African Unification Front
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See: NATO is Planning to Occupy the African Union
See: US Undermines Peace Dealing With AU States Separately
see: Pentagon Considers Anti-Terror Options in Africa
See: US, NATO uses HIV as Excuse to Intervene in Africa
See: NATO Must Not Violate African Airspace
See: Belgium Apologises for Killing Pan-African Leader
May 1, 2005
PAN AFRICANISTS ARE OPPOSED TO NATO PRESENCE IN AFRICA
Is AU Commissioner Alpha Oumar Konare a Traitor?
The African Union Commission Chair, Alpha Oumar Konare, is asking NATO to operate in Africa. Austensibly NATO is intervening in Africa to help end the crisis in the Darfur region of the AU state of Sudan. However, the African agenda of NATO is seriously flawed and is likely to result in more instability. NATO troops are likely to attract anti-US extremists into Sudan. Sudan could turn into a second Iraq. In addition, US/NATO troops are untrained to conduct peacekeeping operations around Africans, and are likely to repeat the abuses they inflicted on Somalia between 1991 and 1994.
Oumar Konare: Power-Hungry Neo-Colonial Agent
 Konare made the request in a letter sent to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer. After receiving the message at NATO’s headquarters, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer quickly informed the permanent representatives of NATO’s members who then "agreed that exploratory talks should begin with the AU Commission". The request comes after the conclusion of the Third Session the African Parliament, which has not been consulted about inviting NATO into Africa.
The AU Commission chair Konare is in the habit of exluding the AU Parliament from involvement in critical decision-making. Konare makes sure that the Parliament cannot vote on key decisions, by abusing bureaucratic powers. For example, Konare's policy intentionally makes no distinction whatsoever between the AU Commission and the AU, and he continues to craft formulations in his speeches that undermine African unity...formulations that confuse and reverse even treaties that have already been ratified.
In this case concerning NATO, not even the Assembly of Heads of State had a vote. The decision to invite a foreign force into Africa was made by Konare, perhaps with commissioner Said Djinnit, but certainly no one outside the Commission. The decision violates not only the principles of the Union Act, but is clearly at odds with several of its articles. But this kind of contravention of African law has never stopped Konare...who upon taking office didn't know how many states are in the African Union, and is still working to rename the African Union, so that it becomes the impolitic United States of Africa (an idea that was expressly rejected by African delegates, who during the crafting of the Union Act, were in favour of naming the new federation the "African Union" in keeping with the original intentions of Kwame Nkrumah and other Pan Africanists).
The letter that Konare sent to NATO called for "the AU Commission and NATO’s general secretariat to begin discussions on the possibility of NATO providing logistical support" for the AU in Darfur. The discussions are not likely to include the African Parliament, which will have to pick up the pieces in the event that the NATO actions in Africa lead to more violence.
Commissioner Konare will visit NATO headquarters on May 17, 2005. He will be making a mistake, with unimaginable consequences for Africans. The term logistical support, is a catch all term that includes mission administration, procurement, distribution, maintenance, and replacement of materiel and personnel, and the management of the details of an operation. Logistics is a polite term for "being in charge of an operation".
Condoleeza Rice: Undermining African Parliament
 The decision to involve NATO was suggested to Alpha Konare by Condoleeza Rice, who seems to have been pressured by the Pentagon, and by NATO staffers at the Vilnius conference in April, 2005. But that pressure started on February 28, 2005, when well-intentioned Congressman Jesse L. Jackson, Jr., demanded that Africa become a priority in U.S. foreign policy. Jackson pressed for and received a public assurance from Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice that Africa would be a "top priority" for the Bush administration and for her State Department. Instead of going to the African Parliament to find out how she could help, she went to NATO, and to the retrograde bureaucracy of Oumar Konare's AU Commission.
Rice has got no history in the Pan African movement, and her attitudes towards Africa are rather colonial. She has never been to Africa, has no concept of African politics, and her analyses are formulations of military hawks in the Bush administration. In spite of good intentions, she is completely illiterate in African issues, and has never made a single coherent statement of value about Africans. Her asking NATO to intervene in Africa is foolish and is just as bad, or worse than if NATO were to intervene in Russia or China. The ethos of NATO troops, but US soldiers in particular, will offend the cultural sensibilities of Africans rather quickly. There will be incidents, and then there will be even more carnage.
The US army has been trying for decades to find a palatable excuse to intervene in Africa. Condoleeza has given them the opening they need. Since she and Konare are both Africans, it looks as if their request is legitimate. But there is no substitute for debate and a vote by the African parliament. NATO will be undermining the authority of the AU Parliament if it doesn't seek its permission.
For intervening in Darfur, the prize for the US government and NATO, is cheap African oil and minerals, a viable substitute and alternative for Saudi oil. But there are other benefits. Permanent deployment of US troops in Africa also provides a way of remaining close to Europe, which wants to replace NATO with an EU force. The Europeans are looking for a means to end the US military presence in Europe, and Africa seems like a sphere for US/NATO operations, while leaving Europe to the EU.
In Washington, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist welcomed the AU Commissioner Alpha Konare's request for NATO intervention, saying "I'm ... hopeful that a partnership between NATO and the AU will help bring stability and restore order to this troubled region." Bill Frist and other senators have not considered that stability in Darfur will only result after the removal of Bashir, and when the Sudan state parliament gets free and fair elections. Military intervention can not provide a real solution to a political problem.
The AUF has a longstanding policy of opposition to NATO involvement in Africa. It is reprehensible that Alpha Konare and his fellow commissioners, Said Djinnit, and others continue to usurp the rights and democratic privileges of the African parliament, by making decisions without debate or a vote of parliament.
Solana: Pushing Regressive EU/NATO Agenda in Africa
 In fact Javiar Solana, the man in charge of EU Foreign and Security Policy, now refers to Konare as the "president of the African Union", a title that is constitutionally reserved for the leader of the Pan African Parliament, of which Konare is not a member. Konare encourages the false notion that his powers supercede those of the African Parliament. Konare used to refer to his staff as the "cabinet", and when the AUF challenged this arrogation and insisted that the title of cabinet properly belongs to the PAP appointed committee chaired by the PAP president, Konare, with Ghadaffi's help created a committee led by a war criminal, Yoweri Museveni, to decide the future of the African cabinet.
These abuses follow on the heels of the Commission's decision to move the PAP to South Africa, away from Addis Ababa, in violation of the Union Act, and longstanding Pan African tradition. Konare's actions, his continuing sabotage of the Pan African cause, and his defiance of democratic logic and reason, is a tragedy for Africa.
The Darfur crisis, and other crises in Africa, will only be resolved if we have a strong, independent, well-funded and working African parliament. Surely African troops can stop a rag-tag band of horsemen from raping...they don't need NATO to do it for them.
Surely, NATO cannot do the work of the African Parliament. The logistics argument is easily resolved by raising funds in a politically legitimate manner, not by appealing to a historically hostile foreign military alliance. Every day Africans spend billions of dollars maintaining armies in 50 odd states...cannot they send them to Darfur on trucks, can't they get to Darfur? Do they really need an army from the US to guard villages in Darfur? The actions and record of Alpha Konare since he has been chair of the AU Commission, are extremely distressing and are likely to do a lot of harm to Africans.
END
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