Peacekeeping and the ISDSC

"... an emergency situation, the OAU should undertake preliminary preventive action while preparing for more comprehensive action which may include the UN involvement ... If the UN is unresponsive, the OAU must take preliminary action whilst continuing its efforts to elicit a positive response from the world body."107

Furthermore, "[t]he OAU could earmark a brigade-sized contribution to standby arrangements from each of the five African sub-regions as a starting point, which could then be adjusted upwards or downwards according to evolving circumstances."108

Although the meeting also recommended that capacity-building includes programmes to enhance humanitarian participation, civilian policing and related matters, it has traditionally only been the Scandinavian countries and Canada that have included a focus outside of the military.

The latest in these endeavours was Exercise Blue Crane in South Africa that followed upon Exercise Blue Hungwe in Zimbabwe in 1997 and Exercise Guidemakha in Senegal during February 1998. Over time, most of the subregions have been able to indicate their ability to run rudimentary peace mission exercises with sufficient donor support. The development of this rather flimsy ability to co-operate in basic peacekeeping techniques is often used by donors to showcase the ability of Africans to keep the peace in Africa — and therefore to justify the devolution of responsibility for African peacekeeping to Africa.

During a recent meeting on peacemaking and peacekeeping at the OAU, discussions centred on strengthening the ability of the OAU and subregional organisations to act. Citing the decision by the Harare Summit to oppose the 1997 coup d’état in Sierra Leone, the meeting identified a groundswell of support in favour of "... interference by the OAU Secretary General in the internal matters of Member States under special circumstances ... [namely]:

According to the official record of the meeting, this would introduce the concept of ‘automaticity’ to the OAU, building upon the example contained in the newly established Mechanism of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) based on which the OAU Secretary General engaged member states to "... act effectively to prevent, manage or settle deadly conflicts in Africa when deemed necessary."110

In a world within which African security is of marginal global concern, it is increasingly to the OAU, and not to the UN, that African leaders turn on issues of peace and security. In this process, the debate on the continent is enthusiastic about the complementary role that subregional organisations can play in the maintenance of peace and security within their areas of concern.

In Africa, West Africa has been at the forefront of practise in regional peacekeeping through the activities of the ECOWAS Monitoring Group (ECOMOG). In recent years, there has also been considerable pressure, particularly from Denmark, to push for a similar approach in Southern Africa. The result was a series of research and familiarisation trips to Europe (but never to West Africa) to showcase the extent of regional co-operation in peacekeeping training, and even actual co-operation during 1996 and 1997. Ironically, an earlier approach by the United States to encourage a similar approach through the establishment of an African Crisis Response Force (ACRF) had met with considerable hostility in the subregion. The need for such a force was also captured in the aims and objectives of the Organ on Politics, Defence and Security as discussed earlier.

Eventually, Zimbabwe hosted a regional seminar on peacekeeping training at the Regional Peacekeeping Training Centre in Harare from 27 to 31 July 1998, that drew participants from most, if not all, SADC member states.111 The aim of the seminar was to make concrete proposals on the future of peacekeeping training in SADC. The recommendations and proposals from the seminar were subsequently submitted and approved by the 20th Session of the ISDSC that was held in Swaziland during March 1999 and relate to:

Collectively, these recommendations provide a comprehensive review of progress and planning within the Southern African region. The following sections review the ISDSC decisions in some detail.

Perhaps the most important decision to emerge from the ISDSC meeting was the formal recognition of Zimbabwe as the Regional Peacekeeping Training Centre (RPTC), responsible for UN command and staff training for peacekeeping in SADC. The Centre would be responsible for common training within the region, focusing on areas such as:

In reality, construction of the Centre had recently been completed with funding from Denmark and eleven staff members out of a total planned component of thirty have already been appointed.

The RPTC will eventually develop a regional character and identity and fall under the ISDSC. It will provide guidance on peacekeeping concepts and serve as a repository for regional peacekeeping standing operating procedures and policy documents. The Centre has been removed from the Zimbabwe Staff College where it was previously housed, and now resorts directly under the Zimbabwean Ministry of Defence. A meeting chaired by Swaziland in its capacity as chair of the ISDSC is scheduled for the end of November 1999 to discuss personnel and logistic issues for presentation to the next ISDSC meeting in 2000.

The RPTC committed itself to utilise the research capabilities available at research institutes, universities and NGOs in the region in order to enhance its effectiveness and encourage specific research programmes.

The ISDSC also accepted certain minimum standards for peacekeeping training such as the inclusion of aspects relating to international humanitarian law, and recognised that regional peacekeeping exercises were important tools in building a SADC peacekeeping capability. Following upon Exercise Blue Crane in 1999, the ISDSC recommended that SADC peacekeeping exercises should be hosted on a less frequent basis and scheduled long in advance. This would enable SADC member countries to budget and plan accordingly.

At the same meeting in Mbabane, the ISDSC also approved the establishment of a SADC clearing house as an integral part of the RPTC that would:113

(2)Maintain records of trained peacekeeping practitioners to assist nations in appraising key appointments to peacekeeping courses and missions.

(3)Establish and co-ordinate a regional pool of resource persons.

(4)Serve as a regional source of information and publication of peacekeeping issues.

(5)Identify new regional training requirements for the purpose of updating peacekeeping courses and materials.

(6)Establish links with the UN (DPKO), the OAU and other relevant institutions.

(7)Establish direct links with a designated focal point of contacts in each of the SADC countries, taking due cognisance of the information requirements of the normal channels of communication/chain of command.

(8)Co-ordinate, evaluate and make follow-up on regional seminars and workshops on peacekeeping and related issues.

(9)Co-ordinate the development of a SADC UN Peacekeeping Tactical Manual, including the appropriate training programmes.

(I0)Co-ordinate the compilation of lessons learned from peacekeeping missions and training activities and distribute these to all interested parties."

Staffing for the clearing house will consist of three officers, and it will form one of sections within the RPTC.

In deciding in favour of the creation of a sustainable brigade-size peacekeeping force over a five-year period, the ISDSC followed the example already established in West Africa. This decision resulted from the earlier recommendation by the OAU Chiefs of Staff meeting held in Harare in 1997 referred to above, that each African subregion develop peacekeeping forces of brigade size for deployment on peace missions.

The first phase would consist of the establishment of a skeleton staff for a permanent, multinational mobile brigade headquarters. In subsequent years, the rest of the brigade will take form, consisting of three infantry battalions, a reconnaissance company, engineer squadron, logistic support company, military police company, medical component, civilian police component and an air and naval component. The intention to create such a force, including the legal framework that would allow for its implementation, is also covered in the mutual defence pact currently under discussion within SADC.

As a stand-alone force, such a capacity is beyond the political will and financial resources of the region — but not if it is designed and structured as a stand-by capacity within the various national armed forces.114

According to the ISDSC, the force should eventually have the following features:

b.The ability to deal with UN Chapter VI and humanitarian aid type contingencies under the OAU and UN mandates.

c.The ability to expand to appropriate force levels within a realistic warning period and the development of a brigade size force over the next five years.

d.An effective command and control structure and system.

e.An effective intelligence and command and management information system, to ensure early warning of potential conflicts and crises and the management thereof.

f.Effective supply and maintenance and where necessary upgrading or replacement of equipment and weaponry.

g.An effective training capability to develop and prepare force components of the required roles and tasks."

Funding would come from member states, and the subregion would standardise doctrine, communication equipment, and other components.

Contributing SADC countries were requested to give sufficient financial priority to the project and to allocate adequate numbers of staff officers to ensure the required progress and momentum. The latter implied the establishment of a SADC brigade headquarters to ensure continuity. The headquarters would be staffed on a permanent basis by contributing countries according to signed letters of intent.115 The key functions within the headquarters would rotate between countries.

Most conflict management capacity-building efforts in Africa, including the assistance provided to the Conflict Management Division of the OAU in Addis Ababa, are state-centred on a continent where the state is often weak, predatory and incapable of providing either security or basic services to the majority of its citizens. Inevitably, subregional and continental structures reflect and sometimes even amplify the porous state foundations upon which they depend.

Despite the well-established principles of impartiality within the peacekeeping debate, when it comes to the new enthusiasm for a greater role for subregional organisations, the underlying assumption is that they are closer to a conflict and therefore more familiar with local conditions. Organisations such as SADC or ECOWAS should therefore have a comparative advantage when called upon to play the lead role in the termination of such conflicts. In reality, it has only been the hegemonic position of a country such as Nigeria that has allowed it to conduct operations in Liberia and Sierra Leone, or South Africa’s dominance of the subregion that allows it to interfere in Lesotho. In contrast even to NATO, subregional peacekeeping and intervention in Africa are often dependent upon the dominance of a single powerful country, as opposed to the combined efforts of a number of consolidated nation-states. As a result, a country such as Nigeria provides the essential vehicle for ECOMOG and South Africa goes through the motions of consulting its SADC partners before intervening in Lesotho under a regional pretext.

The reality is that most African states have small armed forces that are often ill-equipped, poorly trained by international peacekeeping standards, poorly led, often élitist, prone to intervene in the domestic political affairs of the country and with a strong emphasis on internal security concerns.

Developments in Southern Africa reflect a global trend towards the use of subregional organisations and/or ‘coalitions of the willing and able’ to undertake peace enforcement under the guise of peacekeeping in the backyard of regional powers. This trend is particularly evident in Africa where a number of countries have engaged in capacity-building initiatives to strengthen African peacekeeping capabilities. These initiatives are generally state-centred and consist of donor countries seeking to capacitate weak and unconsolidated states to provide security in the region where these states cannot even do so within their own territory.

Given the immense gulf in equipment and training that separates organisations such as NATO from subregional organisations in Africa, it seems inevitable that the result will be the further entrenchment of the two-tiered system of global peacekeeping — one set of standards for the developed world and another for Africa.