The Hopelessness of the African Union

It all started with the Ivorian crisis where Gbagbo refused to cede power to his rival who Ouattara who is purported to have won the recent elections in the Ivory Coast in December or so last year. Then when we entered 2011, the Tunisians told their president [for 23 years] that it they’ve had enough and showed him the exit. He left.

Not long after, the Egyptians took to the streets chanting at the top of their voices hoping to get their president [for three decades] to also flee the country.  He is still clinging onto power so far. Even though he has made many changes and reforms and has even promised not to stand for the forthcoming elections in September with the hope of appeasing the anger of the populace, it looks like the Egyptians want him out totally.

Now, such actions and comes with their individual attentions and interests parties. Lets take it one by one. We must however, note that the three countries stated here are all in Africa and as such are under the jurisdiction of the AU:

Ivory Coast

The Ivory Coast crisis started somewhere in 1999 after the coup d’etat. After many the civil war and a long list of history, there was an election in December 2010 to elect a new president. Gbagbo acted as a bad loser he is by refusing to give up power to the Ouattara who was said to have won the election.

When this happened, the Western media echoed the respective voices of their countries by “condemning in serious terms” the refusal of Gbagbo to concede defeat and had over power to his rival. Among the jury were France and the US. Coming Africa you would find the likes of the ECOWAS, AU and on the world stage, the UN. Manny sanctions were carried out against Ivory Coast from the African squad and the foreign players as well.

Now let me make something clear: Gbagbo has been in power for 10 years. Five of those years has been as a result of democratic election in which he legitimately won. The other five was accorded him under two one-year extensions by the AU and the United Nations Security Council  in October, 2005 and November, 2006 bringing his tenure to 2007 where  a peace accord was signed between the government and the rebel forces in March, 2007 extending the tenure of Gbagbo till 2010 when there would be fresh presidential elections. So it can be clearly seen that until the elections on 2010, Gbagbo had not been in power through force or dictatorship.The 10 years he had spent in power were legitimate.

Tunisia and Egypt

I will discuss both Tunisia and Egypt together since they seem to have a peculiar problem together. Ben Ali has spent about 23 years in power he came to after a bloodless coup  d’etat in 1987. He followed this up by insurmountable oppression and jailing of his opponents and anyone who dares criticize him or his government. He did not give level playing ground to his political opponents in elections no wonder he won all elections in landslide styles.  He is one who preaches virtue and practices vice. No wonder Amnesty International said that

“the Tunisian government is misleading the world as it conveys a positive image of the human rights situation in the country while abuses by its security forces continue unabated and are committed with impunity”

This plus many others were the practices of the Tunisian government until its leader was chased out of office by the people in January.
The case in Egypt is not much different just that I can’t understand how a state of emergency can be in place for 30 years. This dictator [Mubarak] has been in power for the three decades without even a vice president.  Now that the people want him out, he tries to fool them by appointing one plus other flimsy reforms. This came after the use of his usual brutal force [the police and presidential thugs] didn’t work.

My Argument

During the course of the chaos in Tunisia and Egypt, it looked as if the juries in the world have been muted by some unknown force. Very few bodies were able to outright condemn the leaders in this two Arab countries. Most especially were the AU and UN. President Obama was at a loss as to what to say regarding Mubarak and was seen carefully picking his words when he was eventually forced to comment on the Egyptian crisis. All he was able to say was a string a intellectual gibberish. May be it was so because of other interests and considerations which are “classified” and to which I’m not privy to.

So what is the excuse of the AU for being quiet all these while about these two recent crisis? The chairman of the AU commission, Jean Ping gave the lame excuse for not putting the Tunisian and Egyptian crisis on the agenda for the recent 16th AU summit that he had already published his reports. Check it out here.

For reason’s sake, the countries are burning and people are dying. What the hell has the publication of reports got to do with the discussion at the summit? Or maybe it was in the best interest of the other dictators such as the al-Qathafis and al-Bashiers  to ignore the crisis in these two countries fearing that their unwanted attentions may be drawn to them. After all how can you condemn another for a crime you are openly known to be committing. So the AU chose to cowardly dilly dally around the Ivorian crisis and Sudan,  Somalia plus others.

I am in no way condoning what Gbagbo is doing but I think that he is least of the evil persons if compared to Ben Ali and Mubarak but the AU has laid out sanctions upon freezes on Gbagbo with the intention to force him out of power even before the AU summit. So what is the AU doing about the Egyptian crisis. I am yet to hear of any sanctions.

Or could it be that the AU has been told to leave it to the powers that be to talk about what is going on in Egypt. Since it looks like that West are working overtime to bring the situation under control.

May I also ask, what is the AU doing about the other dictators on the continent? There seem to be a lot of them so what is the AU doing about it or do we have to chase them out ourselves as Tunisia has done?

Well until I hear something, even the sheep must eat.