African Unification Front
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Click for Reports on NATO's Africa Policy
Monday, May 30, 2005
NATO MUST NOT VIOLATE AFRICAN AIRSPACE
African Parliament Must Control African Union Commission
By Dan Kashagama, AUF General Secretary
There should not be any NATO troops in Africa, not even a "light presence" on the ground anywhere.
In the last week there has been speculation among certain members of the international community to consider implementing a No-Fly Zone over Sudan. The idea of a No-Fly Zone is constructive. However, the AUF is opposed to the presence of NATO soldiers, including air force personnel, violating African airspace. The appropriate course of action would be to have African pilots enforce the No-Fly Zone over Darfur.
There are hundreds of jet fighters belonging to various African Union forces stationed minutes away from Darfur. These jets have to fly frequently anyway, in order to remain serviceable. All that has to happen is for the pilots at Asmara Airbase in Eritrea, Gebre Zeit in Ethiopia, Eastleigh in Nairobi, and Nakasongola in Uganda, and other bases across Africa, to include Darfur in their flight plans, and co-ordinate their flight sorties. They can also use bases in Sudan, Egypt, Libya, Chad and northern Congo, all of which are literally a couple of minutes away from Darfur.
Moreover, the African air forces have exactly the same kind of planes as NATO air forces, mostly the F-16s, in addition to MiGs, and other kinds of planes, and helicopters, which are all currently sitting idle on runways across Africa. African pilots are just as good as NATO pilots, and shouldn’t have a problem patrolling the skies over Darfur.
It is astonishing that the AU Commissioner Oumar Konare did not try to find the means to secure African resources for the Darfur mission, but has from the start been clamoring to get EU, US and NATO intervention. This servile attitude has cost money, time and lives. The demands that he made for foreign deliveries include items that are clearly cheaply available in Africa, and need not come from abroad.
The AU Commission initially requested foreigners to supply 116 armoured personnel carriers, 24 armoured ambulances, 16 helicopters (including 6 gunships), 7 heavy lift cargo aircraft, trucks and cars, communications equipment and office supplies, basic equipment such as tents, stoves and flak jackets. Yet surely most or all of these things are available in Africa, and cost cheaper than importing them from NATO. The largest army uniforms manufacturer in the world is in Africa. Africans manufacture helicopters. It is quite likely that all the commission had to do was ask nicely, and make do with regular ground transport instead of waiting to fly troops in with foreign air transports. For example, the AU troopers from Rwandan bases would only need to drive 500 miles to get to Darfur.
It seems that the AU commission is really just about making money, and it doesn’t care that this attitude is damaging Africa’s reputation abroad, and making genuine Pan Africanists angry at the extravagant waste and sloppiness that Oumar Konare continues to display. Clearly the Pan African Parliament needs to put firm controls on the way the Commission is functioning. Konare should have to clear everything he does with a standing parliamentary committee, or with the President of the PAP. Most urgently, the Commission should absolutely stop creating new bureaucratic organs. Many of the postings the commission is hiring for, are absolutely unnecessary, and don’t serve any useful purpose within the context of performing the functions as a secretariat of the Pan African Parliament.
It is abundantly clear that the Pan African Parliament needs to reign in the Commission. The PAP also should enact a Crisis Management Act authorizing the collection and storage of equipment for use in future crises. The parliament also needs to scrap the AU Peace and Security Council, and replace it with the regular parliamentary committee. The PAP should also formally reinstate the inclusive African Chiefs of Defence Staff (who should not be paid at international civil service rates), and have some of the members of the ACDS plan and organize emergency relief and peacekeeping. The ACDS would be in a better position than the Commission to secure military resources cheaply, and would be a full-time organ with more time to organize emergency responses in any part of Africa.
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