Foreign Intervention in Africa after the Cold War. Elizabeth SchmidtЧитать онлайн книгу.
if attacked or threatened with attack. They are not authorized to use force to protect civilians or to disarm parties to the dispute. They may not impose peace in the context of war. If war resumes, peacekeeping forces authorized under Chapter VI are generally withdrawn or their mandate is transformed into a Chapter VII peace enforcement mandate. Chapter VII of the UN Charter provides for UN intervention to maintain or restore peace, even in cases in which the main parties to the conflict have not acceded to UN involvement. Under this more robust mandate, UN troops are permitted to use force to counter threats to international peace and security even when peacekeepers are not directly threatened. They also may be authorized to protect civilians, humanitarian aid workers, and relief convoys, and to disarm and demobilize warring parties.
Because the UN Security Council determines which peacekeeping operations will be authorized and funded, the five permanent members wield enormous power. They generally choose to fund only those operations that support their interests and to end operations that oppose or no longer serve their interests. The three Western members fund nearly half the peacekeeping budget.6 Therefore they exercise disproportionate control over the operations, using their financial clout to determine where UN missions are sent and for how long.
Because East and West often failed to agree, there were few UN peacekeeping missions during the Cold War. In its immediate aftermath, Western powers were more concerned about maintaining the peace in Europe—specifically in the Balkans—than in Africa, where Cold War dictators were left to fail and rival forces jockeyed for position in the resulting power vacuums. During the 1990s, the Security Council withdrew UN peacekeepers from Somalia in the face of a deepening crisis and from Rwanda in the midst of a genocide, while the growing conflict in Liberia was ignored. By the decade’s end, however, the Security Council had begun to work with African regional and subregional organizations to secure peace in Sudan, the DRC, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Côte d’Ivoire—all countries of considerable interest to the West, and in the case of Sudan, also to China. The UN provided significant funds for these operations, which in turn enabled it to influence the substance of the peace agreements and, to a lesser extent, their implementation.
A third chapter of the UN Charter provides for subregional and regional involvement in dispute settlement. Chapter VIII stipulates that if strife within or between countries threatens international peace and security, subregional and regional bodies are the most appropriate first responders. If one or more states cannot resolve a conflict or are not deemed neutral arbiters, the appropriate subregional organization is expected to respond. If those efforts fail, the continentwide regional organization is called upon. If the subregional or regional body lacks material resources or political will, the UN may intervene, often in collaboration with those organizations. No enforcement actions may be taken by subregional or regional bodies without UN Security Council authorization.
Regional Organizations
Organization of African Unity
During the first post–Cold War decade, the most important regional organization in Africa was the Organization of African Unity. Established in May 1963 by thirty-two independent African states, the OAU promoted national liberation in territories still under colonial or white minority rule and provided liberation movements with military, economic, and diplomatic support. For nearly four decades the organization served as an important voice for African emancipation. Many African states argued that the OAU should assume responsibility for conflict prevention and resolution on the continent, countering the great-power bias on the UN Security Council. However, the OAU Charter was the product of compromise, drafted under the conservative influence of Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie and sensitive to the political realities of a divided continent. It prohibited the organization’s interference in the internal affairs of member states. Moreover, unity among African states was both fragile and superficial. The OAU was marked by political, economic, religious, and personal rivalries, and the organization represented the interests of autocratic rulers more often than those of grassroots citizens. Because the organization did not possess enforcement powers, its resolutions had little effect beyond their moral appeal.
African Union
In July 2002 the OAU was succeeded by the African Union, an amalgam of the OAU and the African Economic Community, which was established in 1991 to promote African economic integration. Addressing deficiencies in the OAU mandate, the AU’s mission is to integrate Africa politically and economically and to promote peace, security, stability, and sustainable development on the continent. In contrast to the OAU Charter, which supported the principle of noninterference in the internal affairs of member states, the AU’s Constitutive Act permits the organization to take punitive action against member states that violate principles of democracy, good governance, and the rule of law. It may authorize military intervention in a member state if it determines that “war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity” are being committed or if the state’s actions threaten regional stability.7 However, even the AU’s strengthened mandate provides insufficient protection to victims of human rights abuses. The actions of corrupt or authoritarian regimes may fall outside the categories stipulated in the Constitutive Act, and governments that engage in human rights abuses are unlikely to support intervention in states with similar practices. The Constitutive Act authorizes the establishment of an African standby force composed of military, police, and civilian brigades from each of Africa’s five subregions, which would be capable of rapid deployment to crisis areas. However, such a force was still in the formative stages in 2017. Other factors that weaken AU effectiveness include rivalry between Nigeria and South Africa and AU dependence on outside sources for funding. Many of the organization’s peacekeeping missions are financed by extracontinental entities—most importantly, the UN, the EU, the United States, and France. Their financial clout gives these external powers undue control over AU missions and actions.
European Union
Established in 1958 to promote economic cooperation between European countries, the European Economic Community (EEC) was renamed the European Union in 1993, reflecting an expanded mission that embraced foreign policy and security, climate change and environment, and international development and migration. In 2017, the EU had twenty-eight members.8 Strong historical and geographic links and rich natural resources have made Africa central to European concerns. The Joint Africa-EU Strategy, endorsed in 2007 by eighty African and European heads of state, highlighted areas of common interest, including peace and security, international development and migration, and democracy, good governance, and human rights. The EU has provided substantial funds to strengthen African conflict resolution, security, and counterterrorism capacities and for African-led peacekeeping operations, such as the AU mission in Somalia. Its financial role gives the European organization significant influence over African affairs and establishes yet another kind of Northern dominance. The EU has also contributed considerable sums to develop African capacities to impede the flow of refugees and other migrants to Europe, an effort that serves European, rather than African, interests.
Arab League
Established in 1945 by Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Transjordan, and Yemen, the League of Arab States, or Arab League, was a product of the pan-Arab nationalist movement that rose in response to Ottoman and European rule in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The League’s vision also harkened back to the Islamic caliphates established by Muhammad and his successors, which, during the seventh and eighth centuries, united all Muslims in a single political entity. The organization aspired to promote collaboration between its member states, to protect their independence and sovereignty, and to advance Arab interests more generally. It opposed the violent settlement of disputes between members and often mediated in regional conflicts. However, it had no mechanism to enforce compliance with its resolutions, and only member states that approved the resolutions were bound to adhere to them. As a result, actions taken in the name of the Arab League were often motivated by the interests of particular member states, which financed and spearheaded the operations. In fact, Arab unity was more a hope than a reality. The Arab world,