Most inter-state conflicts in Africa are the legacy of colonialism. These are border conflicts that resulted from European colonial scramble for Africa back in the 19th century. Arbitrarily traced border demarcations later on created border disputes that degenerated into border wars among African countries. The founding fathers of Pan-Africanism, namely Ghanian Kwame Nkrumah and the other early statesmen were visionaries that could foresee the problems post-colonial Africa will face and advocated for the creation of a kind of United States of Africa whereby borders would be dissolved and there would be one government for the entire continent.
According to Daniel Don Nanjira (African Foreign Policy, 2010), author of the book on African foreign policy and diplomacy, “Pan Africanism is an African ideology that was the forerunner of an African unity organization intended to unite Africans and their nations in Africa, as well as the African Diaspora living outside of Africa, for mutual progress.”
Unfortunately this vision was in the minority while the view that full African unity has not reached its time yet had the upper hand. Militant Pan-Africanists like Nkrumah maintained that Africa will not be truly free until it frees itself from the colonial legacy, the history of post-colonial Africa has proven they were right indeed.
Not only Africa failed to attain genuine political and economic freedom. Post-colonial Africa was soon caught in the vicious cycle of inter-state and border conflicts and bloody wars that resulted from the divisive politics of European colonial powers. The Pan-Africanist heritage was soon overlooked and Africa countries soon found themselves up to their necks in the politics of inter and intra African conflicts that spilled over artificial borders and engulfed most regions.
When the European colonialists withdrew from Africa in the 1960s and independence became the a reality they did not devise mechanisms for the resolution of post-colonial conflicts within an among African states. the conventional response of the new African states was the replication of the colonial solution to conflicts, namely the use of violence to defeat perceived aggressors that allegedly had territorial claims over their neighbors.
Great power interventions in African border conflicts served the national interests of old colonial and new imperial powers or their hegemonic interests. The founding of the Organization of African Unity in 1963 was the product of diplomatic compromise between those who called for immediate unity of Africa and those who thought the time had not yet come for such radical union. As Don Nanjira says, “The OAU charter was the product of a compromise between Africans who wanted a political union of all independent African states and those who wanted a loose union or association of sovereign states.”
The spirit of Pan-Africanism was weakened in the subsequent decades while conflicts among African states intensified as a result of great power meddling or due to territorial claims emanating from the colonial era. The emergence of African nationalism as an offshoot of Pan-Africanism “ultimately aims at welding peoples of diverse languages, traditional cultures, and customs, etc., into one nation. through the creation of a kind of Pax Africana aiming at The adoption of diplomacy as an instrument for resolving differences and conflicts in Africa and elsewhere.”
Globalization has put the problems of African integration and African nationalism into a new perspective by turning attention from division and conflict to cooperation and integration that found its ultimate expression in the creation of the African Union (AU) as a replacement for the OAU in 2005. One of the central challenges of the new organization is overcoming inter-African conflicts and their resolution through dialogue and diplomacy.
In his discussion of the causes of conflicts in Africa, Don Nanajira indicates “Colonial remnants and grouping in African political units according to arbitrary borders, irredentism, secession, separatism, Leadership elites; poverty, population explosion, exploitation; territorial disputes; territorial occupation; ethnic, racial, tribal, ideological/political differences.”
One should perhaps add water dispute as one dimension of conflicts in 21st century Africa where so far latent disputes over the rights of use of the waters of specific rivers such as the Nile have nowadays become some of the causes of conflicts in Africa. The ongoing dispute between Egypt and Ethiopia is a case in point. Don Nanjira also outlines some of the solutions for resolving these kinds of conflicts. Some of them are “meditation, dialogue, wealth and power distribution, constitutional bonds; regional integration; and constant conflict management.”
When we look at the issue from the point of view of the ongoing Egypt-Ethiopian dispute on the Nile and the GERD hydroelectric project, we realize that African diplomacy can be used as a powerful tool for resolving the dispute.
Conflict management in Africa until now largely involved wars and violence, great power interference, proxy conflicts, failed UN mediations during border conflicts and, last but not least, African failure to resolve its disputes with the time-tested tools of African mediation based on African values “and this, in effect, means that African foreign policy and diplomacy shall continue to be based on the tenets of Pan- Africanism and continental African unity.” Thus the old pre-colonial and post-colonial mediation in Africa were largely dominated by European values of self-interest, national interest, money, power and domination.
The new century requires a new paradigm shift in conflict or dispute resolution in Africa among member states of the African union. This new mechanism can be summarized with the famous and now familiar motto: African solutions to African problems. when we look at this motto in the context of the current Ethio-Egyptian dispute over the Nile waters and the GERD project, it simply means taking the issue out of the reach of extra-continental institutions that have so far failed and bringing it back to Africa that is taking stock of the fact that African problems cannot be solved outside non-African values, assets and institutions.
To make this discourse more tangible we can refer to recent efforts by non-African institutions such as the Arab League and Washington to mediate in the dispute. Those efforts failed to produce results simply because they were guided by non- African values, assets and diplomatic
traditions that are alien to the continent and its history. As African shook off the yoke of colonialism by their own efforts and internal resources, they can only resolve disputes among family members through African approaches that include, mutual respect, working for the common good, fairness, the spirit of true brotherhood, and mutually beneficial solutions.
For the first time in the modern history of African diplomacy, the African Union has moved in to take over the responsibility for solving African problems with African solutions. The AU has failed a number of times in applying this philosophy to conflict situations like in Libya or Somalia although the latter finally benefitted from AU intervention to fight international terrorism and prevent a potential takeover by extra- African political interests and forces.
The Ethio-Eritrean conflict which is now resolved through Ethiopian and Eritrean initiative, proved that the AU was not always successful in its peace efforts although its intentions were genuine and honest. Now times are changing and the AU is facing the first opportunity for proving that it has diplomatic teeth that bite by taking over the Ethio-Egyptian water dispute as its major diplomatic agenda.
By adopting a radical change of attitude and with better luck, the AU might put an end to the old times when Africans relied on external intuitions and forces to find solutions to its problems. That approach undermined African diplomatic potentials and resources by forcing the AU look outwards instead of inwards in its diplomatic dealing with African problems. That in turn led to African diplomatic paralysis or lack of initiatives.
In the current multi-polar world of competing great power interests, Africa can only emerge truly confident only by taking its present and future in its own hands and by taking responsibility for its own failure and display courage and insight in resolving African problems with African solutions. This is in fact the option of new African diplomatic renaissance that forces Africa own its own diplomatic destiny.
In this sense, the ongoing AU initiative to resolve the Ethio-Egyptian dispute over the Nile waters even if it is presently limited to serving with an observer status, might be taken as an a new experiment that needs to be further consolidated. The GERD dispute has also created an opportunity for the AU to test its resolve and diplomatic acumen.
If successful, this experiment in African mediation might serve as a working model for similar dispute resolution across the continent and mark a new starting point for Africa’s modern diplomatic history. As Don Nanjira says in his book, this might in turn “increase control of Africa foreign policy and diplomatic processes by Africans in the era of Cold Peace, even though Africa often feels like an ‘‘orphan’’ abandoned in the global politics, deprived of Cold War protection and favors.”
The Ethiopian Herald July 19, 2020
BY MULUGETA GUDETA
