APSACO Talks: « Covid-19 and Security in Africa » Key points of the workshops: Human Security Index in Africa & Global Peace Index
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APSACO Talks: Strong statements by Mahamat Saleh Annadif, Head of MINUSMA
The last of the three-day APSACO Talks, held online from 23 to 25 September, concluded with two workshops on peace and security measures in Africa, attended by Mahamat Saleh Annadif, Head of MINUSMA and former Foreign Minister of Chad.
Reacting to the words of Rama Yade, Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council, on the crisis of multilateralism (see below), Mahamat Saleh Annadif stated that he is « one of those who have always said that when the United Nations was created, there were about fifty countries, compared to 193 today. There are problems in Africa, but Africa is absent. Security Council reform is a necessity. Africa’s voice must be heard ».
NATO’s intervention in Libya, the source of Mali’s ills
On the situation in Mali, he did not mince his words: « The crisis in Mali has worsened after the 2011 crisis in Libya. When NATO decided to intervene in Libya, and Colonel Khadafi was assassinated, the African Union opposed it, but no one wanted to listen. The Sahel has become an open-air arsenal: 60 million small arms are circulating there, and 80% of the crisis in Mali comes from armed individuals who left Libya during NATO’s intervention. There was an agreement to let all these people (the African legionnaires of the Libyan army, Editor’s Note) spill into the Sahel, Niger and Mali. I was in office in Chad and we closed our borders, while 3 million Chadians live in Libya. Chad was thus spared. Mali has seen thousands of armed fighters, and terrorists have joined the war that we have been waging until now. Let us look at the origin of conflicts in Africa: unless this interventionism is stopped, there may be no peace in Africa ».
Failure to respect the rules of democracy, a source of conflict
As to Benin, the African country that has seen its situation deteriorate the most in 2019 in the Global Peace Index, presented by Serge Stroobants (see below), the head of MINUSMA provided a very political analysis. « Elections are meant to solve problems, but in Africa they are meant to create problems. The rules of the game are not well enforced. A country like Benin, which used to be the Latin Quartier of Africa and one of the most peaceful countries, has declined in the Global Peace Index. Why? Because non-inclusive reforms have been undertaken, excluding many actors from the political scene. Conflicts arise when there is a breakdown of consensus in countries, internally, about sharing wealth and the rules of the political game, with fraudulent elections or excluded candidates. In Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, Burkina Faso, Ghana and Niger, upcoming elections may produce new conflicts simply because the rules of the democratic game are not respected. »
Social unrest explodes in Africa
Serge Stroobants, Directeur, Europe, Middle East and North Africa, Institute for Economics & Peace (IEP), based in Brussels, presented the Global Peace Index published by his organization, outlining its results. In 2019, peace decreased by 0.34% in the world, the ninth decrease since 2008, but the impact of terrorism decreased by 75% in 2019. The decline in peace can be explained by the increase in the number of people displaced by conflicts, as well as the intensity of internal conflict within countries. Iceland ranks first among the most peaceful countries, ahead of New Zealand and European countries such as Portugal, Austria and Denmark, while Afghanistan is at the bottom of the list, surpassing Iraq at the top of the Global Terrorism Index. Europe remains the most peaceful region in the world, but it is not spared from political instability and negative changes.
In Africa, the greatest deterioration concerns Benin, and the emergence of non-state actors in conflicts. From 2011 to 2019, social unrest, as measured by riots, general strikes and demonstrations, increased by 44% worldwide and more than 600% in Africa, with unrest often turning violent. The global cost of violence, defined by a statistical approach, is $14.5 billion, or 10.6% of the global GNP, or $1909 per person. In Africa, a study conducted in 18 countries has made it possible to evaluate the cost of violence, which takes up between 30% and 40% of government budgets.
Africa’s place in a multilateralism in crisis
Rama Yade, Senior Fellow of the Atlantic Council, considered that peace has become a « diluted » issue in diplomacy, which focuses more on investment promotion, digitization, climate, cultural diversity, but « more rarely on peace, as if we had reached the end of history ».
« Yet, peace, this utopia, one of the founding principles of our modernity, was the primary objective in relations between states after the two world wars. Today, deadly conflicts persist – in the Sahel, Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso and Nigeria. Some conflicts involve significant displacement of populations, such as in English-speaking Cameroon (530,000 people), DRC and Uganda. Just because Europe and America are no longer at war does not mean that the war is over in the world. The current conflicts are directly related to the crisis of multilateralism. Multilateralism has been flawed from the outset, at the heart of the United Nations, with a Security Council in which some states sit and others do not. Multilateralism has proved to be Western. It is being revived elsewhere with China, and today in Africa we are witnessing a desire to Africanize solutions and multilateralism itself. African representation at the United Nations is, moreover, below the weight of Africa today. The Africanization of multilateralism is the future, in order to respond to the universal crisis of multilateralism ».
According to Abdelhak Bassou, Senior Fellow at the Policy Center for the New South, « the international community, the African Union and regional communities are treating symptoms more than diseases. In Mali, a country that is in its fourth coup – and it won’t be the last – partners are reaching out to the country’s bedside. One solution would be for Africans themselves and the international community to go directly to the roots of evil, including corruption. Africa is also under the threat of « third-termism », with constitutions that are being revised, new republics promulgated to reset the electoral counters … A problem of governance and alternation arises at the head of African states ».
Rachid El Houdaigui, Senior Fellow at the Policy Center for the New South, concluded the APSACO Talks by recalling that the Covid-19 crisis « can be a trigger for more humane security in Africa », adding that prospective reflections such as those conducted by the APSACO Talks are a necessity.