Recent unrest in the North barely featured on the agenda at the 16th African Union summit in Addis Ababa. What, then, is of most concern to the continent's leaders at such a turbulent time?
By Katherine Harbord for RUSI.org
Military forces from more than 36 African nations, U.S. Army Africa and other partner nations and agencies assemble for the closing ceremony of Africa Endeavor 2010 in Accra, Ghana, on 20 August 2010.
As the African Union (AU) summit draws to a close, it is clear that several main issues have dominated the agenda. Surprisingly, perhaps, recent events in North Africa were not discussed: the AU's Commission Chairman, Jean Ping, explained that they occurred after his report was already written. This is perhaps reflective of the AU as an organisation: one that hesitates to take decisive action. But the need for such action will be crucial for the AU in 2011, and the way it answers these calls will be one of its biggest challenges.
2011 is something of a year of elections for Africa. The Sudanese have already held their referendum, but nineteen other states are set to hold national-level elections of varying forms over the next eleven months. For this reason, Côte d'Ivoire represents something of a test case for the AU, and was itself the subject of a mini-summit.
The Côte d'Ivoire Test Case
The strongest declaration yet that Gbagbo's days are numbered came in an ECOWAS statement on Sunday. James Victor Gbeho said that the decision had been taken to 'try once more a peaceful effort to remove Gbagbo', rather than to legitimise him, something that Gbeho described as 'out of the question'.  Raila Odinga, the AU mediator for Côte d'Ivoire, emphasised the need for face-to-face discussions between Gbagbo and Ouattara if a peaceful outcome were to be found. As yet, there is still unease within the AU about the possibility of military intervention in Côte d'Ivoire, but it is clear that the election results will not be over-turned in the quest for stability. Armed intervention from ECOMOG, if it does come, is unlikely to happen soon: Nigeria, who have one of the largest capacities within ECOWAS, are themselves in an election year, and a promise to commit troops to restoring democracy elsewhere is unlikely to prove popular with the voters. Any such intervention is unlikely to be straightforward, particularly as Gbagbo has the support of the Army, and is highly likely to lead to further instability, a return to civil war and the threat of subsequent regional unrest. Ping emphasised that the use of force would be a last resort, though he added that, 'If we [the AU] fail, it doesn't mean that we will not reconsider our position.'
The best outcome in this situation would be if Gbabgo's relinquishing of power were presented as a move taken of his own accord for the sake of national unity. This would allow him to save face, which may be important for ensuring future stability within Côte d'Ivoire. There have been suggestions at the summit that some form of power-sharing agreement will be proposed, albeit without the direct involvement of Gbagbo. A five-man committee [2] has been appointed to the case of Côte d'Ivoire, and has one month to come up with a binding settlement. The make-up of the committee is deliberately diverse, including both those who came to power through democratic elections and those who staged coups, and there is also a split between those who favour military intervention and those who do not. Whilst this mixture is laudible, Ping believes it might make it harder for an agreement to be reached in the timeframe available. African leaders - and would-be leaders - will be watching the AU carefully, as Côte d'Ivoire may well set a precedent for some of the other elections scheduled for this year. The AU needs to act swiftly and decisively once the committee has reported back if it is to avoid a mushrooming of these cases in the forthcoming elections across the continent.
Trouble-Hit Secession
Sudan is also something of a test case, as well as a potential precedent. Preliminary results suggest that an overwhelming majority (somewhere in the region of 99%) of the population voted for secession. The AU has always been committed to the inherited borders of Africa as a means of avoiding further territorial disputes, and in order not to entertain challenges to the legitimacy of national governments to rule minorities within their national parameters. The seemingly inevitable split between North and South is set to challenge this received wisdom. In recent days, AU leaders have argued that they must be swift to recognise a newly independent South. Any such recognition will inevitably lead to increased calls for recognition from other secessionist movements, and African leaders, including Idriss Déby, are already warning of the dangers these could bring. Muammar Gaddafi went even further, describing the potential for independence to 'be[come] a disease and will spread to all of Africa.'
South Sudan, however, is an exceptional case. Its right to self-determination was agreed by both sides as part of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement and, as such, comes with strong international backing. It is this lack of negotiated agreement that means other groups will struggle hard for their recognition. The AU has a long history of involvement in Sudan, not echoed elsewhere, with Bingu wa Mutharika, former chairman of the AU, describing South Sudan as 'a baby of the African Union' during a visit to Juba in January. This level of involvement has not been seen with other groups seeking recognition. Though some in Somaliland may find hope in South Sudan's secession, in reality the AU is unwilling to alter the status quo elsewhere in Africa. Somaliland is, however, the only would-be secessionist group with the potential to succeed: other movements, such as Cabinda in Angola or Casamance in Senegal, are weaker, with less domestic support and almost no international backing.
Inspiring Instability
The case of Sudan, however, may raise their hopes for the future and lead to a period of greater instability. It therefore seems unlikely that we shall have the 'patchwork Africa' that some leaders are predicting, but there is a possibility that this may be used as an excuse to crack down on dissenters in places such as the Western Sahara: Morocco continues to resist calls for a referendum in the territory, and violence erupted again last November. The AU will need to act swiftly at any sign of human rights violations in order to prevent such actions from spreading or escalating. Vacillation over this will lead to greater problems in the long run. Given the likelihood that the Executive Council of the African Union will endorse Kenya's rejection of the International Criminal Court trials of those suspected of leading the violence after the 2007 elections, this would be worrying for observers. Crimes against humanity are more easily punished than prevented and, though there have been calls for Africa to establish its own court for trying these cases, the reality is that any such organisation is a very distant prospect.
From a Western perspective, these developments are worrying: they increase the possibility of regional instability, and present a real threat to human security. There have already been suggestions that France could support the ECOWAS in the case of intervention in Côte d'Ivoire. However, the secession of South Sudan raises the spectre of intervention more widely. Firstly, it is unlikely that the ultimate split between North and South will be peaceful. The Secretary-General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-Moon, acknowledged this in his speech to the AU meeting on Sudan, calling on all sides to 'exercise restraint and avoid provocative action', and Ping's own speech at the same meeting mentioned the need for peaceful resolution of the issues still to be settled: Darfur, Abyei and the demarcation of the border. Whilst the North have recently said that they accept the preliminary results in favour of secession, southern Sudanese seem resigned to the idea that not all details of the split will be peacefully resolved, and there have been reports of increased military hardware flooding into the South across the Ethiopian border, possibly indicating a build-up of the Sudanese People's Liberation Army Secondly, if Africans agitating for secession see South Sudan's independence as setting an imitable precedent, conflict - in some cases escalating to civil war - and humanitarian crises may result.
In addition to increased flows of migrants and asylum seekers, refugees and (internally) displaced persons, this will lead to calls for the West, as well as the AU, to 'do something', and the debate over intervention and 'Responsibility to Protect' (R2P) will be reignited. The challenge facing the AU for this year is one of managing expectations - of voters, of leaders, of would-be secessionists - and taking decisive action where necessary, in order to avoid any further threats to regional stability and human security.
Katherine Harbord is Lecturer in Politics at Liverpool John Moores University
Notes
[1] Benin, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, DRC, Djibouti, Egypt, Gabon, The Gambia, Liberia, Madagascar, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sao Tome and Principe, Seychelles, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe
[2] The leaders of Burkino Faso (Blaise Compaoré), Chad (Idriss Déby), Mauritania (Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz), South Africa (Jacob Zuma) and Tanzania (Jakaya Kikwete) will work together with Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, newly elected head of the AU (as well as President of Equatorial Guinea), and Goodluck Jonathan (President of Nigeria) as head of ECOWAS.