The Sunday Mail
Tichawana Nyahuma & Ephraim Ndlovu
At the core of the African Dream as envisaged by African thinkers throughout history is the desire for Africa and its citizens to be treated as equals with the rest of the world. During the dark days of slavery, international law was more or less non-existent, especially where Africa and Africans were concerned. However, international law gained a measure of growth and respectability during the days of colonialism.
The opening of the UN General Assembly in New York this week presents Africa with yet another opportunity for the furtherance of the desire to treat Africa and its citizens as equal partners within the realms of international law, particularly the Security Council organ of the UN.
Indeed, the preamble to the UN Charter insinuates that it shall be fundamental for the UN “to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small…”
The question that then arises is whether this is achievable when Africa does not have permanent representation in the UN Security Council?
At a glance, one is tempted to believe that the above quote, when translated to reality means that African countries as individuals or as a continental block, are at par with their counterparts in other regions and continents within the organogram of the UN.
Admittedly, the UN Security Council handles issues arising from many hot spots throughout the world but it lacks an African perspective and voice which we believe is essential for the achievement of proper and equitable representation of member States.
Some of the problems that have afflicted Africa in the past could have been averted or better handled if an African voice had been present in the permanent member States of the UN Security Council to give an African narrative and to push the African agenda.
There is a view amongst some African scholars, the Rwanda genocide of 1994 spiralled out of control because the UN Security Council did not act urgently and decisively to avert the massacres that ensued unabated for time almost inordinate.
The same can also be said of the 2011 Arab Spring in as far as it affected the continent particularly with most African thinkers and nations condemning the passing of Resolution 1973 of 2011 by the UN Security Council authorising the use of force in Libya under the auspices of the contentious Responsibility to Protect Principle.
Closer to home in the then apartheid South Africa, the UN Security Council stood with arms akimbo for a time almost immemorial while the white apartheid regime butchered Africans in order to protect and further the lofty economic positions that the whites in that country occupied.
Other equally unacceptable situations occurred in Somalia after the demise of former leader Mahamed Siad Barre in the early 1990s. Even up to this day, Somalia has not known stability.
We agree in principle with former South African president Thabo Mbeki’s call made under the banner of NEPAD and the African Renaissance, that African problems are better resolved by Africans.
However, we wish to add that when this thought is transplanted into the UN Security Council, it can best dispense justice for the African continent if it has an African voice.
The aspect of the UN Security Council that matters the most in this debate is the permanent seat in that organ.
The five permanent members each have veto power, that is to say, any one of them has the muscle to bar a decision in which the other four would have concurred.
We ask — what sort of democratic notion would see a minority endowed with power to overrule the majority?
Essentially, when one takes into account that with the fall of the USSR in 1991 and the end of the Cold War, the permanent members are now more like than unlike because as it happens, Russia, which emerged out of the ashes of the USSR, is slowly drifting towards capitalism. Capitalism is the string that ties together the other four permanent members of the Security Council.
There is, therefore, no longer a balancing power because all five permanent members are now eating from the same plate.
It is our view that realistically speaking, it is not in the spirit of equality of States when the more than one billion African citizens have their fate in the hands of one permanent member State of the Security Council.
While we may have issues with the veto power system, it is suffice for now to state that it would be in the interest of Africa for it to also have a representative who also wields such power within this undoubtedly important organ.
The lack of such an influential support system within the UN Security Council permanent member States was demonstrated with much sadness in the case of one eminent African son, former UN Secretary-General, Boutros Boutros-Ghali who was elbowed out of office when we all thought that his “World Peace Agenda” was exactly the panacea that the world needed. As it turned out, his vision crossed paths with some permanent members of the Security Council and he was unsurprisingly prevented from taking up a second term at the helm of the UN.
We therefore call upon African leaders to rally behind the AU chairman, President Robert Mugabe in his unflinching call for Africa to take a permanent seat at the high table of the Security Council. We wish to remind our leaders that they should seek to achieve the goal that has been fought for by illustrious Africans throughout the historical struggles.
It is, therefore, incumbent upon them to take note that they need not stand in the way of historical dialectical materialism where small quantitative struggles for equality and emancipation that were engaged by Martin Luther King, Herbert Chitepo, Steve Biko, Nelson Mandela, Kwame Nkrumah, Joshua Nkomo and others of their ilk have crystallised into a qualitative change in the perception of Africa and African peoples within the broader international community.
Obviously this whole debate touches on international law and how our leaders should and must fight for equitable space with which to represent the interests of Africa in that esteemed organ of the UN.
However, as much as international law is followed and enforced in many aspects of international trade, it is difficult to enforce when it comes to matters that are political in nature mainly because its enforcement largely depends on the co-operation of the member states involved. That co-operation hinges on the economic interests of the parties concerned.
If Africa gets a permanent seat on the UN Security Council one day, it remains to be seen how the achievement will change its fortunes in the global scheme of things. This might also influence the enforcement of international law.
Feedback: [email protected] or [email protected]. The authors are Harare-based legal practitioners. They write in their personal capacities.
