“Africa’s regional organizations will . . . need to urgently improve their rapid- response capacity to ensure that the continent does not keep relying for its secu- rity on self-interested external powers.”

UN and the Quest for a Pax Africana Adekeye Adebajo

he Kenyan scholar Ali Mazrui presented the Economic Community of West African States idea of a “Pax Africana” in a seminal 1967 (ECOWAS) mission in Guinea-Bissau. In fact, Tstudy, arguing that Africans should muster about 75 percent of the UN’s 98,350 peacekeep- the will to create and consolidate peace on their ers, and eight of its sixteen current peacekeeping own continent. Mazrui wrote in the aftermath of missions, are deployed in Africa. Five of the top the Congo crisis of 1960–64, when the United ten contributors to UN peacekeeping are African Nations was struggling to keep peace amid a trau- nations: Ethiopia, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, and matic civil . The fact that the world body still Ghana. struggles with peacekeeping in the same country, four decades later, is an eloquent metaphor for the Law of the jungle arduous and continuing quest for a Pax Africana. The five permanent members of the UN Security Peacekeeping efforts in Africa are often por- Council, which are mandated to maintain global trayed in Manichean terms. They are either spec- peace, account for about 70 percent of the arms tacular “successes,” as with the short-term victory sales that continue to fuel conflicts on the conti- of a 3,000-strong Southern African Development nent. This group has come to resemble several of Community (SADC) force that routed the M23 the characters in Aesop’s fables. The United States rebels in eastern Congo as part of a UN mission is the lion—the king of the jungle—that lays in 2013; or else they are spectacular “failures,” as down the law and hunts other beasts. The bear, with the current inability of 2,000 French troops of course, is Russia; the lion and the bear fought and about 6,000 Economic Community of Central over a goat, according to Aesop, just as the United African States (ECCAS) peacekeepers—“rehatted” States and the Soviet Union engaged in a global as UN troops—to stop sectarian massacres in the , with proxy conflicts in Africa. Central African Republic. UN missions in South Meanwhile, China is like an elephant, some- Sudan (some 8,500 troops) and Sudan’s Darfur times dismissed as “big for nothing,” given its region (more than 19,000 troops) are also counted aversion to taking proactive stances on the Security as failures. Council. However, the elephant has big ears and Often forgotten by Western observers are the listens more than it speaks. It also has a long ongoing efforts of the Ugandan-led, 22,000-strong memory, and appears to be playing a long game to African Union (AU) peacekeeping mission in acquire more power before showing its strength. and the Nigerian-led, 750-strong France is like the wolf in sheep’s clothing, hunting vulnerable lambs. It deployed troops in Rwanda in 1994 on the pretense of launching Adekeye Adebajo is the executive director of the Center for a “humanitarian intervention,” having earlier Conflict Resolution in Cape Town. He has served on missions in South Africa, Western Sahara, and Iraq. armed and trained militias that committed the His books include The Curse of Berlin: Africa After the Cold genocide in which 800,000 people perished. As in War (Columbia University Press, 2010); UN Peacekeeping in Aesop’s tale, the wolf is fooled by its own shadow Africa (Lynne Rienner, 2011); and the edited volume Africa’s Peacemakers: Nobel Peace Laureates of African Descent into believing that it is bigger than it actually is, (Zed Books, 2014). and suffers from delusions of grandeur. Britain,

178 UN Peacekeeping and the Quest for a Pax Africana • 179 for its part, is like the sly fox that is often prepared similarly pushed the government of Sudan—its to betray friends—recalling historical memories of third-largest trading partner in Africa—to accept “Perfidious Albion” and Lord Palmerston’s dictum a UN peacekeeping force in Darfur in 2007. that countries have neither permanent friends nor The games that these powers play must always permanent enemies, but only permanent interests. be placed at the center of any analysis of UN UN peacekeeping in Africa is effectively a story peacekeeping missions, for it is often these games about the games that great powers play. These that help determine the fate of such interventions. games have often determined the outcomes of Peacekeeping has often operated on the basis that peacekeeping missions in Africa and elsewhere. those who pay the piper also call the tune, and After the deployment of the first armed UN peace- Western interests (particularly those of the United keeping mission to end the 1956 Suez crisis, Cold States, Britain, and France) have tended to dictate War politics overshadowed future missions— where and when these missions are deployed, and most dramatically illustrated by the Congo crisis for how long. four years later. The Suez mission resulted from the machina- Aligning interests tions of Britain and France and, to a large extent, A successful peacekeeping mission brings sta- set the tone for the Congo crisis. There, the United bility by implementing the key tasks of its stated States and Britain lined up on the side of pro- mandate—typically, a cease-fire; disarmament, Western Congolese leaders and sought to use the demobilization, and rehabilitation; and elections. UN peacekeeping mission to oppose the “radical,” Perhaps the most important measure of success, Pan-African prime minister, Patrice Lumumba, in however, is whether stability endures after the order to prevent the spread of Soviet communism peacekeepers have departed, even if all their tasks (Moscow was supporting Lumumbist elements) have not been completed. to the huge country at the Since the UN’s peacekeep- heart of Africa. This strat- ing successes and failures egy eventually produced the Africa has been a giant laboratory are often contingent on ruinous four-decade dic- the domestic, regional, and for global peacekeeping over the tatorship of the Western- external dynamics of con- backed Mobutu Sese Seko. past six and a half decades. flict situations, it is impor- France, meanwhile, refused tant to pay close attention to pay any peacekeeping to the politics of peacekeep- dues; and from the 1970s on, it attempted to draw ing and not just focus on technical and logistical Congo into its neocolonial francophone sphere of constraints. While these constraints are impor- influence in Africa. tant, political consensus—particularly among the The end of the Cold War and the increased powerful members of the Security Council—is cooperation between the United States and Russia often more significant in determining the suc- facilitated the deployment of UN peacekeepers cess or failure of missions in Africa. Technically to Namibia, Angola, Mozambique, and Somalia deficient peacekeeping missions can still succeed between 1989 and 1992. None of these missions with strong political support, while the most would have been possible during the Cold War technically brilliant peace operations are likely era of proxy waged by the superpowers. to be undermined by a lack of commitment. For During UN missions in Sierra Leone and Ivory example, the UN succeeded in Namibia (1989– Coast after 2000, the British and the French still 90), Mozambique (1992–94), and eventually in demonstrated some residual attitudes of guilt Sierra Leone (1999–2005) and Burundi (2004–6), and possessiveness toward their former colonies. despite logistical and financial constraints, where- Historical ties largely determined American sup- as well-resourced missions in Somalia (1992–93) port for a UN mission in Liberia, which had been a and Angola (1995–97) were spectacular failures. US client under the autocratic Samuel Doe during Based on a thorough assessment of 15 major UN the 1980s. Likewise, Moscow was able to nudge peacekeeping operations in Africa between 1960 former Marxist allies in Angola and Mozambique and 2014, three key factors stand out as having to the negotiating table when the Soviets sought most often contributed to success. First, the inter- improved ties with the West in the late 1980s dur- ests of key permanent members of the Security ing the reformist era of Mikhail Gorbachev. China Council must be aligned with efforts to resolve 180 • CURRENT HISTORY • May 2014 the conflict in question, and those members must can employ to encourage cooperation (sometimes be willing to mobilize diplomatic and financial even funding the participation of regional con- support for peace processes. Second, the belliger- tingents in peacekeeping efforts, as with the AU ent parties must be willing to cooperate with the missions in Darfur and Somalia). They can also UN to implement accords; in cases where such sanction countries supporting spoilers by “nam- cooperation is not forthcoming, it is essential to ing and shaming” them through UN reports, or develop an effective strategy to deal with potential by applying diplomatic or economic pressure on spoilers who are prepared to use violence to wreck them. Such actions were used against Angola’s peace processes. Third, regional players must Jonas Savimbi, Liberia’s Charles Taylor, and more cooperate, as well as provide diplomatic and/or recently, the government of Paul Kagame in military support to UN peacekeeping efforts. Rwanda. The alignment of interests at these three interde- The increasing security emphasis of US policy pendent levels—external, domestic, and regional— toward Africa has often complicated rather than has often shaped the course and outcomes of UN assisted regional and UN peacekeeping efforts. missions in Africa. One must highlight the critical The presence of 1,500 American soldiers since role of the most powerful members of the Security 2002 in Djibouti to track terrorists on the Horn of Council, since they are the only actors who have Africa has done nothing to support state-building the power to start or end peacekeeping missions efforts in Somalia or South Sudan. The US Africa by the world body. The Security Council must Command (AFRICOM)—which is deeply unpopu- ensure the consent of domestic parties to imple- lar across the continent—now costs Washington ment peace agreements, and has the authority to $300 million a year, with 100 training programs develop incentives for cooperation or sanctions for and exercises in 35 African countries. Based noncompliance. in Germany, AFRICOM was involved in NATO’s The five permanent members of the Security “regime change” campaign in Libya in 2011 and is Council have frequently played a key role in currently combating piracy and oil bunkering on orchestrating regional cooperation, since they the Gulf of Guinea, as well as fighting narcotraf- often have influence over regional actors that they ficking in West Africa. One hundred American special forces troops were deployed to the Great Lakes to hunt the Ugandan warlord Joseph Kony Y IN US From the archives TOR TH in 2011, followed by a deployment of war- IS E H M of Current History… A planes to Uganda in March 2014. Washington K I N has provided $355 million to the AU mission in “Economic sanctions 1 G Somalia, though many African armies complain against Rwanda were that they need more logistical support and equip- never on the agenda. ment for peacekeeping—not counterterrorism Although they would training. have taken too long to have any effect in the short term, the issue was never even raised. French meddling and mali If the crime had been committed on nearly The French intervention in Mali in January any other continent, there can be little doubt 2013 to repel an offensive by Islamic militants that moves would have been initiated by at from the north may have brought temporary least some major Western countries to ini- stability to France’s former West African colony tiate sanctions. Why not in Rwanda? The and allowed elections to take place in July and triumph of humanitarianism is part of the August 2013, but it also reinforced French neoco- answer; the agenda was being set by inter- lonial influence. Africans should be wary: France national relief organizations. The other ele- is offering to provide security while shamelessly ment is the characterization of the crisis as promoting more parochial political, strategic, ‘uncontrollable tribal anarchy.’” and economic interests. Since 1960, France has Alex de Waal and Rakiya Omaar acted like a pyromaniac fireman, intervening over “The Genocide in Rwanda and 50 times in Africa to prop up or depose assorted the International Response” tyrants and maintaining a sordid web of relation- April 1995 ships known as Françafrique. More recently, Paris provided military support to prop up autocratic UN Peacekeeping and the Quest for a Pax Africana • 181 regimes in Chad and the Central African Republic tinued to support, rather than challenge, neoco- (CAR) in 2006, and again in Chad in 2008. Africa lonial French actions in countries like Mali, Ivory is the only area in the world where France contin- Coast, the CAR, Chad, and Libya. Washington pro- ues to wield such influence; there are still 7,000 vided logistical support for France’s deployment French troops deployed across the continent. in Mali. By 2013, it had also deployed drones to Following the dubious French role during the Niger to target militants in Mali, and had a small 1994 and the fall of Congo’s number of soldiers operating on the ground in Mobutu three years later, Paris now seeks to mul- Mali—a key country for the US-led Trans-Sahara tilateralize its previously unilateral interventions. Counterterrorism Partnership. Between 2009 and France persuaded the UN and the European Union 2012, the United States had spent $41 million to support the deployment of francophone African training officers who went on to carry out a or European troops in the CAR between 1998 and disastrous 2012 coup in Mali, including their 2000, and in Chad and the CAR between 2008 leader, Captain Amadou Sanogo. Before the coup, and 2010. Paris currently has 450 troops in Ivory Washington had shifted resources from Mali to Coast alongside UN peacekeepers, and maintains Mauritania and Niger because it felt the Malians a military presence in Senegal, Chad, Djibouti, were not focused enough on American counterter- Gabon, and the CAR. While stability may have rorism and anti-narcotics priorities. In response improved in some of these cases, it was incidental to the coup, the United States pressured Algeria to protecting more important political and eco- (which has historically been wary of French influ- nomic interests in France’s historical chasse gardée ence in the region) to back an African-led military (private hunting ground). intervention in Mali. As Islamic and Tuareg militants advanced Despite its supposedly humanitarian inter- toward Mali’s capital, Bamako, in January 2013, vention in Mali, France has long had economic routing weak and demor- interests in the country’s alized Malian government uranium sector, and sent forces, France launched International donors are spending troops to guard uranium “Operation Serval,” deploy- mines in neighboring Niger a pittance on peace-building ing 4,000 troops. Alongside in 2013. About 75 percent troops from autocratic projects in Africa. of French electricity pro- Chad, the French retook duction relies on nuclear the major towns in north- power. A French govern- ern Mali, forcing many of the militants to melt ment white paper issued in April 2013 singled out away into the desert and mountains of the Sahel. Africa as a priority area for defense and security, Paris’s clout within the UN Security Council and envisaging future interventions like the one in in its French-led Department of Peacekeeping Mali and urging Paris to maintain at least four Operations was demonstrated by the creation of military bases on the continent. a UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization The African mission in Mali was clearly set up Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) in July 2013. for failure, and had to be resurrected as MINUSMA. Although the world body had previously dragged In the international community’s grisly aristoc- its feet before pledging half-hearted support to a racy of death, the lives of African peacekeepers 3,300-strong African-led International Support are still considered to be worth less than those of Mission in Mali (AFISMA) in December 2012, the Western peacekeepers. After the French military UN failed to provide the pan-African force with intervention, the UN authorized a force that was logistical and financial resources until the French four times as large as the proposed African force, intervention a month later. Paris used its clout to exposing the duplicity of its Western-dominated ensure that the EU approved a training mission for Security Council. AFISMA was a cheap way of the Malian army, guaranteeing continuing Gallic sending African troops as cannon fodder to influence. France further announced that it would be slaughtered by Islamic militants, in the full maintain a 1,000-strong garrison in Mali to work knowledge that the troops lacked the numbers, alongside MINUSMA, undertaking counterinsur- logistics, and financing to sustain themselves in gency and peace-enforcement missions. the field. Their initial strength of 3,300 was tri- One of the greatest disappointments of Barack pled to 9,500 shortly after the French interven- Obama’s presidency for Africa is that he has con- tion, and the support that had previously been 182 • CURRENT HISTORY • May 2014 denied suddenly appeared. This is the Ivorian ence in countries such as Mali and the CAR. They model, employed since 2003: France deploys would, however, need to work with other impor- troops outside the UN chain of command while tant African states like the North African hege- the world body subsidizes stability in a country mon, Algeria, which shares a similar antipathy to in which Paris has political, strategic, and eco- French interventionism. nomic interests. French interventions clearly will As France’s economic support for its former not bring long-term stability to Africa. colonies declines, there may be an opportunity for South Africa and Nigeria to upstage Paris in Regional gatekeepers influencing the course of future peacekeeping France has been more successful than South missions in Africa. France’s economy is sickly, and Africa and Nigeria at exerting hegemony in its it has reduced its military spending, cutting the francophone sphere of influence in Africa, due size of its army from 88,000 troops to 66,000 and to nearly a century of colonial rule during which freezing its defense budget. This will surely have it entrenched its cultural, political, and eco- serious implications for France’s ability to launch nomic dominance, particularly among the elites. future military interventions in Africa. Thirteen francophone African states tied their currencies to the French franc, with Paris effec- Division of labor tively controlling the zone’s central banks and the In his 1992 report An Agenda for Peace, then– French treasury holding all their foreign reserves. UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali French industrial giants continue to monopolize argued forcefully for humanitarian intervention francophone African markets, while Paris has pre- in places like Somalia, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, served priority access to strategic minerals such advocating the use of regional security arrange- as uranium, bauxite, and oil. Neither South Africa ments to lighten the UN’s heavy peacekeeping nor Nigeria has yet been able burden. Two decades later, to leave such a lasting politi- there is still a pressing need cal and cultural imprint on its UN peacekeeping in Africa to establish a proper divi- respective subregion. sion of labor between the UN is effectively a story about the In the CAR, where France and Africa’s fledgling security and South Africa have had games that great powers play. organizations, which must be rival mineral interests, Paris greatly strengthened. outmaneuvered Pretoria by Rwanda’s 1993 Arusha using francophone Chad as a proxy, while the peace agreement, the 1999 Lusaka accord for the killing of 13 South African troops forced Pretoria Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and the in April 2013 to withdraw from the CAR and a 2000 Algiers accords that ended the Ethiopia- subregion it did not really understand. South Eritrea conflict all revealed the military impotence Africa had earlier faced French obstruction- of the Organization of African Unity (replaced ism in its peacemaking efforts in francophone by the AU in 2002), whose members lacked the Ivory Coast and Madagascar. Nigeria and France resources to implement agreements they had clashed over Mali; Paris used its clout with negotiated without UN peacekeepers. In Sierra francophone Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast in Leone (in 2000) and Liberia (in 2003), the UN mediation efforts, as well as on the UN Security took over peacekeeping duties from the ECOWAS Council, to frustrate Nigerian influence. That Ceasefire Monitoring Group—a mission for which led to the West African Gulliver’s withdrawal of Nigeria suffered 1,500 fatalities and expended 944 of its 1,200 peacekeepers from Mali by 2014, over $1 billion. The UN also took over the South leaving a token force. African–led AU mission in Burundi in 2004 and An important aspect of hegemony is a “gate- the ECOWAS mission in Ivory Coast that same keeping” role in which regional powers seek to year, as well as the AU mission in Darfur in 2007. fence off their region and keep external pow- Yet the Security Council has not done enough to ers out. Could South Africa and Nigeria, in the strengthen the capacity of regional organizations future, formulate a continental Monroe Doctrine and to collaborate effectively with them in the that keeps France out of Africa? The two African field. powers appear to be starting to collaborate more The missions in Sierra Leone, Liberia, Burundi, closely in response to continuing Gallic influ- and Congo could, however, signify an innovative UN Peacekeeping and the Quest for a Pax Africana • 183 approach to peacekeeping in Africa based on ing missions to ensure sufficient legitimacy and regional pillars supported by local hegemons resources. like Nigeria and South Africa. Their politi- cal dominance of such missions is diluted by Real commitment multinational peacekeepers from outside their Africa has been a giant laboratory for global regions. Placing regional forces under the UN peacekeeping over the past six and a half decades. flag can allow peacekeepers to enjoy the legiti- Between 1948 and 2013, about 40 percent (28 macy and impartiality that the world body out of 68) of the UN’s peacekeeping and observer often provides, while some of the financial and missions were deployed in Africa; 27 of the 55 logistical problems of regional powers can be UN peacekeeping missions in the post–Cold War alleviated through greater burden sharing. These era have been on the continent. The “Katanga missions should also be more accountable, since rule” (peacekeepers may use force in self-defense the peacekeepers will have to report regularly to and to assist missions to fulfill their tasks) and the Security Council. This in turn might force the “Mogadishu line” (avoiding “mission creep”) the Council to focus more effectively on African were both influenced by African cases. Two conflicts, which account for about 60 percent of Africans—Egypt’s Boutros-Ghali and Ghana’s its time, a quantity of engagement frequently not Annan—served as UN secretaries general during matched by sufficient resources or strategies. the critical post–Cold War years. Boutros-Ghali, In 2005, Boutros-Ghali’s successor as UN sec- Annan, Algerian diplomat Lakhdar Brahimi, retary general, Kofi Annan, called on donors to and South Sudanese scholar-diplomat Francis devise a 10-year capacity-building plan with the Deng led some of the most important conceptual AU that aimed to develop an African Standby debates and initiatives on UN peacekeeping and Force (ASF) for peacekeeping. This 15,000-strong interventions after the Cold War. But despite this pan-continental force was supposed to have been history, the UN still struggles to support peace- ready for deployment by 2010, but the deadline keeping effectively in Africa. was moved to 2015. South Africa has pushed If future peacekeeping missions are to suc- for the creation of an interim force. The ASF is ceed, real commitment is needed. Nearly 90 to be based on five subregional brigades built percent of funding for UN peacekeeping mis- around members of the SADC, ECOWAS, ECCAS, sions goes directly to support the salaries and the Intergovernmental Authority on Development other needs of the operations themselves, not (in East Africa), and the Arab Maghreb Union. By the time UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon AU Y IN delivered a progress report on the capacity- From the archives TOR TH IS E H M building program in February 2011, it was clear of Current History… A K I that not much progress had been made in estab- N lishing sustainable support for regional peace- “Partitioned among G different colonial pow- 1 keeping efforts in Africa. The UN had provided ers, Africa is aware of support to the AU Commission in Addis Ababa to the patterns of colo- help establish the ASF; the UN Office to the African Union was coordinating activities between both nial policies of these different powers, but in bodies by July 2010; and annual meetings are now all, Africans know that whatever the differ- ences, colonialism is essentially the same. It held between the UN Security Council and the AU Peace and Security Council (though Washington exploits a people, it denies them their basic has made clear this is not a meeting between two right to self-determination, and by a differ- equal bodies). ence of degrees it subjects a people to a state But the funding for implementing Annan’s of human indignity and humiliation, mak- initiative was never approved—necessitating ad ing them into second or third rate citizens in hoc support from existing projects—and no full- their own country.” fledged program of activities was developed to Tom Mboya fulfil the objectives of the 10-year plan. African “Our Revolutionary Tradition: nations must ensure that the UN assumes its An African View” proper responsibilities on the continent, sup- December 1956 porting and then taking over regional peacekeep- 184 • CURRENT HISTORY • May 2014 to rebuilding war-torn countries. Only if sub- essential. Africa’s regional organizations will also stantial resources are provided to rebuild state need to urgently improve their rapid-response institutions and security sectors can the root capacity to ensure that the continent does not causes of conflicts be genuinely addressed, and keep relying on self-interested external powers countries be saved from relapsing into war after for its security. peacekeepers have left. International donors are The DRC is a territory the size of Western spending a pittance on peace-building projects in Europe in which a two-decade conflict fueled Africa—compared, for example, with the billions by resource and citizenship issues, and involv- of dollars that were spent restoring the Balkans ing meddling regional spoilers like Rwanda and to health in the 1990s. Uganda, has resulted in over three million deaths. Three African conflicts are particularly impor- Sanctions, such as the withdrawal of donor assis- tant to prioritize: those in South Sudan, the CAR, tance to Kigali in 2013 for backing rebels in the and the DRC. Oil-rich South Sudan became Africa’s DRC, should continue to be employed. The South newest state in 2011, and its current conflict, in African–led SADC force—also including Tanzania which over 1,000 people have died and 400,000 and Malawi—helped rout M23 rebels in the Kivu have been displaced, is tragic. The conflict has region. The future is likely to test the SADC’s polit- militarized ethnic tensions between the largest ical will, since its force will almost certainly face groups, the Dinka and the Nuer. These fissures increased risks on this dangerous mission. will need to be carefully managed by regional Another priority for Africa is the need to bol- actors like Ethiopia and Kenya and external pow- ster its regional pillars. Five countries that con- ers like the United States and China. tribute 75 percent of the AU’s regular budget are In the CAR, nearly one million people have currently experiencing diverse challenges. South been displaced and thousands killed. France’s Africa continues to be dogged by the negative autocratic client, Chad, has played a leading and effects of growing socioeconomic inequalities. sometimes dubious peacemaking role in the CAR, Nigeria is engaged in an internal battle with Boko while French interests in the mineral-rich coun- Haram terrorists. Military-dominated Algeria faces try remain a source of concern for Africa, as do accusations of exporting its domestic terrorists to its interests in Mali and Ivory Coast. Although neighboring Mali. Egypt (which was suspended stability is clearly essential in managing the from the AU in 2013 following a coup) has CAR’s religious and ethnic fault lines, the inter- returned to a thinly veiled form of military rule, national community—including the EU, which while large parts of Libya are controlled by local is hesitating to implement an earlier promise warlords. These problems will constrain the lead- to deploy peacekeepers—must not simply sub- ership of the regional pillars and their ability to sidize French interests in the country. A genu- promote peacekeeping in Africa. The quest for an inely international force under UN command is elusive Pax Africana will thus continue. ■