African Union as a Permanent Member of the UN Security Council

The prospect of the African Union becoming a Permanent Member of the United Nations raises many doubts and fears.

The AU has consistently failed to demonstrate that it represents the many citizens of its nation members.  It has, to a very large extent, been a well-fed, foreign-funded discussion group to enable the Heads of States in Africa to hatch plots to rob their citizens of cash, assets and rights, with practically nothing being done to solve the many large problems confronting the continent, from autocratic leaders who flaunt their ability to disregard their constitutions and the laws of their country, to the abject poverty that is growing apace throughout the continent, while said leaders are gaining in wealth all the time. 

The latest failure of the AU to ensure peace in Burundi, in contravention of its resolution to send a peacekeeping force there to protect the citizens, is a flagrant example of the inability, or unwillingness, of the continent’s leaders to do anything to prevent a wrong developing into a genocidal crisis, or, even worse, into a continental scale war.  The example set by Rwanda of how this can happen was simply ignored.  One wonders what incentives were handed to the leaders involved to look the other way.  However, Burundi is only one of a long chain of denial of the rights of the citizens, which the AU professes to hold dear.  Rwanda is another example, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, Mozambique, South Sudan, Nigeria others, not to mention the crippling droughts that are killing millions in large areas of Africa, without the AU doing anything more effective than expressing anguish for the suffering of the ‘ordinary people’ affected and calling for foreign aid to feed the citizens (ignoring the fact that the present President of the AU diverted US foreign aid to sell it, for his own benefit, to members of his Party while depriving the Opposition areas of food, while it should have been initiating programs years ago to prevent the development of the conditions that have caused those problems.  The same criticism applies to the AU in its lack of action to prevent the religion-based civil wars affecting many more millions.  The only peacekeeping actions undertaken under the AU have been subject to rumors about how much has been promised, and paid, to leaders of the nations supplying the peacekeepers, with Robert Mugabe again being involved in this way, and even those peacekeeping actions have demonstrated the absolute incapacity of those nations to do anything meaningful in the field.

A consideration that should be of great concern to the citizens of the world is the likely composition of the body that will make the decisions driving the actions of the AU should it gain Permanent Membership.  They will include the likes of Robert Mugabe, a man decisively linked to genocide in his own nation, to election rigging, to the collapse of the previously strong economy of Zimbabwe, and to the promotion of inflammatory statements regarding Western countries, Omar al Shabir, a man who is the subject of a Warrant of Arrest issued by the International Criminal Court (which many of the AU member nations want to abolish, because it ‘targets only African leaders’ – as though they have not earned that), Jacob Zuma, a man who arrogantly ignores the findings of organisms of the State founded under the Constitution to control the excesses of his office, who simply disregards Orders of the High Court (to prevent al Shabir leaving the country, to hand over the tapes recording the discussions leading to the dropping of 749 criminal charges against him, who is likely to be prosecuted on those charges by any new Government not under his control, and who has waged war against the participants in the economy in South Africa in the interests of handing over a large slice of that economy to private interests while, no doubt, pocketing huge bribes in the process, Burundian President Pierre Nkurunziza, who has pushed through an amendment to the Constitution permitting him to retain his grasp on power for another five years, who is suspected of huge corruption during his term of office, and who is now suspected of genocide of his own people but who remains uncorrected by the AU, by Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, who has imposed a draconian policy of silencing any opposition to his rule, extended indefinitely when he orchestrated a change of the Constitution limiting the Presidential term of office in 2005, which effectively bars any reporter who criticizes his Government from access to the proceedings of the AU, and who runs the country in a totally undemocratic way, and Hifikepunye Pohamba, President of Namibia, a country which views the North Korean style of Government as worthy of emulation.  There have been reports of the corruption of numerous of the African Presidents, including Angola and Nigeria, of genocides carried out in several African countries within recent years, and of other aspects of dishonesty, criminality and lack of adherence to the rules of democracy to which those countries claim to adhere. 

One must ask the question:  “Do we really want to hand over the functioning of the United Nations to an entity that is controlled by incompetents, men who place their own interests highest on the list of priorities with those of the people only a very distant second, men who are the political equivalent of the Mafia dons?

Zuma- Complicit in Genocide?

The actions of President Jacob Zuma and his Cabinet in attempting to grant immunity to the President of Sudan in his attempt to escape arrest under a Warrant issued by the International Criminal Court on a charge of having committed genocide by ordering the actions that killed 300 000 of his countrymen, is a clear indication of their support of an internationally-wanted criminal.  Their actions in having failed to take the necessary steps to prevent his escape from justice is a breach of their duties under the Treaty of Rome, the establishment of which South Africa supported at a time when we all believed in rightness and justice, a breach of the law ratifying South Africa’s signature to that treaty, a breach of international law, a breach of the Constitution, and a breach of the binding judgment of the High Court.  It is a slap in the face of the international community, and a flagrant contravention of a United Nations Security Council Resolution.

It has been clear for years that Jacob Zuma is an outlaw President.  He has repeatedly ignored the Orders of the High Court and of a Chapter Nine institution, the Public Protector, which was set up in the Constitution to protect the nation against the criminal and otherwise illegal activities of the Executive.  His co-opting of his Cabinet colleagues to support these activities are a disgrace for the nation, and a clear statement of the collapse of the rule of law in South Africa.  It is also a clear description of the sort of people we have in the highest office.  Zuma’s actions in regard to the President of Sudan constitute an undeniable case for his immediate removal from office.  What President Richard Nixon did at Watergate is a tiny fraction of what Zuma has done.

The crimes which the President of Sudan is accused are not the petty theft of a quarter of a billion Rand of public money to build his own house, or the ignoring of the binding findings of constitutionally-constituted bodies or Courts of Law.  They are the cold-blooded murder of a large part of the population of his country, a crime committed in his clambering to gain the power and wealth of the office he now holds by force, violence and deceit.

The association of people like the President of Sudan, the President of Zimbabwe and the President of South Africa tells any who doubt, that the African Union is a Buddy’s Club dedicated to the protection of its members.  The African Union, by adopting the notion that a Head of State is above the law of any country, their own included, as well as above important and binding treaties such as the Treaty of Rome, has admitted that it does not consider its prime function to be the protection of the citizens of it member nations, but the maintenance in power of the evil ad criminal Presidents who get together to discuss how best to exploit their nations.  No sane person can believe that the African Union deserves any respect, as long as the presidents mentioned above are part of it, and certainly not while Robert Mugabe remains the President of the organization.

What should come out of this fiasco?

The first result should, and probably will be the castigation of South Africa as an outlaw State.  This should go so far as to have sanctions instituted against the country.  The allowing free of the Sudanese President should be seen as a clear notification to the world that South Africa is a State that, at least, supports and condones terrorism and genocide, that turns a blind eye to imperative legal commitments to bodies that it originally supported.  The sanctions could well take the form of a prohibition on international travel by Zuma and his Cabinet henchmen.  It may extend to financial and trade sanctions against the country.  Within South Africa, these actions should promote a vote of no confidence in the President and the people who have brought this international opprobrium on the country.  It should precipitate criminal actions for contempt of Court against Zuma, the Minister of Home Affairs, the Minister of Defence and several other senior and junior officials for their part in letting this criminal go free.  It should bring local, as well as international criminal actions against Zuma and his colleague for their role in the matter.  And it should bring about the downfall of the ANC, which has shown convincingly it scorn for the laws of the country, and of its citizens.

The results of the day’s activities will redound to South Africa’s detriment for years to come.  They will be a turning point for South Africa, second only to the fall of the Apartheid Government.  They will be felt by every citizen of the country, and they will be disastrous for the land of Nelson Mandela, the man who might well go down in history as the last honest President of this benighted land.

SA and the AU

The announcement that South Africa will fund the operations of the African Union to the tune of R700 million per annum comes at an interesting time. 

The AU leaders have shown great annoyance at the fact that the leader of Sudan, the subject of an international Warrant of Arrest issued by the International Criminal Court on a charge of genocide, should be arrested by South Africa, a signatory to an international agreement binding it to give effect to that warrant.  They have proclaimed that the ICC is intent on bringing African leaders to trial, ignoring all other nations.  They appear to ignore the fact that Angela Merkel and David Cameron are not known to have committed genocide, or to have killed 300 000 of their own people, or to have spent R246 000 000 of public money on their own properties in contravention of their obligations under the Constitution.  They seem to be oblivious to the lack of a civil war in Europe or the United States, in which tens of thousands of citizens are displaced, forcing them to flee to other countries.  They do not seem to understand that criminal charges are brought only in regard to large-scale criminal conduct.

At the same time, Zimbabwe has announced that it is redeeming Zimbabwe dollars at the rate of 175 000 million Zimbabwe dollars for US$5.  The AU is acting at the direction of its President, Robert Mugabe, a dictator who was responsible for the killing of about 45 000 Zimbabwe citizens, and the man who managed to bring the economically powerful nation of Zimbabwe (formerly Rhodesia, named after the man who set the basis for the economic growth of that country, but who has now become an object of hatred and mirth by Mugabe and his sidekicks, Zuma and Malema), to its knees.  A noteworthy achievement of the man who is now the President of the African Union, is the achievement of an inflation rate of five hundred billion per cent!  Is it possible that the people who claim to be the leaders of Africa can look up to this man?  Can they be so blind, so brainwashed, that they cannot see that what he did to his own country will inevitably be the result of following his insane propaganda?  The answer, apparently, is that they do not understand the linkage between the causes and the results that are there for all to see, that they are intent on following the Mugabe route to destruction.

There might appear to be some foundation for the desire of the AU to renege on the obligations of the treaty under which the African, and other, nations agree to hand over those suspected of criminal behavior to an unbiased and just Court for trial for their crimes!

Africa has long been known as a homeland of criminal leaders of nations.  It is almost not possible to list the names of five leaders of African nations without including at least one who is guilty of serious crimes against humanity or against the Constitution of their own countries – Mugabe, Gaddafi, Amin, Bhokassa, Zuma, Mobutu, the list is endless.  The announcement by the AU that the places occupied by the leaders of its constituent nations are subject to diplomatic immunity, effectively removing any meeting of the AU on South African soil from the jurisdiction of the South African Courts and the operation of South African law, is surely unconstitutional, and sets an extremely dangerous precedent.  It will, if applied as seems to be likely also to the South African President, put him above the law, as he already seems to view himself.  It will place all of those parasites out of the reach of international laws that were put in place to protect the citizens of their respective countries, and of their neighbor countries from the consequences of the unbridled power that they arrange for themselves.  It has long been apparent that any leader of a movement who comes to power as a result of violence, whether by military coup or terrorist action, is not capable of abiding by the laws of a civilized nation.  Such people have accepted that might is right, and they have difficulty in transforming their beliefs and understanding of how the world works in a civilized society, in which even the leaders, and most importantly the leaders, are subject to a set of laws which should control their excesses.  It can be no surprise that, even now after more than twenty years of ‘democracy’ in South Africa, members of the ANC, of Cosatu and its affiliated Trade Unions, and of several other ‘struggle-derived’ Parties settle their disagreements by murder and violence, that Jacob Zuma can feel free to rig a series of investigative bodies to come to the conclusion that he does not have to ‘pay back the money’ spent by the taxpayer on his home at Nkandla, that Thabo Mbeki can sit in a Commission of Enquiry into the Arms Deal, in which he and the Speaker of the House of Parliament colluded to prevent any discussion or investigation by the body set up to prevent an abuse of power by the Executive, and deny that any wrongdoing took place, when the Police hold over five million pages of evidence, and the German Police investigation was stopped by a steadfast refusal by Mbeki’s Government to cooperate..  A declaration by the African Union Heads of State that any of their number is immune to prosecution will, after all, only be a recognition of the de facto state of affairs, and make it unnecessary for the individuals concerned to go through the wearisome process of denial of charges and the rigging of investigations into their conduct.

And all the time, the South African economy, teetering on the edge of being downgraded to junk status, in which it will join the States headed by the enlightened Members of the august body of Leaders of African States attending a meeting of the African Union, people like Mugabe, will agree to fund to the tune of seven hundred million Rands per year that body of parasites, the meeting place of people like Mugabe, Gaddafi and Zuma, while eleven million children go to school each day without a decent meal, while thirteen million of its citizens live below the breadline, while ESKOM demands another fifty-six billion Rands of funding to correct the bungles it has made under ANC direction, and while the ANC continues to bleed the country dry.

As should be the case with ESKOM and with SAA, the ANC and the AU should be required to show that it is capable of using the funds paid to them by the taxpayer correctly, efficiently and honestly, before they become entitled to demand more.  They should show clearly and publicly that they use the money for the benefit of the citizens, in a manner that is approved by the taxpayers, before they ask for more.  They should realize that the taxpayer is not a public well with an inexhaustible supply, to be plundered and wasted to soothe the egos of the criminals and the incompetents who, unfortunately, seem to make up the bulk of the members of the spending elite.  If they do not do that, those taxpayers will be forced to follow the example of the Trades Unions and go on strike.  They must understand that the real power of a nation is I the hands of the people.

Mugabe and the Credibility of the African Union

 

If there was any residual hope that about the African Union has the desire, the capability and the leadership to undertake any of the crucial work needed to turn Africa into a place where civilised people would wish to live, the performance of Robert Mugabe, in his capacity of Chairman of that body, has confirmed that Africa has far to go, and much to suffer before it can join the ranks of modern civilized nations.

Mugabe is a man who, for decades, has enriched himself at the expense of his nation, once one of the hopes of Africa.  He has brought Zimbabwe to its knees with ‘redistribution of the productive farms’, taking them from the efficient White farmers who built from bare land a capacity to supply huge quantities of food to the rest of Africa, handing them to his cronies, who did not have the ability, or even the desire, to operate them with any discernible level of skill or knowledge.  That single move brought Zimbabwe to the brink of starvation, forcing thousands of Zimbabweans to escape his brutal form of ‘democracy’ by moving to South Africa.  The official figure for Zimbabwean expatriates in South Africa is over 500 000, but the real figure is probably in excess of a million.  Mugabe followed that lunacy with the next, the ‘indigenisation’ of mines and the few productive industries that remained in the country, exciting another wave of emigration.  It should be noted that many thousands of Zimbabweans flocked to Apartheid South Africa before 1994, to escape the despotic rule that Mugabe imposed.  Those refugees obviously believed that South Africa at that time was better than the workers’ paradise that Mugabe claims the country to be.  America provided vast quantities of food aid in the form of grain, which was transported in bulk to Durban, for packing into bags labelled “Gift of the American People – Not For Sale’.  Mugabe did not like this, because America, alongside Britain, is, in his twisted mind, responsible for everything that has gone wrong in Zimbabwe under his rule.  He insisted that the grain be packed in plain bags which he supplied, and he then sold that grain to the favoured people in Zimbabwe, refusing to deliver any grain, free or sold, to areas in respect of which which his Party did not hold a seat in Parliament.  Mugabe, in his recent tirade in South Africa, which was watched with sniggering approval by Jacob Zuma, stated boldly that the previous regime had killed thousands of Zimbabwean Blacks, and dumped their bodies down a disused mineshaft.  The truth of that matter is that Mugabe’s ‘freedom fighters’ slaughtered some 40 000 of their Black Matabele opponents and dumped their bodies down the mineshaft of a mine which had been in operation until some years after the accession to the Presidency of Robert Mugabe.  Now, Mugabe has had the arrogance to declare that none of the people who emigrated from Zimbabwe in recent years has done so as a result of the catastrophic economic conditions he and his Party have brought about.

The rapidly-growing flight of refugees from Africa to Europe must surely be seen as an indicator of an escalating disaster in Africa, one that is perhaps more visible to the World than the flow of refugees from Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Malawi, Nigeria, Sudan and numerous other countries.  However, while those flows are less visible, they are no less there.

Many people simply accept that ‘this is Africa’, and ignore the bald-faced lies told by Mugabe.  It is true that if you tell a big lie often enough, it becomes the truth.  Anyone with an understanding of what Adolph Hitler and his gang of Nazi lunatics did to Germany and to Europe will recognise that our meek acceptance that ‘this is Africa’ is putting us all firmly on a path to catastrophe on a world scale.  The sniggering obsequiousness of Jacob Zuma, Julius Malema and other aspirant African billionaires, their abject hero worship of Robert Mugabe for the example he has set in his rise to power and obscene wealth by means of corruption and outright theft, and his self-serving stance of hatred of the Whites and the West, must surely be a warning to the world that a cancer is growing within Africa.  The cancer has taken root in South Africa, where the ANC has been single-minded in its support for the corruption headed by the State President and strongly supported by the Speaker of the House of Parliament in her views that he is not subject to the same rules as other citizens.  That cancer will continue to grow, accelerating its destruction of the hope for peace and prosperity in Africa that drove the West to support the independence of the former colonies.  That cancer has the potential to bring the hopelessness of Africa to the West, just as the acquiescence of Britain and the United States to the development of the cancer of the Nazi threat under Adolph Hitler, their desperate desire for ‘peace in our time’ epitomised by the speech of the British Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, plunged the world into a war that changed the lives of millions.  As Roman Herzog said in his first speech as President of West Germany, ‘we must solve the problems of Africa in Africa, otherwise we will have to solve them in Europe.’  Now is surely the time for the Western world to formulate a set of principles to be applied to their dealings with Africa and its dictators, under whatever guise they may hide.

The problems of Africa are clear to see by anyone with the interest to look.  They are not problems of race or religion.  They are problems of dictators grabbing whatever there is, leaving the people to starve and to provide a fertile ground for extremism in every form.  They are the threat that the rest of the world has to deal with, now under principles, or in the future under arms.