Indecisive and underfunded, the African Union is in danger of not becoming the primary peacekeeping authority for the continent that it wants to be.
In a week when the prestigious International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) in London noted that Africa was starting to put out its own fires, it was underlined that the AU cannot claim any credit for this.
African foreign ministers gathered at Sun City last week were reminded by President Thabo Mbeki that only five of the 53 AU states had ratified the instruments for establishing an African Peace and Security Council (PSC).
The PSC was one of the loftier goals of the AU when it rose from the ashes of the Organisation of African Unity in Durban last year.
It would give the organisation teeth and allow it to impose African solutions to the African problems.
The applause was heard around the world from countries tired of sending troops to African trouble spots that make up three-quarters of the United Nations peacekeeping operations.
The PSC would break with the tradition of non-interference that allowed African regimes quite literally to get away with mass murder.
By the time the AU executive council met this week only South Africa, Algeria, Mali, Equatorial Guinea and Rwanda had ratified the instrument.
The idea of having an African force to intervene in cases of war crimes, genocide and gross human rights violations needs 26 members to ratify it before it come into force.
There is no single reason for the delay but a number of African leaders with dubious or frankly poor human-rights records have been given pause by the prospect of having their peers whip them into line.
Of course, there can be no force if AU members don’t pay for it.
Mbeki politely reminded members to pay their dues. The ministers are discussing exactly how much this will be in the new organisation.
But at least 10 countries have been excluded from speaking at meetings because they are two years or more in arrears. The AU will not name them, on grounds that some are in the process of regularising their positions. As things stand this week, however, Somalia, the Central African Republic, Liberia, Burkina Faso, Rwanda, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Eritrea and the Comores are delinquent.
The peacekeeping efforts that the IISS applauds are the result of regional initiatives and the intervention of a larger power, notably South Africa’s facilitation in Congo and Burundi.
As the rest of the continent dithers, larger powers realise they will have to get involved. France is providing a rapid reaction force for Ituri, where massacres and even reported cannibalism threaten the Congo peace deal.
At a UN administrative and budgetary committee meeting in New York this week African members dispensed with any appearance of being able to manage this situation themselves.
The world organisation has to budget to get at least 13 000 soldiers and police into the area — a substantial increase on the 8 700 currently provided for.
Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International said the Ituri situation was a ”critical test” of the UN’s ability to prevent mass killings.
The UN Development Programme (UNDP) in Addis Ababa backed a $6,4-million programme to boost AU peacekeeping efforts.
Germany, Norway, Sweden and Canada are the major contributors with UNDP.
The ministers will go on from Sun City to conclude their meeting in Johannesburg in time for Sunday’s 40th birthday bash for the Organisation of African Unity and AU.
They will have dealt with the composition of the African Commission and with creating links with Africans in the diaspora.
None of these will amount to much, however, until Africa can contain the violence and conflict tearing at its heart.