The African Union

On a continent bruised by wars, disease, and famine, forming a central political body has never been easy. When the OAU was set up in 1963, it faced a power struggle between pan-Africanists, who wanted to establish a unified governing body for the continent, and nation-builders, who wanted to concentrate on individual countries’ development. The nation-builders won, and as a result the OAU was powerless to set continentwide policy or intervene in regional conflicts.

The outline for the African Union is more ambitious. Modeled on the European Union, the AU plans to have its own parliament, central bank, and court of justice. It has already embraced the New African Initiative, a comprehensive economic recovery plan directed by South Africa’s President Thabo Mbeki and Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade. The plan, which aims to encourage foreign investment and reduce poverty, was greeted with enthusiasm. “The new body’s plans to spearhead a drive for more aid and investment with the so-called African Initiative is the right thing to do at the right time,” read an editorial on July 16 in The Independent of Banjul, Gambia.

But other aspects of the AU came in for widespread criticism. Many saw the involvement of Libya’s President Muammar Qaddafi—who is credited with conceiving the AU two years ago—as a problem. Though leaders such as Mbeki and Nigeria’s President Olusegun Obasanjo have worked hard to modify Qaddafi’s vision of a Libyan-led “United States of Africa,” the Libyan leader seems determined to put his stamp on the organization.

Recently, he has been lobbying to have Tripoli become the home of the AU’s parliament. “If Libya’s capital is to be the seat of the new AU parliament, executive commission, central bank, and court of justice, this...poses problems, for Libya is no democracy,” read an editorial in Windhoek, Namibia’s, liberal The Namibian (July 13).

Other commentators were quick to suggest that the European model might not work in Africa. Pointing to the EU’s strict economic criteria for membership, Kingsley Lington asked in the independent Concord Times of Freetown, Sierra Leone, “Which African government has not mismanaged state resources?” (July 13).