Time running out for SA to help silence guns in Africa
Amid the disruption of the coronavirus, which has forced the UN to conduct most of its business remotely, SA is in the last seven months of its two-year tenure on the UN Security Council.
It has promoted the AU’s aspirations of “silencing the guns in Africa by 2020”. About 70,000 (85%) of the UN’s 82,000 peacekeepers are deployed in Africa. SA has 1,153 troops in three UN missions, 98% in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and others in Darfur and South Sudan.
As AU chair, President Cyril Ramaphosa has identified the DRC, Central African Republic (CAR) and Libya as priorities for silencing the guns. SA has pursued “the African agenda”, but unlike Germany and Indonesia has yet to draft Security Council resolutions, which are dominated by France, Britain, and the US in 15 of 16 African cases.
Alongside Beijing and Moscow, SA has insisted on support for the DRC’s sovereignty in the face of meddling by France and Belgium. Despite the presence of 20,000 UN peacekeepers in the DRC, more than 3-million people have been killed and about 6-million displaced.
The situation in the east — especially in Ituri and the Kivus — remains dire, with 250,000 people displaced in Ituri since January. SA has thus argued for a continuing focus on UN peacekeeping in the east, and increased peacebuilding efforts in the rest of the country.
In neighbouring Burundi, where 436,000 people have been displaced, SA has maintained a similar approach to the DRC in urging that the country’s sovereignty be respected.
Burundi’s governing party has announced victory in recent presidential elections controversially held amid the Covid-19 crisis. More broadly, Burundi and Rwanda continue to accuse each other of backing armed elements against the other’s territory.
In the CAR, the AU and the UN have praised the country’s political agreement for peace and reconciliation. However, even with 11,000 UN peacekeepers, rival Christian and Muslim militias roam across 80% of the country in a conflict that has displaced about 1.2-million people and involves farmers, herders, merchants, and reportedly Chadian and Sudanese mercenaries.
In Sudan’s Darfur region, the UN — led by SA diplomat Kingsley Mamabolo — is set to draw down peacekeeping and establish a much smaller political mission. While Western powers have pushed for a strong follow-on mission with a police force that can protect civilians and monitor human rights, SA, along with Russia and China, has supported the government of Khartoum’s position of having a limited UN presence in the territory. However, Sudanese security forces continue to be accused of committing human rights abuses, while Western Darfur remains unstable.
In neighbouring South Sudan, SA has worked to support the country’s transitional government, installed in February. Along with
Tunisia, Niger, Russia and China, SA has opposed Western efforts to continue to impose sanctions on the belligerents, which they feel could damage the political process. SA has instead argued for benchmarking the easing of sanctions to progress in the peace process.
In neighbouring Abyei, SA — backed again by Beijing and Moscow — has pushed back against US efforts to reduce the number of troops in the Ethiopian-led UN peacekeeping mission.
As AU chair, Ramaphosa is trying to reverse the continental body’s diplomatic marginalisation in Libya amid continued meddling by Egypt, Turkey, Russia, France, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. About 150,000 people have been internally displaced, while thousands of trapped African migrants continue to be maltreated.
Amid these continuing conflicts, SA will struggle to meet the impossible 2020 deadline for the guns to fall silent in Africa.