AU Power in the AU's 10th Year!

“The Accidental Ecowas & AU Citizen”:

Africa's rise and how it’s Time to Project AU Power!

By E.K.Bensah Jr

If there were ever a greatest exponent of serendipity, it must have been when I found myself in the home of the African Union in March 2011. Unbeknownst to many, I met my kindred spirit—Mr. Stuart Hastings of towardsunity.org—in person for the first time. I had met him two years earlier online when I was searching through tomes of material on comparative regional integration and trying to find out also whether there were other souls concerned more with the comparative approach on regionalism than simply the single-minded one where, say, the AU, EU or ECOWAS is the main focus.

I would come across Stuart’s site and immediately spark a conversation with him about how the tectonic plates were shifting towards regional unions, and how we both needed to play a part in that change.

His website, then as now, was clear: to travel the world from his home town of Canada and return to produce a book on how far regional unions, such as the EU, MERCOSUR; African Union; and ASEAN can promote promote peace and humanity through democratic dispensations they offer in their institutional structures, and how it was important to re-think some of the current narratives driving hegemons in those respective unions.

So it would be that Stuart and I would meet on 19 March, 2011 at Lime Tree cafe, situated in the rather plush Boston Day Spa on the lush and swanky Bole Road in Addis. I will never forget that day for the people who were there—Stuart Hastings; and a young official of the UN Economic Commission for Africa who might never confess in public he is a Pan-Africanist—and for the fact that after I got back to my hotel, I would catch the news on BBC and Al-Jazeera that a multi-state coalition had began a military intervention in Libya to implement United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973.

I had had a stress-free visit to the AU building days earlier, and so it seemed a bit surreal to see diplomats fluttering in and out after 19 March all over television. It was even harder to believe that the-then almost-completed AU building would play host to an apparent impotence of AU officials and policy-makers it would soon host almost a year later.

It is easy to speculate that it is probably these apparently-impotent AU policy-makers who have just witnessed the inauguration of the new, 28-floor AU building at the just-ended 18^th session of the AU in the Ethiopian capital. After the cacophony over the past few days of this Chinese gift to the Africans and the numerous speculations that have abounded over possible quid-pro-quos that might be associated with this expensive gift, it's time to get serious.

There's no gainsaying that China will expect some favours from Africa for having built this building that supposedly towers over the whole of Addis. To harp on it, in my view, is as relevant as claiming that the Europeans and Western donors who pay some sixty percent of many African countries’ budget would expect these-same countries to be indebted to them. The argument is even a non-starter. What I would hope we would talk about are two major things.

First – how it symbolises a renaissance of South-South cooperation and second, how it is a projection of the increasing power of the African Union.

Symbolism of the AU building

Both experts and amateurs on African integration, and Western journalists alike have been speculating over what China is likely to expect from the building they have donated to the African Union. What, for me, took the biscuit was no less than the venerable BBC World Service’s very respected “News Hour” programme on Sunday 29^th January interviewing the East African correspondent Will Ross, with an angle that was Sino-African centred in a way that suggested that China wants our natural resources, knows Africa is rising and so wants to capitalize on that rise. In my view, this is not analysis; it is common-sense. There really is no such thing as a free lunch. It is just that with the Chinese, they deliver that lunch faster and with few conditions. That may be the beauty of the relationship, and I believe what African integration watchers all over must be doing right now is to use this as an opportunity to explore and enhance the Sino-African relationship.

In 2010, UNCTAD launched the Economic Development in Africa report. Entitled “South-South Cooperation: Africa and the New Forms of Development Partnerships” it examined recent trends in the economic relationships of Africa with other developing countries and the new forms of partnership that are animating those relationships.

The increasing role of large developing countries in global trade, finance, investment and governance, coupled with their rapid economic growth, has stimulated debate on the implications for Africa´s development.

The report urges African nations to intensify efforts at developing better productive capacities to maximize their gains from the emerging partnerships and the gradual global shift of economic power to the East from the West. African countries, the report states “have to produce goods with high income elasticities of demand and that present greater opportunities for export market expansion”.

The report comprises five chapters dealing with the challenges and opportunities in South-South cooperation, Africa’s trade with developing countries, southern official flows to Africa, southern Foreign Direct Investment to Africa and making South-South Cooperation work for Africa.

The report concludes that Africa-South Cooperation—whether it is Sino— or Indio—not only has the potential to enhance Africa´s capacity to address its development challenges but the full realization of the benefits requires gearing cooperation towards the development of productive capacities across the region.

Bottom line is that Africa as a continent does not yet have a unified strategy relating to Africa-South cooperation and this is evidenced in part, for example, by the way in which the 2010 report was produced by UNCTAD, and not the African Union. Going forward, the AU can use the donation of the building to consolidate the Sino-African relationship—perhaps around infrastructure? — and create an effective strategy round it in a way that will slowly and surely put paid to the West’s.

Projection of power in the AU’s 10^th anniversary year!

Who has not seen pictures of the Brussels-based European Commission on TV and thought “wow, that’s a huge building!” And for those who have seen it in person, there’s no gainsaying it’s a rather imposing building. This contrasts sharply with what Stuart Hasting related to in one of our numerous discussions of his globe-trotting in Asia to see the secretariat of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) in Nepal. 

First and most importantly, after having been established in 1985, one would have thought that they might have upgraded their building a little. Pictures online of the Secretariat are consistent with the descriptions associated with Hasting’s sojourn anecdotes. This has prompted much speculation among those of us committed to propagating the development of regional unions and groupings – especially in the developing world— as good – and the greatest exemplification of the very-necessary projection of power the AU so needs to do. Given that this is coming in the tenth anniversary of the African Union, this could not but be a better and fitting presage of Africa’s putative rise!

In 2009, in his capacity as a “Do More Talk Less Ambassador” of the 42^nd Generation—an NGO that promotes and discusses Pan-Africanism--Emmanuel gave a series of lectures on the role of ECOWAS and the AU in facilitating a Pan-African identity. Emmanuel owns "Critiquing Regionalism" (http://critiquing-regionalism.org). Established in 2004 as an initiative to respond to the dearth of knowledge on global regional integration initiatives worldwide, this non-profit blog features regional integration initiatives on MERCOSUR/EU/Africa/Asia and many others. You can reach him on ekbensah@ekbensah.net / Mobile: +233-268.687.653.

Uneasy Lies the Crown of India, and the Kyrgystan Question as Seen by the SCO

Last time I wrote about India, it was in connection with the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, and how it and Iran were then-observers.

How things change!

As I write this, India is facing the prospect of being a fully-fledged member, where Iran has been royally snubbed!:

In previous summits, the Iranian leader had been warmly welcomed. Last year, SCO leaders congratulated him on a disputed election victory.

In any event, the ban is formal and no country has yet to be admitted. For years experts noted, the admission of new members has been part of SCO discussions and expectations were high.

Media in India and Pakistan welcomed the new membership rules as a success for their countries.

Now the issue will be turned over to diplomatic experts from the various countries, but in some member states, doubts are being raised over the danger of bringing the Indo-Pakistani dispute into the organisation.

Even if India does not say it, I can understand why India, in so many ways, would feel uneasy having Pakistan so closely allied to it in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation--and it's all about Kashmir.

All that said, I believe it would be premature for Russia, China, and some of the other -"stans" (Kazakhstan; Tajikistan; Krygyzstan) to think that having those two countries could destabilise the almost-decade-old regional grouping. This is because the issue of international terrorism predicated on Al-Queda (and less on Kashmir-terrorism) seems to be the more relevant off-late.

Truth be told, I have a serious problem with India and Pakistan joining SCO as members, especially when they seem to be putting little effort into the establishment and development of SAARC. I have less a problem with Pakistan which clout I think would NOT be as great as that of the emerging hegemon-India.

Anyone who has forgotten the "BRIC" alliance of Brazil-Russia-India-China will notice that Pakistan will not feature there anytime soon!

But to be more specific about why the SCO is featured here in this post, let me just say that when I heard of the outbreak of ethnic violence in Uzbekistan, it did not even strike me at all that the country had played host to a summit (as I didn't know!), but the country did ring a bell with me over the SCO.

I re-call that the SCO has been instrumental in formulating a so-called "Regional Anti-Terrorism Structure"--something that made me giddy with excitement a while back. In so many ways, this has resonance with why Pakistan might want to be allied to it.

The Uzbekistan/Kyrgyzstan is not being portrayed as a terrorist problem--more of an unfortunate ethnic one. I find it regrettable given these two countries belong to the increasingly-powerful SCO. I had hoped to read more substantive things coming therefore from the SCO. All I have read so far is this from Pakistan's Daily Times when it writes:

The SCO [has] called for restoring stability in restive Kyrgyzstan through dialogue. Nearly 100 people have died after ethnic riots erupted in southern Kyrgyzstan. SCO’s member states pledged that they are willing to provide necessary support and assistance. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said, “We have a sincere interest in overcoming as quickly as possible this stage of interior disturbances in Kyrgyzstan. We also support the establishment of a modern government that is able to solve the country’s pressing social and economic problems.”

Watch this space as I follow the travails of the SCO in the restoration of peace in this region.

This might well prove to be a test-case for the SCO!

SAARC--What's SAARC Got to do with India's Latest Serial Bombings?

At a time when Cote d'Ivoire and Burkina Faso as ECOWAS neighbours, are meeting as a way of reconciling after tremendous tensions brought about by the September 2002 coup that saw finger-pointing from Ougadougou that its neighbour supported an abortive coup of Burkina Faso in 2003, it remains a great shame that a number of serial bombings would take place in India only over the weekend, prompting fears that it was a "foreign hand", identified as Pakistan.
A very interesting BBC article above chronicles the number of bombings that have taken place since 2005, listingbthe total number of dead as 400!

So, when I ask--despite a one-month hiatus!![mucho apologies!!!]--what SAARC has got to do with it, it is not without reason.


The example of the two ECOWAS neighbours above shows that reconciliation can take place even without the carrot-and-stick of the EU, or any foreign donor, when there is political will. I do not know ebough about the India-Pakistan conflict to offer anything, except to say that I do know their atavistic conflict has scaled down dramatically. Also, given the rise of India, it is a shame for it to be entertaining terrorists or freedom-fighters of any kind that could harm its prospects for growth.

My concern about it all, really, is just because India is big and has clout, is insufficient reason for it to ignore SAARC. SAARC may be going through some existential angst, but as long as the institution is there, India has every reason to pump resources to support its growth--even for its own interest.

The 2-3 August SAARC Summit in Colombo on Food Security, Terrorism and Energy offer an opportunity to do that--as well as put paid to the tensions that exist between itself and Pakistan.

The BBC has been offering the so-called Insider Debate, with the last one (over the weekend) featuring: Jonathan Powell, Martin Griffiths, Alvaro de Soto and Francesc Vendrell, who have all "[b]etween them...negotiated in most of the world's intractable conflicts".

I daresay most of the four who were interviewed would say that "no conflict is insoluble" and that India must continue to talk to Pakistan.

The article maintains that one of the outcomes of the meeting is:

The SAARC Summit is set to adopt four agreements, including SAARC Development Fund (SDF) with a corpus of $307 million, South Asian Mutual Legal Assistance on Criminal Matters, an agreement on the establishment of the South Asia Regional Standards Organization and a pact for formal entry of Afghanistan into the South Asia Free Trade Agreement (SAFTA).

Among the other issues that would be discussed are a fund to manage food crisis, an approach towards SAARC common currency and mechanisms to augment resources in the region to tackle the situation arising out of the fuel price hike.

At the end of the day, for anything concrete to happen, it's about political will. That's the only way of ensuring a progressive perspective on any type of regional integration...

Back to the (Regional) Grind: A Tale of Two Cities

To say that both the secular and non-secular world enjoyed a turbulent transition to the New Year is to seriously understate things.

I was locked up at home--gardening and listening to the BBC World Service (as I am wont to do during the weekend) when the News Hour anchor at the time--Dan Damon--interrupted regular programming to announce that there were reports coming in about the leader of the Pakistan's People Party--Benazir Bhutto--having been injured--possibly killed--in what was supposed to be a rally.

Minutes turned into hours, and over the next few days, the BBC started talking about her having been assassinated. Whilst evidently thinking of the implications for Pakistan and the lacuna of the democratic dispensations associated with the presumed assassination, I could not help but reflect over what it might mean for the role of Pakistan in no less than...SAARC.

SAARC had celebrated--or not--22 years of its existence some 20 days earlier on 8th of December, and I believed it ominous that the two countries of India and Pakistan that could make a difference in what looks like a moribund regional grouping (insofar as engaging other members to revitalize the organisation) would have one key member bedevilled by an internal crisis so profound and tortuous that the regional solution would be the last thing on its mind.

For all the analyses proferred by various pundits and whatnot, I was disappointed to not have heard mention being made of the regional implications of the violence. I would have loved to have heard SAARC issuing a statement condemning the violence. None came--and none has come.

Idem with Kenya, where, at the time of writing, AU chairman -- Ghana's John Kufuor -- is en route to try and broker peace between Odinga, leader of the ODM, and Kibaki--incumbent and "newly"-elected leader of Kenya since two Sundays ago (30 December).

It would have been equally great to have had the East African Community (EAC) condemn the violence, and also issue a statement to that effect. Neither came--and it hasn't come either.

What to me the absence of these statements speaks to is less an appreciation for the regional and more of a relatively myopic view of the conflict, and possible solutions to resolving it. Do we only turn to the regional when it's on trade? Kenya is a de facto regional leader. Look at the role it played last year in resolving conflict through the conduits of IGAD and EAC.

Does it mean that when the hegemon is under fire, the smaller members should not rally round? Where was Uganda; Tanzania; Rwanda and Burundi to say "let's go the regional way!". That the African Union (AU) was both approached and initially rejected, only to give way for their eventual intervention, in the inchoate post-election violence speaks volumes. In my view, though, the volume ought to be loudest at the regional level.

If there is to be any level of seriousness ascribed to regional integration in 2008, then here's to a greater accentuation both by smaller and bigger states within regions -- along with citizens raising the bar on the regional solution for every type of injustice being perpetrated anywhere.

My the good winds of fate blow your way in 2008!

Warm regards...

ASEAN Apathy Bites the Dust with ASEAN Charter?

"ASEAN, as an inter-governmental organization, is hereby conferred legal personality," says the Charter.

According to the Blueprint, the AEC builds on four pillars: a single market and production base, a highly competitive economic region, a region of equitable economic development, and a region fully integrated into the global economy

"When it (the Charter) comes into force, it has the potential to transform ASEAN from a loose grouping of countries into a more cohesive, more effective and a more rules-based organization,"

Even at a time when the South East asian regionalisms attitude towards erring members (viz: Pakistan in SAARC, and Myanmar in ASEAN) could be described as this side short of soporific, I have to confess that I am rather excited by the prospect of an ASEAN Charter. Excited, because it signals the beginning of what can be in the critical and progressive discussion on regional integration. What can be as in what is possible, where others might have failed.

I've intoned time and again how the Europeans rejected the constitution back in 2004, yet ASEAN leaders have managed to chalk, and pass it. As to whether it will translate to the citizens is a moot point.

Whatever the case will be, I believe history will look favourably on the 10-member regional organisation that has a population of 500 million [ECOWAS has 250-300 million, and is fifteen members] for having bitten the bullet to pass the Charter.

Highlights of the Charter include a compulsion by members:

to democracy and protection of human rights, the charter also mandates the establishment of a human rights body in the region and aims to turn the region into an European Union-style market.
http://in.news.yahoo.com/071120/43/6nguj.html

Though I am wont to criticise the EU-one-size-fits-all that many regionalisms touch on at least once in their life, I am avoiding that here, because I think it's time to accentuate the positive step ASEAN has taken.

Let's remember that 4the organisation turned forty only in August this year. It didn't wait for its Jubilee before doing something constructive for its region!


Above all, and in all seriousness, ASEAN wants to use the Charter to facilitate an Asian Economic Community by 2015. Well, deadlines are great. (Isn't the world supposed to eradicate poverty by half by 2015?) What matters is that there is a framework, a structure that can be carried forward by posterity. ASEAN now has legal personality--and that certainly, four decades after it was established, can only be congratulated.

In many respects, however, I can understand why the celebrations over the charter eclipsed the UN envoy to Burma Ibrahim Gambari's visit in a way that made the meeting abortive. Put simply, the meeting didn't happen.

I surmise that not that ASEAN was denying that Myanmar is a nettlesome issue, but that to have brought the UN envoy would have been undermining the cohesion ASEAN tried so hard to fight for in taking more than two years to draft this lofty charter.

I have always been in favour of UN envoys--and it's not going to change anytime soon--but, again, I've seen a similar thing in West Africa with Cote d'ivoire when it launched its coup in September 2002.

ECOWAS also decided not to expel it, but brought pressure to bear through the collective voice of ECOWAS to bring normality to the country through...talk.

For all the necessary noise that the US is making by saying (through Susan Schwab, US trade representative) that ASEAN's relationship with Myanmar cannot be "business as usual", it makes sense that ASEAN is not going to break its party anytime soon! Let it cry when it wants to--but certainly not now that there has been a significant, critical and progressive development in ASEAN's regional integration.


quotations taken from the following links:
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-11/20/content_7115277.htm
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-11/20/content_7114354.htm
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-11/20/content_7115085.htm

SAARC's Existential Angst (1)

At a time when the SAARC region is in the news thanks to one of its key members, Pakistan, it beggars belief that there has been little effort by the regional organisation, that will be celebrating its 22nd anniversary in December, on the issue of regional security .

And I should know.

I come from a region where regional security has been put on a pedestal on account of the internecine conflicts that engulfed the region in the 1990s. Despite the hegemon of Nigeria, the oil-rich country rarely ever became an obstruction in the development of peace in the ECOWAS region. Nigeria was instrumental in providing significant financial capital towards ECOMOG--the peacekeeping wing of ECOWAS. In 2007, ECOWAS has transformed from a Secretariat to a Commission with commissioners leading on the major issues pertinent to the region. Bottom line? ECOWAS, for all its problems and challenges, has moved on. That is not to say that things cannot be done better, and mindsets changed. For what it's worth we see developments.

Very little changed can be said for SAARC.

Not to deny SAARC having golf tournaments, but I find it ludicrous that a regional organisation with the size that SAARC has (seven members, excluding Afghanistan which joined recently) cannot get its regional organisation going!

Contrast this with the East African Community, which collapsed in 1977, but re-invigorated itself in 1993. Today, Rwanda and Burundi are members, making the organisation 5-member strong. Yet it's going strong. ECOWAS has 15--and look at the regional structures it has: a Parliament; a Community Court; and a strong regional security initiative.

SAARC is nowhere near.

I was encouraged, however, last week to read that Pakistan is going to host SAARC Police Chiefs meeting in February. I thought that here was encouraging news that SAARC was finally getting serious. I had the visceral feeling that the meeting was too closely associated with teh War on Terror, especially as Pakistan's role in that war was cited.

I wondered whether it would make headline news next year when Pakistan hosts the Third Meeting on Home Ministers, because it is a putative ally of the Bush administration, or would it be consigned to the proverbial dustbin of "irrelevant" news?

On the positive note, it was good to see that the SAARC Home Ministers are interested in establishing an electronic network of police authorities of SAARC countries.



It's certainly something that here, in the ECOWAS region, given the spate of gun-related crimes, we could do with! When the West Africa Police Chiefs Committee met a few weeks ago, I do not re-call hearing anything concrete like this SAARC proposal.

However, what was said by Ghana’s Minister of Interior Nana Obiri Boahen, was this:

I am also honoured to be part of this historic occasion when the Police Gendarmerie from our sister Francophone countries are joining their counterparts to discuss issues of mutual and common interest.

I am told that the ECOWAS Commission is expanding its Political Peacekeeping and Security Department to include a police unit that will take care of police issues within the ECOWAS community.

This laudable idea has been on the commission’s agenda for quite some time now and I am particularly happy that the idea is being implemented.

from:http://www.interpol.int/Public/ICPO/speeches/WapccoIntMinister20071003.asp

In my view, such lacuna go to underscore complementarities that I have talked about before being factored in any critical and progressive discussion on regional integration.

It's in the Eyes: Prayers for a Dying SAARC? Cross-Fertilising AU Dynamics!

At a time when the African Union's Peace and Security Council has well and truly slapped sanctions on the "rebellious" Comoros Islands, restricting their travel, and freezing their accounts, it beggars belief that in September, in a piece on the BBC about SAARC, a SAARC citizen would have written this in respect to the putative failure of SAARC:

Apart from OAU/OUA no other regional organization can rival the irrelevance of SAARC. The initiatives on the economic side which drove MERCOSUR, ASEAN, NAFT, EEA, usually have been put on sidelines. Pakistan does not even accord Most Favored Nation status to India. SAARC conferences are big fund guzzlers in a region that excels in poverty. It is completely irrelevant, particularly for India, to break out of the mold of 'Greater India' or Akhanda Bharat mindset and focus more on economic development, it does not need more laggards to pull it down. A good example is European Union, quite a choosy, club, which has elected to exclude Turkey. Sometimes less can even turn out to be more!
Sandeep Chowdhury, Germany

I'm not quite sure what to do about such comments--whether to laugh or cry. On the flip side, it reveals the profound misunderstanding that exists by many worldwide on the different types of regionalisms that exist, and the qualitative nature of those regionalisms.

I can very well imagine that there are many EU citizens who have probably never heard of ECOWAS or COMESA or even the ACP Group--even though it's well and truly ensconced some five minutes drive, on Avenue Georges Henri, past the metros of Schuman, into the European Communities!


Back to the SAARC expatiation, and you see something a bit predictable and sinister. Predictable, because casual observors of the region have talked at length about the apathy exuding from the region by India in reconciling with Pakistan--and how that is a key factor in injecting vigour into the seven/eight-- (if you count Afghanistan) member regional organisation established since 1985. It's going to be 22 years old this December, and I daresay the analysis around that period will be...more of the same.

Sinister, because a lot of the blame is predicated on an India-Pakistan nexus of (atavistic) and historical "hate".

Looking specifically at some of the submissions by readers, the comments ranged in between these answers:

Saarc is a failure because of India

without economic integration like the EU and NAFTA and (name your western economic cooperation agreement), SAARC will be irrelevant

Pakistan should go it alone, because it can benefit where it is losing from SAARC

India should go it alone because it is not adding to or gaining anything from SAARC

It is important to indicate that the submissions came from India; Germany; USA; Zimbabwe; UK; Pakistan; Canada; Italy; Pakistan; and Maldives (another member of SAARC)

One submission from Pakistan maintained:

The only thing that the Saarc summit has ever been able to decide is where the next Saarc summit should be held. It is a pathetic organisation - though mind you there are others in competition with it in being useless for example Sadc - the Southern African Development Community.
Alia Mansuri, Pakistan

It is interesting, also, to note that the submission above about "OAU" (it's been the AU since 2003!!) was made by I presume a SAARC citizen in...the more "successful" EU.

I was priviledged some three weeks ago to have been part of a seminar on regional integration, hosted here in Accra, by my organisation, and organised by CODESRIA. in which one academic from Tunis presented a paper about the Arab Maghreb Union being highly irrelevant out of the AU RECs (and the world).

This to me says that whilst the submission from Germany was profoundly myopic about the qualitative nature of regionalisms worldwide, the sense that citizens of "failing" regionalisms--never mind failing states are waking up to smell the bitter coffee that there are better examples elsewhere.

Without forcing a pun, they're truly getting critical on regional integration perspectives. A little more progressive views might help, though!;-)

Dealing with Errant Regional Members, ASEAN-Style

As ASEAN sits on the cusp of a historic change rooted in the celebration of its fortieth anniversary in August, it was slightly all-too-predictable that I would attempt to proffer my analysis of where it's going.

To be blunt: ASEAN is going places! And if its places you're asking me to be specific on, let me be just that. ASEAN is writing a charter, kind of like a constitution, that will

"set a standard of behaviour in inter-state relations, but also in how they govern internally."
from:http://www.philstar.com/index.php?News%20Flash&p=54&type=2&sec=91&aid=2007072721

As other regional integration agreements become more conscious of practising a rules-based regionalism, it was not going to be surprising that an organisation like ASEAN that is reputed to work on the basis of consensus, would want something that would be more regimented and structured.

MC Abad, the big boss at the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) unit in ASEAN's Secretariat based in Jakarta, told AFP:

"It will prescribe the way forward with the consent of all ASEAN members upon adoption"

To be a bit more specific about what ASEAN is seeking to do with the Charter, it's important to bear in mind that around the discussions of a rules-based ASEAN, predicated on human rights, was going to be an implicit way of talking to some of the errant members of the forty-year-old organisation. Specifically: Myanmar:

Egoy Bans, a spokesman for the regional advocacy group Free Burma Coalition - Philippines, welcomed the rights commission, calling it a small step forward for ASEAN, which in the past repeatedly sidestepped the issue of rights abuses.

"Hopefully, once we have this rights organ under the charter, ASEAN countries can begin engaging Myanmar on the issue of human rights," Bans told AFP.

"It's all about political will. When they (ASEAN members) engage the junta, they should do so by pushing for complete reforms because the constructive engagement policy has failed," he said

Whether the policy of constructive engagement has failed or not is moot; what matters, now, is that ASEAN is movng on. As to whether they will continue to enjoy (not quite sure whether that's the right word!) the observer status of blocs like the EU and the superpower of the US in their discussions is another matter altogether. It matters, in my view, because I see an ASEAN that can go its own way without a European Union sitting in on its discussions or the US.

What is so exciting for me about this development is that ASEAN, when this succeeds, will have succeeded where the EU failed in 2005, when the Netherlands and France said "no" to a European constitution. The flip side is that ASEAN citizens might not be as aware as their European counterparts are on any potential loss of sovereignty that might be accrued, as it were, from an ASEAN Charter.

Either way, when passed, the bar will have been set for other regionalisms to follow. I'm rather convinced that the eight-member SAARC, being the closest regional integration agreement to ASEAN, might be following developments quite closely. If not, it better!

REGIONAL INTEGRATION MONTH!!-->Changing SAARC...without Being Repetitive!

If my initial impressions over SAARC in this blog is anything to go by, you might have gone away feeling that I wasn't too impressed with SAARC. Truth be told, it's less about me being impressed and more being concerned about the lackadaisical debates going on around SAARC and its regional integration of the South Asian countries.

A recent article I came across yesterday, entitled "Changing SAARC: Hopes for a better South Asia" is so platitudinous it's not funny.

Let's first begin by addressing the structure of the article. It starts off discussing the age-old argument -- almost to the death -- about the size of India overshadowing and eclipsing the SAARC regional integration project. Judge for yourself:

1. New Delhi’s gigantic size in terms of natural and human resources, military capability and an emerging economic power creates apprehension of its future role in SAARC, in the minds of other constituents.

2. The growing importance of India in both inter regional and international field as a major actor in terms of economic and military capability appears to have negative consequences in the psychology of other SAARC member countries

3. Other member states look at India suspiciously because of its elephantine size in terms of its population, resources, economy, and its potential to act as a global economic and strategic power

Alright, already! I think we get the picture that India is a big country. It's "elephantine"; it's "gigantic". Point taken.

Now, where's your next argument? That SAARC has matured:

The attainment of the maturity of SAARC is reflected from the fact that it has expanded itself by admitting Afghanistan as the eighth member state and giving China, South Korea and Japan observer status.

But, later in the article, do I sense a contradiction?

SAARC is still very far from maturing as a regional grouping.

So, which is it: is SAARC maturing--or not?

There is the nice historical overview--as demanded by articles on regional integration, tracing the history--from its inception (1985) to now, and occasionally realising that good mathematics is de rigeur:

1. In 22 years-13 summits, not encouraging...

2. Set up in 1985, SAARC has passed its disturbing teen phase and now in 2007, April 3-4 it touched 22 years;

In my view, any discussion on regional integration that divorces any type of rumination, or thinking, on institutions that can facilitate that integration, such as a Central Bank, or a Parliament is an integration project that is not very serious. Declarations on trade and customs union are all very good, but the latter is a key element in getting citizens of SAARC to feel they are comprehensively SAARC citizens.

My personal view is candid: it's an interesting article for both the general and more informed follower of regional integration, but it lacks depth for one simple reason: it is lukewarm in its aspirations of where SAARC should be going.

Even as an African, I should have felt agitated, energised about the developments goingon in the region--but I wasn't, because as much as it is true that

The focus of SAARC should be on implementing collaborative projects.

, the focus should, in my humble view, not just be about implementation. It should be about dedication and commitment to the precepts of regional integration in SAARC, which goes beyond poverty-reduction.

It should also be about conceiving of a South Asian Community, as expressed in today's Pakistan article from Online Pakistan about India seeing that it has a "a greater regional responsibility".

Finally, the myopia of seeing the EU and ASEAN as the only precursors of regional integration should go. South Asia should be looking at complementing its integration project with exchanges from the African Union and its regional economic communities. For the conflict in Kashmir, SAARC could look at how ECOWAS resolved its conflicts in the sub-region, and still managed to agree to push on regional protocols.

Selling SAARC to the World...what exactly?

The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation was established in December 1985 and, according to wikipedia:

is the largest regional organization in the world by population, covering approximately 1.47 billion people.

It comprises eight countries, with the latest being Afghanistan that joined at its 14th Summit in New Delhi, on April 3 and 4th.

You sometimes wonder whether these countries join for the sake of joining the organisations, or whether there is actually something fundamentally fuelling a desire to be part of a project that works. I can perhaps understand why the latter would be interested given its relative isolation in the Grand Scheme of International Politicking, but why join a grouping that doesn't seem to have a future?

If that sounds harsh, try reading Pakistan's Daily Times article,which paints a rather despondent view of the largest regional organisation in the world. The key word is...Kashmir:

India rolled forward with radical visa concessions to all including Pakistan. Pakistan sat there and watched, its outlook marred once again by an obsession with Kashmir although there was no need to be so costive about it. Pakistan can show its internal political audit that it was giving nothing away on Kashmir while going ahead with the free trade negotiations. Suddenly the inventiveness of General Musharraf is gone and Shaukat Aziz is changing his stripes. Pakistan must be the rare country that uses a banker prime minister to block trade

I quite like the idea of a visa concession. West Africa's ECOWAS has it, as exemplified by the comment on the Mali Embassy website in the US:

No visa is required for ECOWAS countries' citizens, citizens from Algeria,Cameroon,Andorra,Monaco,Chad, Gambia,Morocco, Mauritania,and Tunisia( a valid identity card or passport are acceptable

The editorial maintains Sri Lanka talking about a common currency!

It seems to me that sometimes when leaders sit in these regional organisation meetings, they scan the horizon on what is working, or seems to be working, without taking into account any practicalities for their respective region. So, because the EU has adopted a common currency, and anglophone West Africa is talking about it, it's a good idea? Not necessarily!

Besides, for all ECOWAS' problems, especially with the linguistic divide that has marred progress many a time, one thing that ECOWAS has transcended is this view espoused by some leaders of SAARC (in bold):

Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz is known for his smoothness but said things quite out of character for a banker.

He said outstanding political issues should be sorted out first before free trade materialised between the two countries — a brief given by the establishment.

But he must have wondered why he was losing India’s capital investment in Pakistan along with the Arabs of the Gulf

Frankly, this attitude will get policy-makers nowhere if they want to fast-track regional integration. Harmonising laws under a supra-national authority may be problematic to some--on account of the loss of sovereignty--but ultimately, these outweigh the politics that exist within any region. Are we saying, also, that the EU is not without its political problems? Far from it! SAARC needs to move--and very quickly.

ECOBANK, the West African bank (supported by ECOWAS), has made great strides from being a regional bank to now envisaging a transformation (slow-and-sure) into a "Pan-African Bank". It made it, and is going places. That was back in 1985.

SAARC was established in the same year. Its achievements are nothing to write home about. Sometimes I wonder with distractions like ASEAN and Russia's Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, small wonder with the slow progress. Russia, for example, does not seem very enamored by the regional grouping:

The world seems to be keen on SAARC but not its old members. At the global level, some countries are realistic about the limitations of the organisation. Russia, for instance, is not keen, and is of the view that SAARC “is still evolving and has a long way to go”. In fact, Russia points to the possibility of the SAARC states pulling out of the prison of South Asia and breathing more freely in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO).

All that said, it is not so much a matter of SAARC wanting to move as in needing to move and very quickly. Like, now!