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The African Union and International Aggression

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) decision to oust Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi with force has drawn criticism and polemics from the African Union (AU) lamenting the manner the air campaign has been carried out resulting in massive losses of civilian lives and a blatant disregard for Libya’s sovereignty. In a BBC interview Chairman of the African Union Commission, Dr Jean Ping complained that the continental body was never consulted before the imposition of a no-fly zone over Libya. Even though some measure of recognition has been extended to the National Transitional Council (NTC) with the AU pledging support for the interim government during the phase of reconstruction as outlined in a statement from the president of Equatorial Guinea, Teodoro Obiang Nguema, who holds the bloc’s rotating chair, the continent still appears to be conflicted about the way and manner regime change has been carried out in the oil rich North African country.

Some political pundits have called the NATO campaign illegal lambasting the conversion of the imposition of a no-fly zone into a forceful removal of a sitting President. Of course remarks have also been made about Gaddafi’s seminal role in the formation of the African Union itself after its establishment in July 2002 replacing the erstwhile Organization of African Unity. The former dictator’s financial contributions towards the creation of the union and his call for a continental government leading to a United States of Africa has been lauded by African leaders as well as scholars. It is interesting to note however, that the support for the ousted Libyan leader comes at a time when the AU is calling for the democratization of member states and the respect for Human Rights within the ranks of member countries.

The fundamental contradiction in the AU’s willingness to endorse a political despot like Gaddafi whilst calling for good governance and respect for Human Rights underscores a lack of focus in its operational mandate. Unfortunately, a lot of the continent’s rulers sympathize with the former Libyan leader because of their protracted stay in power. How can Africa really and truly adhere to the basic tenets of good governance and democratic rule when the incumbent chair of the AU has himself been blamed and criticized for failing to democratize the institutions in his country?

The continent’s drive towards economic emancipation will never be realized unless the proper measures are put in place to ensure proper political dispensation within African states. The call for responsible and sound political leadership is key to Africa’s economic growth. It therefore behooves regional organizations such as ECOWAS, SADC, EAC and COMESA in conjunction with the main continental body to engage in corrective leadership whereby African leaders who ignore democratic rule are reprimanded or isolated for their actions by other continental leaders.

To some extent the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) was adopted within the framework of the African Union to harmonize the continent’s political values and urge African states to practice and respect proper methods of governance. Unfortunately, the brilliant initiative which appeared to be unique to the continent has lost steam and seems to have lost the support it once enjoyed from continental leaders such as John A. Kufuor of Ghana. The AU is therefore no longer in a good position to monitor the political practices of member states and to ensure that they conform with the continental endeavor for  proper economic and governance values as outlined in the 37th Summit of the Organization of African Unity held in July 2001 in Lusaka, Zambia, adopting a document setting out a new vision for the revival and development of Africa.

Political underdevelopment therefore continues culminating in economic backwardness rendering it difficult if not outright impossible for the continent to stand up to or resist international aggression such as the NATO military action in Libya. The  time has come for the continent’s rulers to realize that in the realm of international relations, might is indeed right and until Africa becomes a major player economically and places itself in a good position to influence global trade and finance the continent’s interest will always remain secondary to the imperialistic tendencies of the West.

Unfortunately, the AU as the showpiece for the continent’s evolution is failing to engineer the needed political changes that will bring forth prosperity for Africa and its people. African states continue to perpetually rely on their colonial masters for financial sustenance due to their inability to make proper use of the bountiful resources at their disposal. Economic mismanagement, corruption, political nepotism and tribalism are still features of African politics making it increasingly difficult for the continent to become a major player when it comes to international politics.  Africa’s inability to make meaningful contributions to global economics and the lack of technological progress or proper industrialization means that the continent will continue to stay on the margins of international affairs negotiating from a position of weakness and remaining as a fertile ground for pillaging and exploitation by Western countries and other growing powers posing as new developmental partners.

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Ignore the African Union, Arrest Murmur Gaddafi

Commentary/African Democracy

Five months into the Libyan crisis that seeks to nurture democracy by clearing out the long-running Murmur Gaddafi dictatorial regime, the Libyan leader digs in precariously. Part of the reasons is the environment Gaddafi finds himself in – Africa, where he has like-minded leaders.

The June 29 to July 1 African Union (AU) Summit in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea that said African leaders “will not subscribe or respect the recent arrest warrant” smacked on Gaddafi by the International Criminal Court (ICC)” for crimes against humanity is inopportune for Africa’s democratic growth.

The AU’s stand on Gaddafi isn’t surprising. The Gaddafi lobby had recruited ex-Ghanaian dictator President Jerry Rawlings, who has weak democratic credentials and was helped by Gaddafi in 1981 to topple the democratically elected President Hilla Limann, to Malabo to talk some African leaders to disregard the ICC warrant. Similar arrest warrant slapped on the Sudanese President Omar el-Bashir on July 12, 2010, whose forces have killed over 300,000 civilians in Sudan’s Darfur, has not been enforced by AU members. In fact, Gaddafi had earlier arm-twisted fellow African leaders to ignore the ICC warrant whacked on el-Bashir.

African leaders do not share common democratic purpose. This is nauseating. They are tyrannical playactors against Africa’s real democratic needs – the rule of law, freedoms, social justice, equality and deep decentralization as harbingers for authentic advancement. This has made the swaggering AU a forum of unrealistic dictators at collision with realistic democrats. This is putting Africa’s emerging democracy and progress at risk.

Another bad omen for African democrats was the fact that Malabo, unlike Accra (Ghana) or Port Louis (Mauritius), wasn’t a positive democratic venue for their struggles. The dark, nightmarish undemocratic forces in Malabo were too strong for the burgeoning African democrats. The gloomy autocratic forces were able to disable the blossoming African democracy. Teodoro Obiang, the President of Equatorial Guinea, who hosted the AU summit and was elected the new chair of the AU, is horrific premonition for African democrats.

Equatorial Guinea is practically a one-party system despite multiparty democracy enshrined in its 1991 constitution. With only a population of 668,225, Equatorial Guinea may be oil rich but majority of Equatorial Guineans survive on less than US$2.00 a day. This is despite the fact that the US State Department reports, “the 2010 government revenue was about US$6.739 billion.”

Irrationally believing he is a God-sent, like Gaddafi and other African leaders, Teodoro Obiang has ruled Equatorial Guinea wistfully for 31 years, luckily dodging off attempts to overthrow him. With one of the worst human rights violations in Africa, Obiang tortures and has killed hundreds of Equatorial Guineans to contain opposition.

Whether in Malabo, Teodoro Obiang or Gaddafi, at issue are democratic values driven by Africans’ experiences and history. Malabo, Teodoro Obiang or Gaddafi is allergic to democratic ideals. They cannot put up with democratic daylight beamed onto their dark authoritarian practices by African democrats.

In this sense, at the heart of the tussle between the AU and the ICC are Africa’s democratic enlargement and its implications for Africa’s progress – based on Africa’s dark history of tyranny, social injustice and corruption by its leaders such as Gaddafi. The ICC incursion into Africa’s democratic growth, as Cote d’Ivoire’s President Alassane Ouattara indicated when he asked the ICC to “investigate allegations of serious human rights crimes committed during the country’s recent turmoil,” is that years of dictatorship have made the African legal system frail and at the mercy of dictators like Gaddafi.

Against this backdrop, it isn’t surprising that Gaddafi thinks the pro-democracy campaigners are possessed with evil spirits and should be ritually killed to cleanse Libya. But for NATO (the North Atlantic Treaty Organization) Gaddafi would have engaged in mass butchering of the Libyan pro-democracy campaigners. In the fashion of African style-human sacrifice, Gaddafi had planned to purify the Libyan society with the blood of the Libyan democrats.

While the world condemned Gaddafi, most African leaders did not. The reasons are obvious, most African leaders’ mind-set aren’t different from Gaddafi. Over the years, Gaddafi has gleefully bankrolled a good number of them. Despite this some African countries and institutions such as the main opposition party in Ghana, the National Patriotic Party, has asked for global support for Libya’s pro-democracy campaigners. The grand old Liberia has sided with Libyan democrats, following the heels of Senegal and Mauritania. Chad, which has suffered over the years from Gaddafi’s disorder, too, “supports efforts to drive Muammar Gaddafi from power.”

African watchers such as the Geoffrey York, of the Toronto-based The Globe And Mail, thinks part of the reasons why African leaders are soft on Gaddafi and shown no support for Africa’s pro-democracy revolutionaries is that democratic “revolution is often a luxury of an educated middle class, and much of Africa is too rural and too poor to sustain a national uprising … Dictators in sub-Sahara Africa often defend their power through a politically loyal military …”

Gaddafi’s legendary use of his family and his Bedouin ethnic group that dominated the Libyan military to violently suppress Libyans quest for democracy and freedoms in the past 42 years is open secret. This is the African “Big Man” syndrome at work, either in the Malabo AU summit or Tripoli’s Green Square, aided by prevailing armies and an unfeeling readiness to use brutality against democracy and freedom activists.

Still, some of the motives for the muted African voices are technology and ethnic and religious. Geoffrey York argues that limited technologies such as internet make it difficult for Africans to rally for Libyan democrats (Cell phones are hugely common but other forms of technology are limited). “And the ethnic and religious rifts in many African countries are huge obstacle to the organization of national” democratic “protest.”  This has restricted civil society.

Gibril Koroma, the Sierra Leonean publisher of the Vancouver-based www.thepatrioticvanguard.com argues that by not giving higher thoughts to Africa’s democratic evolution and supporting Gaddafi’s violent attacks against Libya’s democrats, the African Union “pumps oxygen into Gaddafi.” That’s sad and inhuman considering Gaddafi’s history of brutalities against Libyans and other Africans. In Gibril Koroma’s own native Sierra Leone, Gaddafi destructively helped finance and traine the murderous Revolutionary United Front that killed, maimed, raped, fire-boomed property, looted diamonds and amputed Sierra Leoneans – cutting off their limbs, noses, ears and genitals.

Other reasons why African leaders constantly keep quiet about Gaddafi’s dictatorial attitude, Gibril Koroma, in an op-ed piece in the Toronto-based Digital Journal argued, is “Gaddafi has used Libyan money to help most of the cash-strapped African countries and has been financially supporting the political and economic unification of the continent. Most African leaders are grateful for this and will stand by him through thick and thin.”

That’s untoward for a continent which progress has been stunted by the likes of Gaddafi. The nascent African democratic experiences reveal that democracy and freedoms will bring indestructibly superior advancement for the struggling Africans. Ghana, Botswana, Cape Verde, Mauritius, Mali, South Africa and Benin Republic attest to this. But majority of other Africans are still suffering under authoritarian regimes like Gaddafi’s.

Plausibly, this makes Gibril Koroma’s other argument that African leaders are cool with Gaddafi because of his make-believe mission of a United States of America and some Western leaders are “hypocrites,” some of whom aren’t “even a signatory to the ICC agreements,” off tangent. Yes, these may be true to some points. But the critical issue is Africa’s healthier democratic fruition for its progress informed by the contemptible political records of African leaders such as Gaddafi.

For their greater progress, Africans should ignore the wobbly African Union’s stand on Gaddafi and arrest Gaddafi if they locate him anywhere on the African continent for the International Criminal Court, for his crimes against Africans.

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African Youth Development Through the Eyes of African Leaders

In the last week’s edition of this column, we rummaged over first two of the resolutions of the African Union 17th ordinary Session in Malabo, Guinea, that dwelled on the employment of youths and creating an avenue for vocational training in the areas of ICT and agriculture. In this concluding part, we shall take a critical look at resolutions three, four and five, that pertain to the provision of adequate resources for youth agenda cum funding of the Pan African Youth Union, and organizing training summit at the middle of every year for youth volunteers, and subsequent posting within the region possibly to serve as volunteers on the bill of the African Union.

African resources have been frittered away to foreign lands for non-economic activities, that had left the continent worse-off than it were in the last 50 years. Each dying year witnesses the pomp and pageantry of expensive Independence celebration ceremonies round the continent, but they celebrate underdevelopment and poverty and dwindling economies. We often hear stories of the ‘good old days’ of the seventies and early eighties, when young graduates had their job placement before they write their final examinations. Civil servants could buy new cars with ease, but what we have today is an array of over-used cars that are only fit for scraps in developed countries, running in African major cities partly because people cannot afford the cost of new ones. What happens to these jobs and new cars? Why are the industries closing shops as the universities churn out thousands of young graduates into the already over-blotted labor market? Does that portend a good future for the present generation, if past years are better than now? This is the bane of brain-drain syndrome plaguing the continent. African leaders must wake up to their responsibilities and provide purposeful leadership in the area of economic empowerment for their young population.

I keep wondering why these leaders have not seen it fit to empower their young population over the years. The scenario has been build-up factions that will empower the youth with guns to sack the entire citizenry and create huge refugee population in order for them to be political saviors. One of the basic problems of youth in Africa is lack of access to quality education. In places where schools are available, young people there do not see the need to go to school as it takes a long time to reap its dividends because the value for ‘quick wealth without labor’ is on the increase. Those who have the gusto and drive to acquire education/skills do not have the financial capacity due to chronic poverty ranging them, as the government care a little less. Moreover, skill acquisition centers that would have been the alternative mode for equipping the youth with technical and entrepreneurial skills are nowhere to be found. Thus, young people are left with no plausible option than to engage in all kinds of unwholesome activities that tend to undermine the moral fabric of their societies just to make ends meet. The example of pockets of insurgent groups in various parts of the continent is a clear case at point, each seeking to be heard depending on what the grievances are, at the expense of civilian casualties.

The Pan African Youth Union has more or less been left moribund for years. Why is it now the leaders deem it fit to dust it up from the shelve in the organization’s archive to give it a new look? African youths are despondent and frustrated because they have been denied opportunity for empowerment economically and politically for the past fifty years. Organizing youth summit in every June/July to train youth volunteers is not a bad idea, but do they have the political will to make it real? How far would the leaders go to move the proposal from paper to practical action? Do all the countries that signed that pact have the capability to absorb these young volunteers (as proposed by the AU), into their economy to participate in the program marshaled out considering the volatile nature of many of these countries? Which country would allow her young people to be sent to a place like Somalia or the DRC? Would this attempt not be another pipeline for the siphoning of public funds without tangible results? Your guess is as good as mine!

Truly, there is nothing nobler than planning for younger generation by their leaders. Nonetheless, the abhorrence of youth by some of these leaders make the whole resolution looks as if that summit in Malabo, was another gathering for our ever- complacent leaders who gather to drink expensive wine, lodge in five-star hotels with tax payers’ money, and consolidate on their business links and forget the plight of their suffering masses back home. Future studies have demonstrated that equipping young people with profound strategies for the unknown is the best way to galvanize any country into prosperity. Until the right atmosphere free of internal conflict, youth unemployment, hunger, militancy and poverty is created in Africa by the leaders;  the impossibility of incessant youths’ unrest in the forms of violent protests and demonstrations would continue to be a mirage.

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African Youths’ Development Through the Eyes of African Leaders (Part 1)

The African Union (AU) has just concluded its 17th Ordinary Session in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea with the theme ‘Accelerating Youth Empowerment for Sustainable Development’. It seems the leaders this time wanted to chart a new direction for the continent’s young people. Meanwhile various matters of importance such as NATO’s bombardment of Libya and Ghaddafi ICC’s arrest warrant cum the recognition of Africa’s newest state of Southern Sudan were discussed; they subsumed them under that theme to demonstrate to African youths that they have their interest at heart with some selected youths in attendance.

With spectacular elegance to youth’s case file, they resolved:

  1. That all Member States should advance the youth agenda and adopt policies and mechanisms towards the creation of safe, decent and competitive employment opportunities by accelerating the implementation of the Youth Decade Plan of Action (2009-2018) and the Ouagadougou 2004 Plan of Action on Employment Promotion and Poverty Alleviation;
  2. That the Commission in collaboration with its partners should elaborate a Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) framework, addressing specifically the domains of Agriculture and ICT, while accelerating the implementation of the Youth Decade Plan of Action
  3. That Member States provide to the Commission adequate resources for the advancement of the Youth Agenda, including the funding of the Pan African Youth Union;
  4. to organize on the margins of every June/July Summit a training program for the Youth Volunteers,
  5. That all trained Young Volunteers should be deployed as soon as possible after their training including placement in the AU organs and the Regional Economic Communities as part of capacity building for young professionals.

A critical look at the resolutions set above by African leaders; depict their collective resolve to solving myriad of problems facing young people in the continent. African youths have for too long been at the receiving end of the leadership failure for decades and their pent-up feeling was let loose in the Arab Spring uprising that caused politico-economic upheaval in the Maghreb states, and the spill-over effect being felt in other parts of the continent. Thanks to the social network sites such as Facebook and Twitters, that linked up young people of varied backgrounds for a collective action. One of the most glaring problems of African youth is unemployment. Taking a cue from the first point of the resolutions, since 2009, how many jobs have these leaders created in their respective countries in consonant with the Youth Decade Plan of Action (YDPA) that has a decade life-span? What is the poverty reduction rate in their different countries since they adopted the Ouagdougou 2004 Plan of Action? I think the hitches that bedeviled the Lagos Plan of Action of the 1980s still persist. Practical realities in many African countries are opposed to the grand orthodoxies contained in their bulletins.

Reiteration of this particular issue pertaining to employment assume prominence in the just concluded summit because Abdulaziz, the Tunisian young man set himself alight having been frustrated and ill-treated by the police- an action that sparked off violence that crumbled the about two decades of iron-fist leadership of Ben Ali. The case of Egypt was not different which toppled Mubarak’s three decades of interrupted autocratic regime. It is upon this fear that they quickly wanted to handle the issue of employment generation and poverty reduction via creating employment opportunities. So, if they have these plans of actions in the past years, why have they not implemented them until there is problem that has the propensity to tumble their governments? I see that resolution number one as a deterrent measure to massage the ego of African youths to stay away from the Tunisia-Egypt-Libya kind of unrest. They only paid lip-service to the process as majority of the leaders do not have a clear-cut program that would enhance the real implementation the YDPA.

Moreover, the claim they laid to the enhancement of technical training for youth in the specified areas of Agriculture and Information Communication Technology (ICT) is not something new. No doubt technical training for the young people would help immensely in building middle-level man-power for development couple with requisite ICT skills. The same is true for agriculture. In many of these countries, how many technical colleges/training schools can boast of the state-of-the-art equipment as well as functional computers with internet access? Again how many government farms do they have, either to provide cash crops for export, or grow staple food to stem the rate of hunger in the continent? Most of these countries rely heavily on the importation of staple food which has grave consequence whenever there is a ‘price shock’ at the international market.

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Obiang Tells World Not To Intervene In Africa

The Associated Press via NPR

MALABO, Equatorial Guinea June 30, 2011

Foreign military intervention has caused massive suffering in Africa, the African Union’s current chairman said Thursday in a message that is being seen as a jab at the NATO airstrikes in Libya.

Teodoro Obiang Nguema is the president of Equatorial Guinea

Teodoro Obiang Nguema, who is the president of Equatorial Guinea, also blamed outside “agents” for sparking pro-democracy demonstrations in countries across Africa including his own.

“The intervention for human rights are nowadays causing a massive scourge,” he said at the opening of the AU’s biannual summit being held in this capital, located on an island off the western coast of Africa. “The uncounted number of victims, among them women and children, displaced people and the destruction of economic infrastructure does not justify such interventions. Instead of providing solutions to problems we are complicating and worsening world conflicts.”

Obiang did not specifically mention Libya, but the AU has come out forcefully against the bombardment that is threatening to topple Moammar Gadhafi, whose grip on power was thought to be absolute.

His fall would be discomforting for the other entrenched rulers in Africa, including Obiang, who has maintained total control of state institutions in Equatorial Guinea since his uncle was overthrown and killed in a coup 32 years ago.

Obiang’s country is considered among the most undemocratic in the world, one that has never had elections deemed free and fair, and where opponents to the regime are systematically tortured, according to Human Rights Watch and the report of the United Nations’ Special Rapporteur on Torture.

Speaking about the popular uprisings in North Africa, Obiang said the youth are right to protest when their cause is “just and necessary,” but added that outside “agents” are in some cases attempting to manipulate public sentiment in order to cause unrest.

“I draw attention here to those agents accustomed to manipulating the innocence and the good faith of our youth and inexperienced population to unnecessarily cause sterile revolutions,” he said in Spanish, the national language of Equatorial Guinea. “This is the case of my country, Equatorial Guinea, which is victimized by a systematic campaign of misinformation by these agents.”

The wave of popular protest that has swept across the northern part of the continent has so far not spread dramatically south, largely because leaders like Obiang have clamped down at the slightest sign of dissent.

In Malabo, reporters were told by the minister of information that state TV would not be discussing the events in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya because they do not have correspondents in those countries who can ascertain if the information being reported by the international media is correct.

In Zimbabwe where summit attendee Robert Mugabe has been in power for 31 years, even watching video footage of those uprisings can lead to treason charges punishable by death.

And in Cameroon, where 77-year-old President Paul Biya has ruled since 1982, the government ordered cell phone companies to suspend mobile services for Twitter after citizens used the site to organize a “Drive Out Biya” march.

Traditionally the AU has chosen to support its leaders at the expense of the people they govern, but the recent conflict in Ivory Coast may have marked a turning point.

An African Union panel charged with finding a solution to the conflict initially backed Laurent Gbagbo, the country’s outgoing president who lost last year’s presidential election and took his country to the brink of civil war in an effort to stay in office.

Under immense international pressure, however, the panel that included Obiang eventually called for Gbagbo to step down.

The same evolution may be in the works on Libya. The ad hoc committee charged with dealing with the crisis has issued numerous statements supporting Gadhafi and advocating for talks between the Libyan leader and the rebels attempting to overthrow him.

The proposal was rejected outright by the rebels and the international community, which views Gadhafi as the problem and not a part of the solution.

On Sunday, the committee reversed course, however, saying they welcomed Gadhafi’s decision to not be part of the negotiation process.

In a statement issued Thursday, the committee said it had met in Malabo and agreed on a set of proposals to help Libya emerge from the crisis. It said the proposals would be submitted to the AU assembly for their support.

“I believe there is certainly a change in the whole perception of Gadhafi. We are in a very different position to the one we were in just five, six weeks ago,” said Britain’s Minister for Africa Henry Bellingham who attended the first part of the conference.

He said he had met with many of the foreign ministers of the 53 member nations attending the conference, and found that even those that were previously reluctant to call for Gadhafi’s ouster are now privately agreeing that he should go.

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Youth Education and Employment key to Progress in Africa

 30 June 2011 –

The United Nations today urged African countries to empower the continent’s youth through schooling and jobs, stressing that the foundation for peace and development lay in giving young people opportunities to build better lives for themselves.

“If we are to bring lasting peace and sustainable development to the continent, we must empower Africa’s youth,” Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro told heads of State at the annual African Union (AU) summit, which is being held in Malabo, the capital of Equatorial Guinea, and whose theme is youth empowerment for sustainable development.

She pointed out that 35 per cent of Africa’s total population is between the ages of 15 and 35, the phase in people’s lives when they lay foundations for their future, build careers and plan families.

“For too many young adults in Africa, this is a time of dashed hopes, frustration, and political, economic and social exclusion,” said Ms. Migiro. “But there is a way for African nations to defuse the youth time bomb – by empowering youth and reaping the benefits. You have recognized this yourselves – by choosing the theme of this meeting and by prioritizing youth development in your development agenda,” she added.

She said that the United Nations will continue to work closely with Africa’s leaders to maintain and strengthen peace by supporting the efforts of the African people to realize their right to choose their own leaders.

“Countries that prioritize democratic principles generally fare better in avoiding armed conflict, promoting stable and equitable development, and building socially inclusive societies,” Ms. Migiro.

“The young men and women of Africa need to know that their dreams can and will be achieved – not through violence and crime, but through the ballot box and the decent jobs that will come from thriving economies,” she added.

She pointed out that the continent has over the past decade undergone a period of rapid economic growth, a stark contrast to the stagnation and reversals of previous years.

Attractive investment opportunities are expanding beyond the minerals and energy sectors, and a middle class is also emerging in several countries, although extreme poverty, hunger and inequality remain a major concern.

“For Africa, this is, in many ways, an era of opportunity. Our job is to ensure that it is an era of opportunity for all,” she said.

Ms. Migiro reminded the African heads of State that this year marks the tenth anniversary of the coming into force of the Optional Protocols to the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The protocols prohibit the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has launched a global campaign to promote the universal ratification of the protocols, Ms. Migiro said, but only 18 AU Member States are parties. “I call on all 53 AU Members to become parties and implement them fully,” she said.

On Sudan, Ms. Migiro noted that despite the recent outbreaks of violence in Southern Kordofan and Abyei, the upcoming independence of Southern Sudan was another milestone for Africa, and for the continent’s partnership with the UN.

“The United Nations will remain committed to supporting South Sudan’s peaceful development and to good neighbourly relations between north and south,” she said

She also reiterated that the UN remains committed to the search for a political solution to the ongoing crisis in Libya.

“There should be no doubt about our aims. The objective – and the obligation – of the international community is to protect civilians and to work for a durable peace that meets the legitimate aspirations of Libyan people,” she added.

UN News Center

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Is There Hope for The African Child?

The theme for this year African Child’s Day, was ‘All Together For Actions in Favor of Street Children’. This was targeted at some estimated 30million African street children and was celebrated all over the African continent. June 6 of every year is set aside by the African Union (AU) to commemorate the wanton massacre of some children in the street of Soweto, during the black days of Apartheid in South Africa on June 6, 1976. They were gruesomely murdered because they came out to demonstrate against the authority in order for them to be taught in their local language in their school. Thirty-four years on, the remembrance still continue, which goes to show the crucial nature of the day for Africa as a continent.

Across the length and breadth of the continent, Continue reading “Is There Hope for The African Child?”

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The Way Libya May Go Next

Obama has spoken, Sarcozy has made up his mind, NATO has taken the lead; all in a bid to get the common enemy they called Maoummar Gaddafi out.  But rebels fighting from Benghazi flank are crude in their approach as they lack regimental command structure. They have demonstrated that they want to take-over power, taking the advantage of the No-Fly-Zone clause of the UN resolution 1973. But Gaddafi troop are reclaiming areas like Adjabya and Sirte, earlier acclaimed to have overrun by the rebels, as more Libyan refugees in their thousands invading the small Italian Island of Lampedusa, Egypt and Tunisia, to escape the crisis.

While the rebels beat a retreat in the face of fierce attacks from Gaddafi’s troops, the prominent actors and top decision-makers in the regime are defecting to the opposition’s side.  Moussa Kuossa, Ghaddafi foreign minister made a surprise entrance into UK, two days ago, and he was followed by others. Most of the defectors were staunch supporters of the tyrannical rule of Gaddafi all these years. Gaddafi is a mean man, he knows what the end would be sooner or later, thus; he would left no stone unturned in dealing with those he referred to as ‘cockroaches, rats, and drug addicts’. Whatever anyone thinks, the end is near for Gaddafi; either he gives way for peaceful transition or he faces humiliation as did Iraqi-once -strongman, Saddam Hussein.

Whatever the stakes are, there is every likelihood that those men bombing and firing missiles from war planes would have to come down; do some infantry job to keep Gaddafi men in check. Or they have to negotiate a soft-landing plank for Gaddafi to step aside. Anything short of this would still give the Libya maximum ruler more opportunity, to kill thousands of the civilian population the No-Fly-Zone is to protect. Because the 1973 is vague and open, various interpretations are being derived from it to achieve a specific purpose. Why is the UN resolution 1973 clause not being applied in Barhain, Syria or Yemen?

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