When Africa becomes a game board, each conflict is a game and the population always loses. In this situation, all multilateral organizations must work together to find solutions. Neither the UN nor the African Union nor states can do it alone, according to Comfort Ero, director of the Africa program for the International Crisis Group. This organization, which Ero represented in a meeting with Javier Solana and Esade students in late February, works in conflict prevention and in the design of policies to build and maintain peace.
For the expert, all actors must collaborate in a committed, coherent and sustained manner over time. "It is awkward and difficult cooperation, but it is vital," he says. And in this collaboration, the relevance of the African Union (AU) is unquestionable. "Both the UN and the EU must have the legitimacy of the region," he says.
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Established in 2002, the AU replaced the Organization for African Unity and was designed to promote solidarity between States, stimulate development and foster international cooperation. As her importance grew, she had to become more responsible and assertive, Ero says. In the last three years, the countries that comprise it have had to propose reforms to optimize it but, above all, to find ways to make it economically self-sufficient.
Providing African solutions to African problems is an approach that has been gaining strength in the past 20 years thanks to its advocates on the continent and in the international community. However, "the question is not so much what is the path, but what is the capacity and willingness of the member states to manage and find a way out of the crisis," he says.
They are complex conflicts, with many edges, in which each actor involved has his own agenda. For this reason, in his eyes, "the fact that the peace process is led by Africa does not make it less controversial" than if it had another organization or an individual state at the forefront. "They are countries that have clear interests and desires, with a clear perspective on foreign policy," he says.
In recent years, African conflicts have consolidated as a territory in which international and regional forces play their tricks, Ero explained to Esade students, and where their impacts are evident. These can be seen, according to the expert, in the number of summits held on the continent and in US policy, which extends its war with China and Russia there. Also in the competition between the Gulf States, which Turkey joins, to take over the Horn of Africa. As well as in the militarization of the Sahel, where France, as an ex-colonial force, and its European partners share space with two other missions, that of the UN and the regional G5S formed by Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger.
In this context, there are conflicts that receive a lot of attention from the international community because their consequences transcend the local. Ero cites as an example the crisis in the Sahel and Libya, due to concerns regarding terrorism and migration. And there are others, such as the Anglophone conflict in Cameroon, that are more obvious despite its humanitarian cost. It is a matter of interests "to a certain extent", he says, but also of exhaustion when facing conflicts that remain intractable.
Cut the root to find the solution
Solutions must go through knowledge and action on the roots of conflicts. “The armed groups are very good at exploiting the disorder, the complaints. Also accessing the feeling of not being represented, of marginalization, the feeling that governments do not respond to needs, "he says.
Although he considers military strategy to be essential, it cannot succeed alone. And, again, he cites the Sahel as an example: "Despite all the military interventions, we have seen that the jihadist forces remain mobilized, agile, capable of responding and adapting to pressure." It is necessary to tackle the disaffection that serves as fertile ground for violence, give politics a chance, build consensus and bet on dialogue whenever possible.
Despite all military interventions, we have seen jihadist forces remain mobilized, agile, able to respond and adapt to pressure
Another fundamental pillar to end the conflicts that spread across the continent, and that occupy 60% of the UN Security Council agenda, is regional intervention. But this is not a simple matter either. "Sometimes we see that the countries of the area themselves are involved in the conflict when the region needs to be the first step in solving it," he says.
That solutions ooze postcolonial or neocolonial overtones may be another obstacle to reaching consensus. "That perception is always going to be there. We saw it last December and earlier this year, when President [Emmanuel] Macron called on representatives of five Sahel countries to publicly show their commitment to France in the face of protests over its presence there. They did it and that was a clear reminder that it was a colonial force, "he says.
In his opinion, there are no secret formulas for peace: "The key will always be the political will and how to manage the rival interests of local, regional and international community actors and get them moving in the right direction."
In all this tangle of interests and alliances, hope makes its way, sometimes, against all odds. "In February we saw something that surprised us: President Salva Kiir and Vice President Riek Mashar put their rivalries aside and closed an agreement for a unitary government in South Sudan," says Ero. His organization hopes that the conflict that started in 2013 and which is marked by corruption, deliberate famine, sexual violence and displacement will end this year.
After several failed attempts, this was an unexpected, but hopeful agreement, from which many constraints and uncertainties still hang. A definitive solution is to solve the problems surrounding the security agreement, the unification of the army and governance over the state limits, among other points. "There are many 'yes', but if we solve these issues, if the consensus and pressure of the countries of the region are maintained and if unity between China, the EU and the US is sustained, I think we could close this chapter", Ero reflects.
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