Lan xiao cong Student ID: . s07671
Research Paper Supervisor: Dr. Sekou Conde
Minzu University of China 
2006-2008 Academic Year
Abstract: The conflict of Africa, the riot, the poverty,etc. have been the focus that the international community has paid close attention to all the time.The Darfur crisis immensely tested the African Union’s determination to keep peace and stop the excruciating destruction of human life on the continent. This paper argues that the AU has performed fairly well in Darfur, but the AU member states and donor community need a serious dialogue among themselves. It is argued that peacekeeping is a global responsibility and the lessons from the AU’s experience in Darfur have significant implications for the future of peacekeeping in Africa.
Keywords: AU; crisis; Darfur; experience
 
What is AU
African Union (AU), founded in 2002, is headquartered in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa. AU is the EU's second after the establishment of important inter-State Union, is a concentration of political, economic, and military as one of the continent-wide political entity. Morocco is the only African country that is not a member of the African Union. The AU currently has 53 members:Algeria, Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, The Comoros, Republic of Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Djibouti, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gabon, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic, São Tomé and Príncìpe, Senegal, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Africa, Sudan, Swaziland, Tanzania, Togo, Tunisia, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe[1].
From OAU （the Organisation of African Unity） to AU
On July 9, 2002, the AU was launched in Durban,South Africa, ushering in a time of deep reflections on the past, and a hopeful outlook to the future of a viable,democratic and peaceful Africa. The Constitutive Act2 adopted in Lomé in 2000 established and mandated the AU as the continental guardian of peace and stability in Africa. As stipulated in Article 3 of the AU Constitutive Act, maintaining continental peace and security is the principal role of the AU. Importantly, Article 4 lists various principles of the AU, notably the principle of “non-interference”. Although the AU retained the principle of non-interference in any member state’s internal affairs, Article 4 (h) makes a dramatic departure from the OAU’s approach to dealing with internal affairs of the member states asserting “the right of the Union to intervene in a Member State pursuant to a decision of the Assembly in respect of grave circumstances, namely war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity”[2].Additionally, Article 5 mentions the key organs of the AU, notably the Peace and Security Council (PSC), the AU’s principal decision-making organ for conflict prevention, management and resolution, which was established by the PSC Protocol in 2002 and officially inaugurated in May 2005. Article 7 empowers the PSC’s Commissioner to recommend to the AU Assembly necessary AU interventions and the deployment of peacekeeping missions in member states when acts of genocide and other crimes against humanity are committed. Furthermore, Article 5 (2) identifies five key bodies to assist the PSC: the African Standby Force (ASF); Continental Early Warning System (CEWS), with planning elements in each of the five African regions; the Panel of the Wise (POW); a Common Africa Defence and Security Policy (CADSP); and the Military Staff Committee (MSC) to formulate integrated continental security and defence policies[3].
Nature of African Conflicts
Africa’s conflicts, as elsewhere, are expansive and devastating. According to the April 2005 peace and conflict ledger authored by Gurr and Marshall (2005), the African continent still remains in a precarious security situation.
The continent has 17 ‘red-flagged’ African nations facing the danger of state failure, while another 19 were ‘yellow-flagged’ and are in a serious state of fragility. Theoretically, the AU was to be the magic bullet for promoting human security and managing African conflicts if the member states failed to do so[4]. Recognizing continental security challenges and international insensitivity to the security needs of African nations as experienced in the 1994 Rwandan genocide, the formation of the AU was seen as a dramatic step by the continent to take charge of its own affairs. In addition to this horrendous genocide, other serious war crimes were committed by various African regimes, while the AU’s predecessor, the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), did not intervene.
Overview of the Darfur Crisis
To effectively discuss the AU’s lessons in Darfur, an understanding of the Darfur conflict is in order. The Darfur region has a history of resource-based interethnic rivarlies between nomadic Arab groups and the farming black African communities of Fur, Massaleet and Zagawa. Emerging in early 2003, the Darfur rebellionled by the two major rebel groups, the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SLM/A) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), grew out of linked multiple causes within the Sudanese polity. The launch of the conflict was timed to coincide with the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) between the government of Sudan and the south Sudan-based Sudanese People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) led the late John Garang. Since 2003, 200 000 people have been killed, 200 000 are refugees and 3 million are internally displaced[5].
Some human rights organisations in the United States have termed the conflict genocide. But the United Nations (UN) and the AU have differed from this label, though they have asserted that war crimes and crimes against humanity have been committed against black populations by the government forces and the Janjaweed militia. In April 2006, the UN Security Council imposed sanction against four individuals for committing war crimes in Darfur. These include a former Chief of the Sudanese Air Force, a leader of the Janjaweed militia and two armed opposition leaders.
The AU’s Experience in Darfur
In addition to humanitarian assistance, two intervention fronts have emerged. First, the AU initiated a peacekeeping mission. Secondly, the then AU Chairman, Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, initiated peace talks in Abuja. In May 2006, the government of Sudan and the largest armed group, the SLM/A, signed a peace agreement. In the agreement, the government agreed to disarm the Janjaweed, channel resources to rebuild Darfur, and integrate the armed movements into the national army. The implementation of the peace deal has been rocky.
 Initially, the AU established the AU Mission in Sudan (AMIS) with a 120-person Ceasefire Monitoring Commission and more than 5 000 AU peacekeeping
forces. The number of AMIS peacekeepers grew to 7 000 in September 2005, and is expected to reach 12 500 before the end of 2006. The AU is also working with North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) to provide logistical support and equipment, and the UN take-over of the mission is currently underway. Somini Sengupta of the New York Times commented that apart from the African nations no country has been willing to send its own troops to Darfur[6].
AMIS has also received high-level commendation. In July 2005, Jan Pronk, the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Sudan, addressing the UN Security Council, reported, “the AU force has helped to establish more stability. They have done an admirable job,highly professional, with much dedication.”Concurring,
former the Clinton Administration Africa director, John Prendergast, observed, “The African Union has the chance, in its embryonic state, to demonstrate in a dramatic way that it can make a difference in Africa.” After a 2004 visit to Darfur, Jon Corzine, a Democratic senator from New Jersey and Richard Holbrook, a former US Ambassador to the United Nations, commended the AU for the role it played in Darfur: “surprisingly, the strongest efforts to stop the fighting have come from the African Union, which is facing the first test of its viability as an organisation since it replaced the weak and ineffective Organisation of African Unity in 2000”.
Despite the monumental financial, logistical and territorial challenges facing it, AMIS has been credited with providing security and hope to some villages in Darfur. A UN official commenting on the impact of the AU peacekeeping force stated, “the AU has been very effective in decreasing violence in areas where it maintains presence in the Darfur region. It has also prevented some attacks from happening through local negotiations on the ground. However, it has not prevented general insecurity due to its inability to deploy in large numbers.”Around the AU camps in Labado and Khor Abache in South Darfur, life is returning and villagers are slowly trickling in to rebuild their lives. Adam Mynott, a BBC correspondent, assessed, “there is no doubting the effectiveness of African Union peace monitoring troops in the areas where they are operating in Sudan’s war-torn region of Darfur.”The news report also states that of the 12 000 people displaced by the Janjaweed in the area, about 2 000 have returned. A Darfurian lady, Miriam confessed, “I am still scared of
being attacked, but while the African Union soldiers are here I feel safe.”
Within its capacity, the AU has shown impressive leadership and pragmatism in confronting the Darfur challenge. But some analysts and diplomats familiar with African conflicts argue that despite African pride and the progress and commitment that the AU has shown [...]

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