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No AU chair successor despite Dlamini-Zuma’s mixed legacy

Saturday July 23 2016
RTAUSUMMIT

The AU Commission chairperson Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma (center) chatting with other delegates before the 29th ordinary session of the Executive Council held on July 13, during the AU Summit in Kigali. PHOTO | CYRIL NDEGEYA

Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma will stay in office as African Union Commission chairperson until January 2017, when the continental body hopes to have elected a replacement.

An election that was supposed to be one of the major highlights of the 27th African Union Summit held in Kigali failed to agree on a candidate after all the three contenders were judged to be unsuitable for the job.

The summit’s decision raises a new question: What is a suitable AUC chairperson? As a former South African foreign minister, Ms Dlamini-Zuma had credentials similar to those of at least two of her predecessors and experts say experience in diplomacy is an important consideration when choosing her successor.

She also had the advantage of participating in the struggle against apartheid, which made her appreciative of the spirit of pan-Africanism, since the Organisation for African Unity, the institution that preceded the AU, had supported the African National Congress’s struggle for Independence.

It is for these reasons that Ms Dlamini-Zuma’s admirers say she was a suitable candidate for the job and that her credentials played a big part in her success as an AUC chairperson.    

READ: AU elections suspended

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Dr Carlos Lopes, the executive director of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (Uneca), points to Ms Dhlamini-Zuma’s pioneering of Agenda 2063 as further proof of her

Launched at the beginning of 2014, Agenda 2063 is a roadmap for Africa’s social economic framework that is meant to eradicate poverty, deliver sustainable development, continent-wide integration and political unity around the ideas of Pan-Africanism.

Agenda 2063 also aspires to deliver a democratic and just Africa, where citizens of the continent enjoy peace and security. This agenda promises to have dialogue-centred conflict prevention and resolution with an ambitious pledge of silencing all guns by 2020.

Having had close to two years to at least lay a foundation for the implementation of Agenda 2063, it would be expected that some work would have been done by the current AUC, especially on the urgent task of silencing the guns by 2020.

But even admirers of Ms Dlamini-Zuma like Emmanaul Dogbevi, a Ghanaian editor and analyst of continental issues, admit that the current AUC record of resolving conflict in Africa is dismal.

Under Ms Dlamini-Zuma, Africa appears to be experiencing more unresolved conflicts than it did under her predecessor Jean Ping, who was thrown out for allegedly refusing to offer leadership on continental issues like the post-election crisis in Ivory Coast and the war in Libya.

South Africa wanted the African Union to back a United Nations no-fly zone over Libya, as this would protect civilians, but Mr Ping dithered. A number of presidents on the continent wanted it to lock the West out of Libya.

Under Ms Dlamini-Zuma, the AUC appears to have failed African civilians even more.

In Burundi, for example, the AU had agreed to deploy 5,000 troops, but the AU backtracked on its decision at the beginning of 2016, because the government in Bujumbura said it was in control of the situation.

Civilians have been dying since then and are being forced to seek refuge in neighbouring countries, but Ms Dlamini-Zuma has never set foot in Burundi to assess the situation.

She is also accused by her critics of not being firm on South Sudan, the youngest member of the AU, and has never visited the country where hundreds of civilians continue to die or be displaced by incessant conflict that has beleaguered it since its infancy.

The latest decision to deploy an AU-backed peace enforcement mission is headed for a dead end as the government in Juba and the opposition have both opposed it.

South Sudan’s ambassador to the AU James Pitya Morgan called the decision to send troops to his country “destructive.”

“Madam Dlamini-Zuma and Ban Ki-moon have worked very hard to destroy my country. Our hard earned freedom has been turned into a nightmare by the duo,” charged Mr Morgan.

Currently, South Sudan is not happy with the UN Secretary-General’s proposal to have the Security Council impose an arms embargo on Juba.

Other quarters have also blamed Ms Dlamini-Zuma for failing to ensure continued funding for the African Union Mission in Somalia (Amisom) following the European Union’s decision to reduce funding.

But Dr Lopes defended her, saying that donor-dependency was not sustainable for the AU, and that by proposing a new funding model for the AU, Ms Dlamini-Zuma is getting a sustainable solution to the problem.

“It is something worth noting because it is now becoming obvious that the continent can actually finance the operations of the AU and peacekeeping activities. This will make the organisation more credible and sustainable,” Mr Lopes said.

During the Kigali Summit, heads of state adopted a new model that will see member states finance the Union’s activities to the tune of $1.2b from 2017 from a 0.2 per cent tax levied on eligible imports.

By Dicta Asiimwe and Edmund Kagire

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