The Use of Force in Libya: The AU Caught Off Guard

Alice Kamba

First, it is not right to assume that whatever decisions taken in New York regarding Libya had the endorsement of all African countries. Second, it is dishonest to argue that the AU was properly consulted by Western powers and supported their resolutions to interfere in internal affairs of an African country. Whatever the obstacles, the African Union must insist and persist on the legitimate role it should play on Libya.

NATOs Military Intervention: Arrogant and Deceiving

Any military intervention is not neutral, but some are more cynical. Despite a UN resolution and the humanitarian justifications, many Africans have not viewed the excessive military intervention by Western powers in Libya as just and right.  And as these developments unfold, issues have been raised concerning the relevance of the African Union (AU).  The war in Libya has opened up a lot of controversies regarding Western intervention in Africa and what ought to be the role and reaction of the leading Africa’s regional peace and security organization, the African Union. While many argue that international (Western) forces can prevent attacks on civilians demanding their rights, many others assert that Western military intervention is based on the inconsistent application of fuzzy principles and only serves other parochial interests. This debate won’t be settled soon and its implications for African security discourse will be enormous. But we know enough about the way the African Union/AU/ positioned itself and how it was treated by US-NATO players by now to reach some conclusions about what this means for Africa in practice.

The official argument for Western military intervention in Libya, presented to the world media by French and British leaders, failed to convince most of the world, particularly Africans, that heavy-handed military assault is workable, necessary and just. Of course, this point goes to the heart of the controversy. Besides, the increase of NATO intervention in conflicts in the African continent not only impedes the development of home grown and regional response mechanisms and institutions but also makes them useless and hampers the settlement of current conflicts, partly because NATO actually is an embodiment of former colonial powers, which are now the members of the organization. Nobody agrees to subordinate African sovereignty and interests as well as African ownership to Western urge to do something militarily in a bid to control resources. There is a second, equally dismaying, reason why such a move needs to be questioned. NATO is trying to expand its sphere of influence and involvement in a continent which has never been a part of its zone of responsibility.

First, it is not right to assume that whatever decisions taken in New York regarding Libya had the endorsement of all African countries. Second, it is dishonest to argue that the AU was properly consulted by Western powers and supported their resolutions to interfere in internal affairs of an African country. On the contrary, despite the firm position of the African Union/AU/ not to let any foreign force to intervene in the home affairs of Libya, NATO continued to conduct military operations, apparently to the dismay of the leadership of the continental organization. The rapidity with which the U.S. and its NATO cohorts built the case for the attack on Libya is really a cause for serious concern to the AU. Africa’s voices were either suppressed or ignored, and the blame rests on both the West and the AU. Western military coalitions persist on marginalizing and ignoring Africa’s regional institutions, particularly the AU. The fact that the proponents of this international military operation didn’t respect the AU’s voice or stance on the Libyan crisis shows how weak the organization is in international affairs.  Furthermore, when the Gaddafi regime decided to take a diplomatic step to address the situation that has become protracted given foreign intervention, it sent its envoy to Greece, underlining the lack of confidence in the capacity of the AU to intervene.

The same confused response to dangerous situations has also been exhibited by the AU in the Ivorian case until the capture of Gbagbo on April 11 where Alassane Quattara, rejected the mediator appointed by the AU on the grounds that he was a friend of Laurent Gbagbo. Whatever the justifications may look like, clearly African voices and sensitivities were brushed aside. Some of the AUs positions including a road map, which came quite belatedly, and its request and demands are more and more ignored in Western capitals: in Paris, for example, and in the UN and Washington.  Many Africans are asking the question - why do Western military coalitions persist on marginalizing and ignoring Africa’s regional institutions, particularly the AU? It is time to take seriously what this means or this may bring about. Probably, this is attributed to both Western military arrogance and vacillations on the part of the African Union, which apparently feed each other. Apart from the excessive use of diplomatic and political capital by Western powers to meet their ends, it is the failure of the AU to take its leadership role that made Africa vulnerable to Western-led military interventions. Before the March 17 resolution 1973 establishing a no-fly zone over Libya was passed, the African Union was not only relegated to the background, it failed to provide a firm and practical programme of intervention on the uprising against Muammar Gaddafi. The AU was absent at a time when it had to take the lead. And this is not an isolated incident, rather an unfortunate pattern of behavior.

The AUs Response: Slow and Confused
During the initial popular revolts in North Africa which began three months ago the AU has been either silent or confused. Particularly since the uprising in Libya, the AU has been squeamish about international focus on military intervention. While coming out somehow clearly and publicly, when it did, it failed to reinforce its alliance and establish a close cooperation with the League of Arab States and use its strong position and numerical influence within the UN to try to make significant influence in deciding the future of Libya. The AU sounded timid while others have been bold. This should not have happened. Critics worry such behavior might have given (and will continue to offer) Western powers the chance to project their own plans and operations in Libya and the rest of Africa. Timing and clarity is very important while dealing crisis situations.

For many weeks, the AU was silent on the demonstrations by pro-democracy opposition forces in Libya even in the face of the use of disproportionate force by the Gaddafi regime to quell the peaceful protests. It should have been seized by the matter, be in charge playing a leading role in mobilizing international consensus ultimately blocking the machinations of Western powers. A confused position is not what you would expect from the AU-and certainly not a silence when Western military powers were preparing the pounding of Libyan cities. The AU, as a body with the primary responsibility to attend to peace and security issues in Africa should not have allowed itself to be outsmarted and outmaneuvered by Western nations bent on promoting their parochial economic and political agendas to take the issue of Libya into their own hands. It was not until late February that an emergency meeting of the AU’s Peace and Security Council sent a mission to investigate the situation in Libya. 

The Council eventually condemned the killing of civilians and the excessive use of force to quell protests by Gaddafi. It underscored the fact that the aspirations of the people of Libya for democracy, political reform, justice and socio-economic development were legitimate and urged that they be respected.  It also denounced the statement made by the Libyan authorities that it would fight to the death to stop the uprising and called on the Libyan Government to desist from making statements that could escalate the situation. Well noted. But the AU made no categorical statement on concrete steps to intervene in the situation in Libya. Its reservations towards Western military interventions were not strong either. The AU is not rigidly against plans to oust the Libyan leader or to arm Libyan rebels. On the other hand it has been trying to broker a deal without any success.  However, world powers appeared to have closed the door in front of any attempt for political mediation. If the AU believed that Western military intervention is bad for Libya, it should have said so and adamantly oppose the move in a serious and consistent manner. If it had thought that  the underlying objective of NATO is corporate interest and the possession of Libya’s oil reserves, as argued by many analysts, then it should have been steadfast in its opposition of the plan from the beginning and mobilize support against the military intervention. It failed to do all that in the earliest convenient time possible.

The future of Libya as an African country should only be determined with the active participation of Africans represented by the AU and only by peaceful means through establishing a direct political dialogue between the two belligerents. This is the widely held view in Africa. The truth is that no institution of African descent is more responsible for our inability to address pressing crisis than the AU, and no institution is in greater need of actively taking a stand on the settlement of the conflict in Libya. The AU’s response to the crisis in Libya was not only slow; it was also confused. This was in sharp contrast to positions of the Arab League and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) which called for the imposition of a No-Fly Zone over Libya. Gulf Arab countries had also said Gaddafi’s government was no longer legitimate. Theirs was wrong and fatal, but clear and on time. On the other hand, the AUs position was correct but came with less clarity and without a sense of urgency.

The AU’s Peace and Security Council at a meeting in Addis Ababa subsequently declared that the AU was opposed to any military operation by foreign forces in Libya. Unfortunately, however, the AU’s voice was not heard. Nor did the coalition force consult the AU Commission about the unrest in Libya. It is  curious that the AU has opposed the military intervention in Libya, given that South Africa, Gabon and Nigeria, non-permanent African members of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), voted in favor of the March 17 resolution 1973, which passed 10-0, with China, Brazil, India, Germany and Russia abstaining. The position of the AU and the vote of the three African members of the UNSC portray a confused and uncoordinated response.  This confused and uncoordinated response from the continent reflects a lack of agreement among African leaders over the situation in Libya. It also provided the pretext for Western powers to come in quickly and decidedly.

Africa and the Libyan Crisis: Lessons Unlearned

The AU has talked passionately and consistently about the primacy of African solutions to African problems. But it has also skipped every opportunity to implement this principle in crisis situations. There was a Peace and Security Council meeting on Libya, which resulted in a cosmetic communiqué hardly condemning the violence in Libya and putting it in a [clever] way, loss of human life and destruction of property, but nothing regarding the political situation in the country. The African Union (AU) has been slow to issue a response to the events in Libya which came in the form of a statement on March 10 expressing "deep concern" over the violence in Libya saying it poses "a serious threat to peace and security in that country and in the region as a whole, as well as to the safety and dignity of Libyans and of the migrant workers, notably the African ones, living in Libya". Many pointed to the AU’s weak statement as an example of the PSC timidity in facing up to the behavior of Western nations. The AUs stonewalling has revived old questions about whether the regional organization is turning its back on its basic role.

The AU’s Peace and Security Council (PSC) also expressed solidarity with Libya and rejected "any foreign military intervention, whatever its form". Nevertheless, it is not fiercely opposed to UN resolution which opened the door for NATO-US military intervention. Yet it continues to release statements that any military role in Libya should be limited to protecting civilians. Whatever the obstacles, the African Union must insist and persist on the legitimate role it should play on Libya. The AU should have been fast enough to go ahead with its original plan, with or without the blessing of the Western Alliance, to send delegations to Tripoli and Benghazi to consult with the conflict actors on how to resolve the crisis in a peaceful and sustainable manner.
Many are calling on African leaders to rethink the way the AU operates, review their ways and demonstrate strong commitment to fending the continent from disastrous external military interventions in the name of democracy and fundamental rights.  They must also learn to put substance and speed to their stated objectives of promoting and defending African interests. The cost of slow and irresponsible leadership has become too high for the continent. The AU was offended not to be invited to the first Paris conference to discuss Libya. It should have called an extraordinary summit of its own. It allowed itself to be ignored. The approach of the West didn’t help it to have a clear and coherent position either. African voices and sensitivities were brushed aside.

Africans have come to assume that finally there are African solutions to African problems. They came to believe that the AU will be in charge to make Africa safe and free from foreign intervention, and that the continent is no more threatened by Western military intervention. They are coming slowly and painfully to realize that is no longer true; they are angry and they want an answer from African governments and the AU. In such conditions the AU must act immediately to prevent foreigners from literally stealing African resources and imposing loyal regimes which will never address the real needs of African people. If the AU fails to do it, its role will soon diminish to such an extent that not a single country in the world will consider it as respected and influential organization. Africa cannot establish its relevance in the global scheme of things without a strong and purposeful regional organization. This can only happen with responsible,decisive and smart leadership.