Of Libya, CENSAD and...Which REC for South Sudan?

 

Whither the future of CEN-SAD?

The Community of Sahel-Saharan States was established in 1998 by the late Colonel Qaddafi. After the rationalization of the regional economic communities in 2006, it became an AU-REC – that is one of the eight RECs mandated and recognized by the African Union. It has twenty-eight members, and Ghana is a member. 

Despite many meetings that had taken place and a fully-functioning website on http://www.censad.org, the uprising that started in Libya in March threw a huge spanner in the works of the organisation, effectively throwing the regional grouping out of sync with the other RECs at its base in Tripoli. Regrettably, the conspicuous absence of the African Union itself on the future of CENSAD has not helped dispel the notion that the AU is nothing more than a “toothless” bulldog. 

The passing of Qaddafi will effectively take the wind out of the sails of CENSAD, probably throwing all the good work – including the Great Green Wall being built along the sub-region to protect the region from climate change; as well as the establishment of a free-trade area of ECOWAS-UEMOA-CENSAD/ECOWAS-CENSAD/ECCAS along the likes of the SADC-COMESA-EAC tripartite free trade area, which was mooted in 2008.

Going forward, I would expect to see the AU taking serious the need to engage the National Transitional Council in Libya on their commitments to the African Union. This would include discussions on Libya and where it stands on the establishment of the AU-mandated and Tripoli-hosted African Investment Bank, as well as the state of play of CEN-SAD, and how it can be factored into discussions of Africa’s ongoing discussions over Africa’s integration.

South Sudan – which REC to belong to?

South Sudan might have slipped off the radar of news—not because it is not important, but other hot issues might naturally have tipped it off. Still, what has not been making the rounds too much has been the regional economic community to which South Sudan should belong. Given the location of that country, one cannot take it for granted that they would necessarily want to go with their Northern counterpart—and to the RECs is no exception.

There is no mechanism that can predict that South Sudan will want to become member of the East Africa Community or the IGAD. And what of COMESA? This is an important debate that African media practitioners – aware of the utility and increasing assertiveness of the RECs – might be ruminating over on the continent.

Although there have been major developments around South Sudan and its membership of some of these RECs, the point I am making here is about the absence of a debate in much of the African media. Going forward, African media practitioners, including here in Ghana, should move beyond the stage of talking about other AU member states only when they’re, at best, embroiled in conflict and/or at worst, are headline news over at the BBC!

You might be happy to know that South Sudan was made a member of COMESA at the 15th Comesa Heads of State and Government summit on 14^th October in Malawi. Furthermore, on 17 October, South Sudan President General Salva Kiir confirmed that his country has started on the application process to become a member of the East African Community (EAC).

**this piece was culled from my Wednesday column for Ghana's "Business and Financial Times" newspaper, which is called "The Accidental ECOWAS and AU Citizen"--from: http://www.thebftonline.com/bft_subcat_linkdetails.cfm?prodcatID=6&tblNewsCatID=63&tblNewsID=9788 . More also on http://african-union-citizen.blogspot.com/2011/10/hot-issues-on-au-needing-popular.html

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://www.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: 0268.687.653.

While CARICOM is on my Mind, Meet the S-G La Rocque!

For the past couple of weeks, I've been getting "Google ALerts" on CARICOM, and almost always, it is something negative about CARICOM.

Apart from the fact that CARICOM made a statement supporting the rebels of the TNC in Libya, I continue to question the real relevance of CARICOM in the Caribbean region. Not because it does not count--far from it--but what exactly it is doing to assert itself these days.

I read that they have a new secretary-general--by name La Rocque. He has vowed, as per this article here, to do quite a number of things to dynamise CARICOM, including cutting down on international travel and using video-conferencing instead! Secondly, "overtime" is out of the window.

You would think that for an organisation that has been around since 1973, they would have a lot more going for them than free movement and a Caribbean Single Market Economy scheme. CARICOM turned 38 on 1st August, but I sense that it is difficult to really speculate on what concretely it might be remembered for. Even on free movement, I read that it is only a few days ago that a press release issued stated that Jamaicans can now travel hassle-free. This has come as a result of "incidences" involving Jamaicans -- apparently! How miscreants from a member state might affect the region's free movement is beyond me -- but that is just me.

I do not for any second want to castigate CARICOM or even compare it with ECOWAS or SADC (comparable only by member countries, where ECOWAS has 15 and SADC 14). But I am still itching to compare the free movement system currently in CARICOM and ECOWAS.

ECOWAS has had free movement of its citizens since 1979. Regrettably that has meant that during the inter-necine wars of Liberia(affecting the Mano River Union countries of Liberia/Sierra Leone/Cote d'ivoire/Guinea) of the early nineties, it meant that (child) soldiers and mercenaries could move freely through the sub-region's porous borders, as well reside in ECOWAS member states for minimum ninety-days without hindrance. That ECOWAS member states have yet to fully ratify supplementary protocols associated with free movement, including setting up committees to monitor free movement (no country has done that yet!) speaks to the considerable work on free movement ECOWAS still needs to do.

CARICOM, conversely, seems to be working hard, albeit slowly.

I cannot foresee, in the 21st century, any regional integration project that underplays free movement; it just does not work. So I want to implore that given Caribbean countries are small, and that they have the CSME working better for  them than what might be here in the ECOWAS sub-region, they get serious on the regional integration project of helping them manage globalisation and its many adverse impacts.

Statements supporting Libyan rebels are curious--at a time when even the African Union has been very slow to recognise them--and interesting: they will not make CARICOM grow to be the community it can become, so CARICOM, more grease to your elbows after your 38th anniversary on 1st August this year. But, surely, you can do better?

As to whether La Rocque can be the saviour to CARICOM observers want, we live in vain expectation!

AFRICAN UNION--The Unbearable Lightness of Being...An African Union Citizen

I have spent the better part of the week working on a paper that has taken my time away from this blog. I re-post what I posted today on my ghana blog, as I believe it to be relevant...



It was too contrived to be a coincidence. After I posted an entry requesting why the issue of African Union had not been covered on CITI97.3FM (pls see above) on both Shamima Muslim and Citi Breakfast Show host Sammy Bartel's facebook wall, the following day on the show, I heard Victor Gbeho and Dr.Nii Alabi come on the show to discuss not just Ghanaian politics, but no less than implications of Al-Qaddafi as AU Chair.

There was--unlike former host Bernard Avle--no acknowledgment of my suggestion. I hardly expected it, but it would have been nice anyway!

Still, that was not going to dampen my interest and optimism. Upon learning that the AU is going to transform into an AU Authority, I sent some information round to Facebook friends, which elicited some responses. Curiously, out of the thirty people I sent the information to, only a handful replied. Below are some of the responses:

I honestly believe that once Africa stops looking 4 aid & begins to look and assist its own her in Africa we'll never be blessed. Its a Biblical principle that the founding fathers of the west knew and instilled into their children and children's children generations ago.

Continental unity would transform us into thee Super Power.

It can only work if we make it work. We must instill that feeling of pride that the Americans have about being American about being an African in our offspring. Racism, tribalism and all those other evils are taught I'm yet to meet any1 born with any of those cancers in them. We have work to do, but if we are single minded in achieving this 'dream' the future is brighter that a thousand Suns beaming down on us.

Cool so i can proudly pay i live in the USA now.

This is what I myself wrote:

it is ironic that in the centenary of the birth of Osagyefo Dr.Kwame Nkrumah, the dream towards continental govt could become a reality! Breaking news---al Qaddafi of LIbya just became CHAIR of the AU for one year. Certainly a BOON--if ever I saw one--to continental unity!!

All that said, I would not for a second believe that those who failed to comment are any less patriotic than I am.

We can draw any number of conclusions about the non-response, but what I can say is that there is a general lack of interest and apathy in the whole enterprise--which only compounds my unbearable lightness of being an AU citizen...

But let's get positive for a second. Here's the plan for the African Union Authority:

AU Authority would be made operational by July 2009

it will have a vice-president and President

current commissioners of the AU would be transformed into secretaries

new secretaries would have portfolios structured along nine areas of shared competence. These include...

...poverty-reduction; free movement of persons, goods and services; infrastructural development; climate change; epidemics and pandemics; international trade negotiations; peace and security matters; foreign affairs

Right across from where I work is Eastgate hotel; it has an EU; Ghanaian; Nigerian; Canadian flag. There is NO AU flag. It's a good job the AU is changing its flag. Maybe I can lobby for it to be hoisted?;-)Seriously, last time I looked, flags were a symbolic representation of a country's identity. There is no hotel here in Accra I have seen that has ever dared to hoisted an AU or even ECOWAS flag. In my view, it just reinforces the perception that Ghanaians don't care much for representing the AU to the world!

To conclude, we do not live in a perfect world, so we are always going to get the likes of Al-Qaddafi. Whatever you might think about his human rights, he has made immense contributions--albeit not altruistically--to the cause of Pan-African integration.

I believe it sincerely to be a blessing in disguise to have a putative erratic character like him at the helm of the AU in this year, and at this time when we are in the centenary of one of the most visionary Africans that ever lived--Dr.Kwame Nkrumah. A man who also happens to have proclaimed "Africa Must Unite! when he took Ghana, along with Nasser and a posse of visionary leaders instrumental in the establishment of the erstwhile Organisation of African Unity.

Like Sunday World columnist-cum-blogger Kobby Graham wrote:

Say what you will about the man but his visions of a single African military force, a single currency, and a single passport for Africans to move freely around the continent have an appealing whiff of Nkrumah about them that I cannot help but inhale.

In my view, the nay-sayers of AU integration are missing the point! It is not about Al-Qaddafi--it's about fighting for AU integration now!