Does the African Union have any agenda?

DON-MARTIN ROPAFADZO | Friday February 4, 2011 00:00

It is beyond me that an organisation that purports to champion the cause of African people can meet and ignore simmering disputes in its area of jurisdiction. If Zimbabwe is not an issue for the African Union, then what is?

What did the AU say about Somalia? What did they say about the Ivory Coast? They might have said a lot but they know they are incapable of influencing matters or solving problems that bedevil Africa. Instead of dealing with problems, they always issue communiqus and set up committees 'to look into the problem and report back in 30 days'.

In other words, they don't want to be bothered. They did that with Zimbabwe again, where a rabid leader has been systematically killing people practically from the first time he took office more than thirty years ago.

With all the ongoing violence and human rights abuses in Zimbabwe, the country was not even on the AU agenda.As for the Ivory Coast, where the African Union should simply have said the loser should vacate the presidency, the AU set up 'a five-member taskforce to mediate'. This after the AU 'elected' Equatorial Guinea dictator, President Teodoro Obiang Nguema, as its new chairman.

Nguema has absolutely no regard for human rights or democracy: two of the important issues Africa is grappling with. Putting the welfare of African people in the hands of someone whose hands are dripping with blood of innocent people goes to show what the AU is all about. It was not even an election as African leaders would like to make the world believe. Nguema got it through this nonsensical 'rotational basis' system.

In other words, it was his turn to abuse Africa and the AU does not care what kind of person they put to front for it.For many years, there have been countries that the world, including that omnipotent organisation, the United Nations, viewed as oppressive, dictatorial and seriously devoid of the smallest spec of democratic intent. Among such countries were Cuba, China, Saudi Arabia and Russia. Even today, these countries have no semblance of what a free, democratic society should be like.

One of the panels, councils and commissions the United Nations established was the United Nations Panel on Human Rights.

The purpose of this particular panel is that 'members elected to the council shall uphold the highest standards in the promotion and protection of human rights'.

The UN says the General Assembly 'can suspend the rights and privileges of any Council/panel member that it decides has persistently committed gross and systematic violations of human rights...' It, therefore, came as a surprise when, in 2006, the United Nations appointed, to this panel, the world's worst human rights abusers: Cuba, China, Saudi Arabia and Russia, countries that have always been in the forefront in human rights abuses.

Imagine a country or even an individual approaching any one of these countries, seeking justice or redress over a human rights violation perpetrated against them!

This was a sick joke that the United Nations played on the world. And, of course, Zimbabwe welcomed these nations to be arbiters and monitors of democracy because Robert Mugabe knew that none of the countries had a better human rights record than him.

Countries with terrible rights records protected each other from condemnation. How could Cuba, for example, denounce Angola, a country where Cubans fought in support of the abusive government? How could Russia condemn Cuba and Angola, countries that have numerous graves of those Russians who died in support of these human rights abusers?

To this day, they are still bosom buddies.

This expensive and ridiculous joke was later re-created by the Southern African Development Community (SADC) when it made Swaziland's Mswati III the Chairperson of the so-called Organ on Politics, Defence and Security Cooperation.

What stupidity!SADC, of all organisations, knew that Mswati was abusing the Swati, even to the extent of sitting in a chair salivating at naked school girls, one of whom he would pick, instantly turning the poor child into a wife.He claims tradition to justify his pornographic escapades with other men's teenage daughters.

SADC was very aware of Mswati's crackdown on opposition political parties and ban on politics in Swaziland. And they had to put this man in charge of monitoring the politics in Zimbabwe!

Is it any wonder that the result was the birth of a very close relationship between Robert Mugabe and Mswati?Birds of a feather! Did the UN actually expect Cuba, China, Saudi Arabia and Russia to come down hard on human rights abusers when they, themselves, did worse than some of the countries they were mandated to monitor? Did SADC honestly expect Mswati to tell Mugabe to respect people's human rights when he was copying tactics on how to violate human rights from Mugabe?

And now, the African Union has come up with a dilly of a decision! These people never cease to amaze me.First they appointed former South African President, Thabo Mbeki, the architect of the Zimbabwean quagmire, to mediate between warring factions in the Ivory Coast.

Mbeki has no mediation abilities as is evidenced by his dismal performance on the Zimbabwean issue where, instead of bringing the protagonists together, he became instrumental in propping up one of the factions on his negotiating table. Mbeki supported Mugabe and his mediation efforts fell flat because of this.

Were it not for Mbeki, Mugabe could not have gone as far as he did, nor could he have retained so much authority after losing elections. But the African Union was later to appoint Mbeki to mediate in the deadly standoff in the Ivory Coast. It did not take long for Mbeki to show his lack of mediation skills when he clearly supported Laurent Gbagbo, just as he had supported Mugabe.

The other group at the negotiating table immediately rejected Mbeki as mediator. The Ivory Coast has nothing to show for Mbeki's presence except for the deteriorated situation in their country where Mbeki appears to have coached Gbagbo on how to stay in office after losing an election. This week, in Addis Ababa, the African Union, apparently 'impressed' by another South African president, Jacob Zuma, appointed him to mediate in the Ivory Coast's fiasco. The AU did not bother to recognise that Zuma, like Mbeki before him, failed to bring any progress to the Zimbabwean stalemate.

Having shown his mediatory impotence on Zimbabwe, Zuma somehow impressed the AU who immediately gave him another assignment in the Ivory Coast before he has even concluded the Zimbabwean issue.