Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma's report into violations of the list process leading up to the 2011 local government elections recommends councillors' removal and the holding of by-elections.
On April 8 African Union (AU) chairperson Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma officially launched the year-long Organisation of African Unity (OAU) AU 50th-anniversary celebrations in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Underlining the importance of the occasion she noted that the celebration offers an opportunity to reflect on five decades of prospects and challenges. This is the golden jubilee of "unity", 50 years since the founding of the OAU, the AU's predecessor, in 1963. The theme of the jubilee celebration is Pan-Africanism and African renaissance.
The establishment of the AU in 2002 renewed hope that it would be a more robust and effective continental organisation than its predecessor. The AU, in Article 4(h) of its Constitutive Act, remarkably, made provisions sanctioning intervention in the internal affairs of states. Such intervention is mandated to prevent war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity.
Tragic and painful lessons have been learnt from noninterference in the past, such as during the 1994 genocide in Rwanda when 800 000 people were massacred in 100 days. In line with the new intervention policy, the AU established a Peace and Security Council in 2004 and, later, the African Standby Force.
The council is a security and early-warning body that aims to facilitate timely, efficient responses to conflict and crises in Africa. It also conducts preventive diplomacy and helps to manage disasters, humanitarian actions and post-conflict reconstruction efforts. Its mandate to engage to prevent conflicts, manage their resolution and build peace is consistent with the United Nations's responsibility to protect framework. The council's existence raised hopes that Africa would be able to deal speedily with conflicts and security threats.
Sadly, Africa's jubilee year started with a new wave of violent conflicts, adding to those already exposing the cracks in the AU's peace and security architecture. Next door to the AU headquarters in Ethiopia, Somalia has, since 1991, epitomised the idea of a failed state despite the remarkable efforts by the African Union Mission in Somalia since 2007.
The Somali crisis has since drawn in its neighbours, with Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda suffering bombings by al-Shabab militants in retaliation for their incursions into Somalia to help the government. Meanwhile, the Horn of Africa is still in a precarious state, with the two Sudans struggling with a fragile peace and Darfur a neglected crisis.
In Central Africa, the volatile Central African Republic started the year with a march on the capital by armed militia sweeping down from the country's northeast. The Seleka rebels seized power in a rapid assault on Bangui on March 24, ousting President François Bozizé.
The exact number of casualties in the battle of Bangui may never be ascertained, but it left 13 South African soldiers dead and 27 others injured, torching a stormy debate back home on why the troops were there in the first place.
Protecting doctrine
In the north, Libya still has a huge security deficit since its leader, Muammar Gaddafi, was slain in October 2011 by rebels who had swept aside his regime, helped, as they were, by their Nato allies in a case where a regime-change agenda was masked by the responsibility to protect doctrine – and blessed by the UN Security Council.
One unfortunate consequence is that Libya has since become the arms bazaar of the region, where anyone can acquire sophisticated military hardware with ease. In fact, the al- Qaeda-linked Islamist militia that overran northern Mali last year got some of its weapons from Libya.
The crisis in Mali, like that in Libya two years ago, exposed the AU's lack of resources and mobility in its capacity to intervene militarily.
Islamist rebels took over most of northern Mali in March the year, but only towards the end of last year did the Economic Co-operation of West African States (Ecowas) manage to get AU and UN Security Council approval to deploy forces to fight there. And then, the military deployment faced many delays.
The rebels were advancing on the capital, Bamako, earlier this year, when France moved in air force and ground troops. Only then did the Ecowas states, led by Nigeria, fast-track the sending of troops to help in what is now called the International Stabilisation Force.
Whatever France's motives, besides the fear of Mali becoming safe haven for al-Qaeda, what would have become of the country without the swift intervention of its former colonial master?
Such a lackadaisical approach to matters of security renders the continent vulnerable, and the idea of "African solutions to African problems" is exposed as a rhetorical aspiration rather than a reality.
Volatile
Similarly, the situation in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) remains volatile.
The Southern African Development Community (SADC) summit in Tanzania last December discussed the crisis in the DRC, as well as the stalled situation in Madagascar and the slow progress in Zimbabwe.
The summit pledged to "soon" deploy a 4 000-strong SADC military force, as a "Neutral International Force", to deal with the March 23 Movement (M23) in the eastern DRC.
South Africa originally limited its contribution to "logistics support", but has since committed 850 troops to the UN brigade of more than 3000. Tanzania and Malawi are sending troops too.
When the M23 marched on Goma in November last year the UN forces on the ground were deemed mere spectators because they had no mandate to intervene, but this new deployment has a mandate to conduct offensive operations in the pursuit of peace, if necessary.
When Dlamini-Zuma lit a symbolic torch to mark the year-long OAU-AU celebrations she expressed Africa's desire to turn "the current storyline of despair into the real narrative of opportunity and potential".
To do so, we must reflect honestly on issues such as the promotion of an effective peace and security system for the continent.
Webster Zambara is senior project leader for Southern Africa at the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation