African Unification Front
|
 |
|
|
|
|
 |
 |
|
Monday 27, March, 2006
OPEN LETTER TO OUMAR KONARE
From: AUF Executive Committee
To: Oumar Konare, Chair of AU Commission
Re: How the AU Commission is Subverting African Unity
Dear Mr. Konare,
The new Commission website is a great improvement over the old one. However, it fails to mention the fact that both the Union Act, and the Protocol Establishing the African Economic Community, specifically subordinate the African Union Commission to the Pan African Parliament. The AU Commission website also gives the false impression that the commission is charged with, or is actually running, the day-to-day affairs of the entire Union (implying thereby that it is responsible for the running of other institutions of the Union including the PAP).
In otherwords, you are still defining the African Union narrowly and in favor of the commission, and in such a way as to imply that the commission has powers not expressly stipulated in the Union Act, and also contrary to the intentions of the founding leaders of the Pan African struggle, and in violation of the democratic ideal of parliamentary rule.
Moreover, the AU Commission's website is wrongly named. It claims to be the site of the AU entirely, and makes no distinction between the AU and the AU Commission [AUC]. Yet it is clearly not the "website of the AU" but rather it is the "website of the AUC". It is also troubling that the section that is titled: "AU in a Nutshell" fails entirely to define the AU correctly...but merely goes on about the OAU, and also creates the impression that the AU is not a "union" but is merely an "organization".
Your website [the AUC website] also appears to credit the OAU exclusively with the formation of the AU, and while it mentions efforts by states governments, it makes no mention whatsoever of the role and contributions of popular Pan African movements and ordinary citizens in the struggle to bring about the establishment of the AU (and the AUC for that matter).
Granted the AUC and some of the other organs are intergovernmental organizations, but the PAP is not, and neither are the millions of citizens and thousands of institutions (modern or historic) and processes (eg the pan African movt) that constitute the African Union proper.
Instead of explaining what the AU is, the site is promoting the AUC and other executive organs of the AU at the expense of the PAP, and at the expense of Pan African cadres and popular/grassroots organizations, and thereby compromising the future position of the PAP as the legislative assembly.
Considering the fact that the desired end result of the Pan African struggle is a fully functional federal union led by a parliament with full legislative powers, wouldn't it be proper and fitting if the AUC made a greater effort to advocate more enthusiastically for institutional relations that reflect the desired outcome?
It is disappointing that the Commission is persisting in promoting a statist/corporatist discourse about the AU that rigidly favors intergovernmentallity over parliamentary supremacy, popular democracy, and accountability to ordinary citizens.
The AUC website should read, in the page that purports to describe the AU, the following description:
The African Union has the status of a State under recognized international conventions. The AU was established by an Act of Union transforming the African Economic Community, an economic federation and a national commonwealth, into a Union, defined as a federal state, under established international conventions.
Moreover, leaving aside modern conceptions of statehood, Africa's status as a nation-state and civilization predates the Berlin West Africa Conference. African legality, culture, and history are more than enough to entitle Africa the status of a unified state, one country, one nation. That state now has the name African Union, a name first proposed by Kwame Nkrumah.
The African Union has a parliamentary government, in which the PAP will eventually (just over two years from now) excercise full legislative powers, although currectly it has budgetary oversight and other critically important governance functions. The various all-union, regional, state, municipal, and public institutions throughout the AU, properly constitute the African Union Government, comprising of legislative, judicial and executive functions.
The Act of Union stipulates that the Commission is the secretariat of the PAP...but the Commission persists in refusing to function as a secretariat under control of parliament. The fourth session of African parliament struggled with the question of how to make the AUC and the PAP work together...but the commission is persisting, under your direction, in taking initiatives without having been assigned them by the PAP, in violation of the spirit and letter of the Union Act.
It follows hence that the AUC website should accord prominence, not just to the AUC chair and the Chair of the AU Asssembly of Heads of state, but also to the President of the PAP, who is, in fact, the President of the African Union.
The powers of the President of the African Parliament derive from the Union Act, and other treaties. The PAP president's inheritence of presidential authority is implied and stipulated by African treaties, but also expected out of respect for international treaties, Pan African ideals, and other established conventions and democratic traditions, including those subordinating the Secretary General of the OAU Secretariat (AU Commission) to the PAP.
The Protocol of the PAP, and the Union Act, also oblige the AUC to grant the PAP prominence in the pursuit of the desired end result and final outcome - parliamentary supremacy.
Lastly, in the absence of direct all-African presidential elections, the person on to whom the title of AU President properly devolves, is the member of the PAP who is elected to lead the PAP, who has gained the confidence (support of the majority seats/votes) of the PAP.
The procedure whereby the Head of State is elected by parliament is standard democratic practice all over the world...in all of Europe, Latin America, and Asia, and even in the US, where the constitution has clauses that recognize the power of Congress to directly elect the US president, especially in the event of a failure by the Electors and Courts to decided a vote. In fact, at least two US presidents were elected by the Congress.
It seems therefore only fair that the new AU Commission website should correctly be titled "AUC" and not AU. The AUC is only one of the institutions of the AU. The AUC must not, and should not, claim to be the AU. Moreover, the AUC website should feature the President of the PAP/AU, more prominently (or as prominently as) it does the Chair of the Assembly, and the Chair of the Commission. The AUC should respect the democratically elected president of Africa.
End
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
printable version
