LETTERS

The problem with African leaders
12/29/06, Justin Laku

The AU is a comfort club for African dictators where they meet to pat each other on the back, and compare notes on suppressing their citizenry. In order to be relevant today, the AU must change its dubious dealings from a "Dictators' Only Club" to a people-based organization. The heart of the AU's impotence are its principles of non-interference, and non-intervention which simply mean that member states turn a blind eye to their neighbours, thus explaining why the Darfur's genocide will continue as long as the AU remains in charge.

What is happening in Darfur today is exactly what happened in Rwanda, which left many choking and drowning in their own blood from April to July of 1994. Darfur is Rwanda in slow motion; the only difference is the number of the dead. So far 300,000 people have died in Darfur while 800,000 died in Rwanda. This is another holocaust unfolding before our very eyes.

The lack of good leadership, governance, clear vision, and high level corruption in Africa are the problems that have contributed to the poverty, and underdevelopment of the continent. Good governance is the key to development of Africa, and leadership is the most powerful lever to good governance as well as clear vision. Clear vision gives people direction, where they want to be years down the road. Through good leadership, good governance, and absence of corruption, Africa has the potential to be able to move forward, and extricate itself from the cesspool of underdevelopment, and poverty which have plagued the continent since independence.

African dictators are well known for high level corruption. They have sticky fingers that have been implicated in the mismanagement of public funds and development money which more often than not end up in their private accounts in banks overseas. To combat, corruption in Africa it is very important that western governments pass laws that will prohibit transfer of money from Africa to western banks without proper accountability. Failure of western governments to act would mean that the West is encouraging, and abetting the endemic corruption in Africa.

The Rwandan genocide could have been prevented if there was good leadership, governance, and clear vision for Africa. If each member state of the AU had provided the Canadian hero, General Romeo Dallaire, with 50 troops, he would have stopped the killers from their genocidal operations. This would have lent credence to the AU's clarion call for uniquely African solutions to African problems. Unfortunately this did not happen. So why should the West believe and trust that the corrupt dictators of Africa will end Darfur's genocide?

For example how could Olusegun Obasanjo, the Nigerian president, point fingers at Omar Bashir, the Sudanese president, about the situation in Darfur and label it genocide that requires UN intervention while giving Charles Taylor, the former Liberian president, safe haven in Nigeria?

The international community is fully aware that the AU lacks experience, training, logistics, and the AU has no history of dealing with crisis. For example, to this date, the status of Western Sahara remains unresolved. Furthermore, the crises in Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Burundi, Rwanda, Chad, Uganda, and Zimbabwe are ongoing. Since its inception in May 26 1963, the OAU (the forerunner of present-day AU) has not solved one single crisis in Africa. The failure of the international community is in allowing Darfur's genocide to continue by leaving the Right to Protect in the weak hands of the AU, which lacks a clear and strong mandate to fight back, arrest, and detain the Janjaweed militia, backed by the Khartoum's regime, which terrorizes unarmed men, children, and rapes innocent women and girls. Which begs the question; Can the weak protect the weak?

The West is equally guilty for accepting the myth of African solution to African problems. While Africans should strive to fund the mission in Darfur, the AU, in partnership with the West, must come up with clear and workable solutions to the crisis. There must also be legal instruments to persecute the law breakers.

Justin Laku
Ottawa,
Canada