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Africa: Peacekeeping Trends, 2

AfricaFocus Bulletin
Jan 31, 2004 (040131)
(Reposted from sources cited below)

Editor's Note

"After so many years of destruction, something new is happening, at last. The killing has largely stopped. ... One point to note in all this: the peace processes are mostly home-grown" - Jean-Marie Guehenno, UN Under Secretary General for Peacekeeping Operations.

By the end of 2003, 27 countries had ratified the protocol establishing the new Peace and Security Council of the African Union, clearing the way for establishment of an African Standby Force and further institutionalization of Africa's regional peacemaking capacity. "The chances of peace in Africa have never been greater," concluded Mr. Guehenno's op-ed in the International Herald Tribune. But he also warned that "a lapse back into conflict is very possible" and called for greater international support for African efforts.

Today's two issues of AfricaFocus Bulletin contain a variety of commentary and background information on the status of African peacekeeping as the year begins. This issue contains excerpts from an essay appearing in Human Rights Watch World Report (http://hrw.org/wr2k4); another issue contains additional relevant background from the United Nations and the African Union.

++++++++++++++++++++++end editor's note+++++++++++++++++++++++

Africa on its Own: Regional Intervention and Human Rights

By Binaifer Nowrojee

[Excerpts only; for full report and credits see: http://hrw.org/wr2k4]

Despite the continued gloomy reality of much reporting from Africa, the current moment is in fact one of hope for the continent. Though a quarter of Africa's countries were affected by conflict in 2003, several long-running wars have recently ended ...

Perhaps more importantly, new continental institutions and policy frameworks are creating the political space needed to discuss openly the roots of conflict - the source of Africa's worst abuses - in threats to democracy, human rights, and the rule of law. The transformation of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) into the African Union (A.U.) in 2002 offers unprecedented opportunities to begin to address the reasons why Africa has been such a troubled continent since most of its states achieved independence forty or so years ago.

At the level of peacekeeping or "peace enforcement," military intervention in conflict-affected countries sponsored by African continental or sub-regional institutions is increasingly becoming a reality. The major world powers have not given the United Nations (U.N.) the capacity to respond effectively to Africa's wars. And, though Africa's former colonizers have sent troops in recent years to areas ravaged by conflict - including the 2000 British intervention in Sierra Leone and the ongoing French engagement in C“te d'Ivoire since late 2002 - the major powers have repeatedly made it clear that they will not make the necessary commitment to prevent the massive human rights violations in Africa that result from conflict (Rwanda, the DRC, Burundi, and the Central African Republic being some examples of such neglect). The European Union intervention in the northeastern region of Ituri was an exception, prompted by fear of genocide and strictly limited in time to the period necessary for the U.N. to increase its forces in that troubled region. In this context, African states have no choice but to take up the challenge. ...

This essay outlines the new institutions of the A.U. and the commitments to human rights that they make. It then considers four recent military peacekeeping interventions - in Burundi, Liberia, C“te d'Ivoire, and the DRC - that have been endorsed by African regional institutions. Although these interventions were undertaken with explicitly humanitarian motives, the human rights component has continued to be inadequate. ...

Building Institutional Capacity to Intervene:
the A.U. and Conflict Prevention

African leaders have recently reformed, fairly radically, the continent's institutions and policies. In 2002, the forty-year-old OAU was dissolved and reconstituted as the A.U. In contrast to the OAU, the A.U.is provided with the Constitutive Act that envisages a more integrated level of continental governance, possibly eventually paralleling that of the European Union. Under the OAU, state sovereignty was paramount: non-interference in the internal affairs of member states was its trademark. Regional or sub-regional interventions like those by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in conflicts in Liberia and Sierra Leone were the exception, not the rule.

Under the A.U.'s Constitutive Act, there is a commitment to "promote and protect human and peoples' rights," and it specifies that "governments which shall come to power through unconstitutional means shall not be allowed to participate in the activities of the Union." It also provides for a fifteen-member Peace and Security Council to replace the OAU's Mechanism for Conflict Prevention, Management, and Resolution. Once established, the council will facilitate the A.U.'s response to crises and will "promote and encourage democratic practices, good governance and the rule of law, protect human rights and fundamental freedoms, respect for the sanctity of human life and international humanitarian law, as part of efforts for preventing conflicts." ...

At the same time as the process establishing the A.U. was ongoing, African governments - led by South Africa, Nigeria, Senegal and Algeria - created another new mechanism to promote good governance and economic development: the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD), and the related African Peer Review Mechanism. NEPAD is focused on economic development, but unusually, explicitly recognizes that: "Peace, security, democracy, good governance, human rights, and sound economic management are conditions for sustainable development." It proposes systems for monitoring adherence to the rule of law that can promote respect for human rights, in addition to perhaps serving as a check to prevent conditions in a given country from deteriorating to the point of insurgency or conflict. NEPAD has now been adopted as a formal program of the A.U. ...

The Conference on Security, Stability, Development and Cooperation in Africa - on which the A.U. also adopted a Memorandum of Understanding in 2002 - includes a set of undertakings on a wide range of issues related to human rights, democracy, and the rule of law. The CSSDCA, loosely modeled on the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), has a peer review implementation mechanism that resembles but in some respects is stronger than NEPAD's. There are obvious areas of overlap between the CSSDCA and NEPAD, and there is now an attempt to coordinate the two processes ...

NEPAD has been endorsed by virtually all international agencies and bilateral donors ,,, Perhaps most important among these endorsements is that of the Group of Eight (G8) industrialized countries, which adopted an Africa Action Plan at its 2002 summit. ... in practice there have been more words than action or financial support. ...

Regional Interventions

We are likely to see more African interventions to stem conflict in the coming years. Though they can make a useful contribution, as the examples below demonstrate, there are also many possible pitfalls; as these and other cases have already shown. ...

Lastly, African regional interventions may encourage the wider international community in its tendency to abdicate its responsibility to respond to African crises. The reality is that Africa's peacekeeping capabilities cannot in the short run equal those of wealthier countries. Even if wealthier countries make a more serious financial commitment to peacekeeping in Africa than has historically been the case - that is, even if the G8's promises are fulfilled - Africa should not be expected to take sole charge of the burden of attempting to prevent or respond to war on the continent.

In 2003, regional and continental African bodies demonstrated an increased willingness to respond both militarily and politically to regional crises. Of all the sub-regional bodies, the West African group ECOWAS continued to play the most prominent role in addressing conflicts in C“te d'Ivoire and Liberia. In May, the ECOWAS security committee resolved to create a rapid response military force to tackle sub-regional crises, and also agreed to strengthen the regional arms moratorium. ECOWAS is also in the process of establishing early warning centers in the troubled West African region.

The trend towards greater regional intervention was most evident in four countries:

• Burundi, where the A.U. mounted its first peacekeeping operation in 2003.
• C“te d'Ivoire, where some 1,300 ECOWAS troops coordinated with 3,800 French forces in monitoring the fragile cease-fire that ended the civil war sparked in September 2002.
• Liberia, where, after President Charles Taylor stepped down, 3,500 ECOWAS peacekeepers deployed in and around the capital, Monrovia, pending the arrival of U.N. forces. ECOWAS also brokered an August 2003 ceasefire and an agreement to establish an interim government.
• Democratic Republic of Congo, where the Southern African Development Community (SADC) justified intervention on the grounds that a SADC member state was fighting an extra-territorial threat. The intervention included attempts to mediate peace in DRC and the deployment of troops.

All of these interventions were prompted by conflict that has caused massive suffering to civilian populations. Yet their human rights component remained marginal.

Burundi

The decade-long civil war in Burundi was sparked when an elected Hutu president was assassinated in 1993 by soldiers from the Tutsi-dominated government army. The war has claimed more than 200,000 lives and has been marked by daily violations of international humanitarian law by all sides: killings, rape, and torture of civilians, the use of child soldiers, and the forced displacement of populations.

After a series of ceasefire agreements between the government and three of four rebel movements, a transitional government took power. Legislators passed several laws important for delivering justice, including a long-promised law against genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity; and the country received a new infusion of foreign aid. But the government and the leading rebel movement, the Forces for the Defense of Democracy (FDD), continued combat sporadically until October and November 2003 when they signed protocols renewing their commitment to a cease-fire and began incorporating FDD members into the government and the army. The final ceasefire protocol included guarantees of unlimited and undefined "provisional immunity" from prosecution for both forces, calling into question all previous efforts to ensure accountability for violations of international humanitarian law. Meanwhile the war continued between government troops and a smaller rebel movement, the Forces for National Liberation, that held territory around the capital.

The A.U.'s initial intervention in Burundi was a traditional peacekeeping mission, deployed to enforce the 2000 Arusha Peace Accords rather than to curtail an immediate crisis. It was based on and expanded a smaller force of South African troops present to protect opposition political leaders under the terms of the Arusha Accords. In January 2003, the A.U. authorized the dispatch of a small military observer mission to monitor the ceasefire. A month later, at an extraordinary summit, the A.U. approved a larger peacekeeping mission, the African Mission in Burundi (AMIB). The A.U. mandated AMIB to disarm, demobilize, and reintegrate into society all rebel troops and to monitor the country's post-war transition to democracy. By October, a 3,500-strong force had been deployed to Burundi, largely from South Africa, Ethiopia, and Mozambique. However, delays in donor funding, bureaucratic inertia, and the absence of a political agreement initially frustrated the A.U. peace effort. In addition, there was growing concern that inadequate facilities and arrangements for the cantonment of Hutu rebels would undermine the implementation of the ceasefire.

The Burundi peacekeeping mission charged peacekeepers with protecting government buildings, facilitating rebel demobilization, and paving the way for elections in 2004. The mandate says nothing about protecting civilians, but its rules of engagement do provide for intervention in the event of massive violence against civilians. Still largely confined to the capital at this writing in December 2003, AMIB soldiers had not played a role in limiting abuses against non-combatants. Although the mission did not have a human rights mandate, it did include election-related issues, a first for A.U.-initiated interventions.

As with any such endeavor, difficulties and challenges abounded. Because the parties to the peace process failed to resolve issues such as the restructuring of the national army, the peacekeepers could not move forward with programs to demobilize and reintegrate combatants.

Regional leaders, led initially by Tanzania and Uganda, had long attempted to end the war, but without success. South Africa assumed a greater role after the Arusha Accords were signed. When the United Nations, designated by the Accords to provide troops to protect opposition leaders, refused to do so until there was an effective ceasefire, South Africa provided the necessary soldiers for implementation to go forward. South Africa paid the cost of these soldiers, who later became the core of the AMIB force while other contributors to AMIB, Ethiopia and Mozambique, received support from the United States and the United Kingdom to help cover their expenses. South Africa pushed vigorously for the October and November 2003 protocols ending combat between the government and the FDD rebels, in part because it could then ask the United Nations to send peacekeepers to replace its own troops and end its expensive commitment to peacekeeping in Burundi. In welcoming the protocols, South African leaders said nothing about the guarantee of provisional immunity. Other international leaders - including U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan - equally anxious to end combat in Burundi, also remained silent about the indefinite delay in demanding justice for crimes against civilians.

Liberia

[see full version of chapter at http://hrw.org/wr2k4 ]

Côte d'Ivoire

Since September 19, 2002, Côte d'Ivoire has been gripped by an internal conflict that has paralyzed the economy, split the political leadership, and illuminated the stark polarization of Ivorian society along ethnic, political, and religious lines. It is a conflict that has been characterized by relatively little in the way of active hostilities between combatants, but by widespread and egregious abuses against civilians. It is a conflict that, while primarily internal, developed regional dimensions when both the Ivorian rebel groups and the government of Côte d'Ivoire recruited Liberian mercenary fighters to support their forces in the west.

ECOWAS quickly recognized the gravity of the Ivorian situation, touching as it did the economic heart of the region, and began mediation efforts within days of the initial uprising. ECOWAS concerns largely centered on the economic and humanitarian impact of the crisis and the risks to regional stability posed by the conflict. In October 2002, ECOWAS mediators brokered a ceasefire, and both the Ivorian government and the main rebel group, the Patriotic Movement of Côte d'Ivoire (Mouvement Patriotique de la Côte d'Ivoire, MPCI) authorized an ECOWAS monitoring mission. However, the ECOWAS commitment to send troops was hampered by funding constraints and stalled for more than two months after it was made. In the interim, France agreed to fill the gap, expanding its longstanding military presence and extending its mandate from protection of French nationals to ceasefire monitoring.

Despite these efforts, the Ivorian conflict intensified with the opening of the western front, the involvement of Liberian forces on both sides, and the proliferation of rebel groups in December 2002. ECOWAS military engagement remained minimal until early 2003, despite consistent efforts to broker cease-fires, set up peace negotiations, and bring the parties to conflict together. As ECOWAS efforts stalled, French concern deepened and France's contributions increased on both the military and political fronts. By early 2003, there were over 2,500 French troops in Côte d'Ivoire working in conjunction with over 500 ECOWAS forces, and a French-brokered peace agreement, the Linas-Marcoussis accords, had been signed by the government and all three rebel groups. ECOWAS and A.U. officials continued to apply pressure to both the Ivorian government and rebel forces, with Ghana's president, John Kufuor, playing a particularly prominent role as head of ECOWAS.

Additional ceasefire agreements and negotiations led to an officially-proclaimed end to the conflict in July 2003, but implementation of the Linas-Marcoussis accords was slow. Working in conjunction with a small U.N. political and military liaison mission, MINUCI, and some 4,000 French troops, the ECOWAS operation helped monitor compliance with the peace agreement between the Ivorian government and rebel forces. As of late-May 2003, approximately 1,300 ECOWAS troops were in place in the country. However, insufficient resources remained a serious constraint.

In spite of intense regional and French efforts, Côte d'Ivoire's hopes for peace remained deadlocked as of November 2003. At this writing, disarmament has still not taken place, and the government of reconciliation formed by the peace accord has been handicapped by continuing splits between the warring parties. The growth of a vocal, violent, pro-government militia movement with links to the state armed forces, has done little to ease tensions. Abuses against civilians, both in Abidjan and rural areas, have continued, albeit on a lesser scale than during the "official" war.

Continuing impunity remains a fundamental problem. Despite domestic, regional, and international recognition of the serious abuses that took place during the conflict and in election-related violence in 2000, to date there have been no significant steps taken to bring perpetrators of abuses to justice. Key human rights provisions in the peace accords included the establishment of a national human rights commission and an international commission of inquiry, yet neither has materialized. In February 2003, the A.U. called for an investigation by the African Commission on Human Rights, but has since remained silent on the subject. ,,,

From the start of the conflict, the U.N. deferred to France on political and military matters concerning Côte d'Ivoire. A Security Council resolution in February 2003 condemned human rights abuses in the conflict and conferred authority on French and ECOWAS forces to intervene. The U.N. Mission in Côte d'Ivoire (MINUCI) was proposed in late April and approved in early May 2003. Initially, the mission included military observers and liaison officers and a vital human rights monitoring component. But the Security Council cut human and financial resources for the mission's civilian components, based mainly on U.S. concerns over the budget and staffing. In advocating such cuts, the U.S. displayed serious short-sightedness: the multitude of abuses in Côte d'Ivoire amply underscored the urgent need for a human rights monitoring component to be included in the peacekeeping effort. The international and donor communities must press aggressively for accountability and respect for human rights, including the use of sanctions and the conditioning of aid. Even where African leaders are taking the initiative, there is still an important continuing role for the international community.

Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)

[see full version of chapter at http://hrw.org/wr2k4 ]

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