The African Union Is Off Its Meds Again

There are some real problems in Africa.  Problems which well deserve the full attention of the African Union's Peace and Security Committee.  This crew is chaired by Ramtane Lamamra, who should be a very busy man.

Insofar as Mr Lamamra is busy it is not with the war in Somalia.  Nor is it with the invasion and occupation of Abyei by Sudan.  No, these are mere bagatelles in the estimate of Mr Lamamra and his colleagues on the Peace and Security Committee--or so it appears.

The African Union and its Peace and Security Committee are meeting in Addas Abba with only one pressing item on their agenda.  That issue is Libya.  To err on the side of accuracy, the issue is not so much Libya per se but rather the AU's perception that it has been shunted to the sidelines as "an observer in this calamity."  Jean Ping, another AU heavyweight, echoes the plaint of African irrelevancy.

The AU is desperately keen on ending the NATO program of air strikes.  Mr Ping and Mr Lamamra are of the expressed view that it is terribly, terribly necessary that the NATO planes sit silent and bereft of bombs on the runway if a political solution is to be found for Libya.  The AU is also quite sure that it has a plan, a road map to use their term, which will lead to a peaceful and successful outcome in Libya.

The problem in the estimate of the AU is the noise of the exploding bombs is so loud that no one will listen to their plan.  The minor detail that the AU plan allows Brother Leader to remain in power while the details of change are worked out and this is quite, quite unacceptable to the rebels seems to be unimportant--at least in the estimate of Mr Ping and Mr Lamamra.  The unpleasant matter of the rebels having rejected the AU approach is not seen by the AU as important.

The rebels are suspicious of the AU.  They have taken the uncharitable view that the strong financial ties between the AU and Gaddafi renders the organization a less than neutral party in the present matter.  Of course, the rebels are simply giving due recognition to reality--Gaddafi has been a major money man behind not only the AU but a wide selection of African politicians including not a few current heads of state.

The AU blithely overlooks the realistic position of the rebels.  The organization also ignores its own record of complete incompetence in dealing effectively with the armed chaos of assorted collapsing African states over the past couple of decades.  The body even manages to focus a blind eye on its lack of substantial let alone effective actions in the morasses of Somalia or Sudan.

No more than the Arab League is the African Union capable of brokering a peace in the context of an internal war.  Libya is no more susceptible to the good offices of the AU than was the situation in Yemen amenable to the efforts of the Gulf Coordinating Council.  In both states there was finally no room for even the slightest compromise between the rivals for power.  Gaddafi no more than Saleh is willing to give up and go into that good night without a fight to the edge of death--and perhaps beyond.

The Arab League was sensible enough to realize it could play no useful role in Yemen.  The members recognized that the political differences between the various regimes precluded a single political will and without that the AL had no credible capacity to coerce and thus no way of influencing the outcome in Yemen. Rather than expose this to global view, the AL simply looked the other way.  The GCC was willing to give it a shot having more to lose by not trying than by trying and losing.

The AU has the political and military potency of a steer.  It normally accepts this condition by ignoring unpleasant situations such as those in Sudan or Somalia.  Normally, the AU tries to keep its sheer impotency out of public view.  The ill-advised peace mediation effort in Libya is an anomaly understandable only in terms of the organization having a sense of loyalty to a man who wrote some very large checks to it.

Libya is a tough nut to crack as NATO has been discovering.  It is a tough nut because the slyly nutty man who has run Libya for two generations is personally tough.  He is not going to surrender or accept a humiliating defeat which would see him in jail, on trial, or facing the hangman.  Negotiation is a means of buying time and only that.  The solution to the Libyan problem will be found only in the death of Gaddafi.

Even that may not be enough.  The rebels are poorly organized with no common agreement beyond the proposition that Gaddafi must go--preferably feet first.  The rebels are no more amenable to negotiations than is Gaddafi.  What might or will happen the day after Gaddafi's body is buried remains very much up in the air.  There is no rebel consensus.  Nor is there a Western concept--other than sweet mood music about democracy and the like.

The AU has been so blind to the real dynamics in play in Libya--or owe such a debt to Gaddafi--that it ignored the non-negotiable foundations of both sides.  This diplomatic tone deafness is in no way covered up by a campaign of whining about the noise of NATO bombs.  The AU should stop its bitching and simply accept that it is an entity without any real reason to exist other than the egos of the respective members.