Global Policy Forum

Africa certain to end the loser in showdown

By Nelson Banya

Last week's decision by the African Union (AU) to stick to its guns and press for two permanent seats with veto power in an expanded United Nations Security Council - an inherently undemocratic body which reflects the global power structure of 1945, when most of today's nations were still under colonial rule - has set the stage for a showdown in which the continent looks certain to end the loser.

A compromise deal sold to some African leaders, including AU chairman and Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo and South Africa's Thabo Mbeki, by the Group of Four (G4) - Brazil, Germany India and Japan - was rejected at last week's extraordinary summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The G4 is pushing for an expanded 25-member security council with six new permanent members - four for them, and two for Africa - without veto-wielding powers.

According to reports from Ethiopia, 46 of the 53 AU states backed the AU's position taken in Libya to push for the 15-member security council to be expanded to 26, including six new permanent seats with veto-wielding powers - of which two would be for Africa - and five new non-permanent seats, two of which would also go to Africa. The G4 put forward the proposal in the UN General Assembly, where it would need a two-thirds majority - and then ratification by all existing permanent Security Council members - to come into effect. At present, the US, the UK, France, Russia and China are the only permanent members of the UN body with the power to veto. Ten other nations rotate on two-year terms.

If there is lack of consensus on the reform proposals Africa will make in September, there is even less convergence on who would take the seats the continent is gunning for, with regional powerhouses South Africa, Nigeria and Egypt all coveting the slots. Angola, Kenya and Algeria are also reported to harbour similar ambitions.

Outside the continent, other states have adopted positions which run contrary to Africa's proposals, prompting the G4's allies in Africa - led by Obasanjo - to caution against an all-or-nothing approach which would certainly see the continent losing out. Pakistan backs a different plan from a group known as Uniting for Consensus, which proposes adding 10 new non-permanent members who would face re-election, while the US is calling for two new permanent seats with no veto power, including one for Japan. China has called for further consultations on the issue. France, however, is reported to be among 20 states which have sponsored the G4 plan.

The imbroglio is further complicated by regional rivalries. For instance, Pakistan opposes India, Argentina and Mexico oppose Brazil, South Korea and China oppose Japan, and Italy opposes Germany.

South African media this week accused President Robert Mugabe, one of the most vociferous opponents of the G4 compromise deal, of scuppering its southern neighbour's security council aspirations. The Sunday Independent (SA) even ascribed "a sinister motive" to opponents of the "tactical" compromise deal with the G4. "Was there an ulterior motive behind an African Union faction led by the Zimbabwean leader ruining a tactical bid for Security Council reform?

"Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe this week helped defeat a South African tactical move to win two permanent seats for Africa on the United Nations Security Council. South Africa's defeat may have cost it and Africa an influential permanent presence in the most powerful political body in the world.

"South Africa was considered one of the frontrunners for a permanent seat on the council. Mugabe, Egypt and others spoke out at an extraordinary African Union summit against a compromise deal which SA had helped forge between the AU and the so-called G4, a coalition of four other nations seeking permanent seats on the security council - Germany, Japan, India and Brazil. President Thabo Mbeki argued strongly at the AU summit in Addis Ababa on Thursday in favour of the compromise as the only realistic way to get Africa permanent seats. But the Mugabe camp prevailed," The Sunday Independent said in a commentary. The publication said a united G4/AU position would have greatly strengthened their chances of persuading the UN to expand the security council by adding six new permanent seats - two from Africa - to the present five.

Whatever emerges when the 191 members of the UN meet in September to deliberate on the Security Council and broader reforms, this is one issue which will not go away, as much as it has dominated UN general assemblies over the past decade. James Paul and Céline Nahory of the Global Policy Forum contend that the ability of the global body to police the world does not necessarily lie in an expanded security council as more permanent members could multiply the deformities of permanency.

"If the G4 resolution fails, as it likely will, the Council will escape from a dangerous and crippling reform. As the past 60 years have demonstrated, permanency of membership makes the Council inflexible and unable to accommodate change. Like 'president for life,' permanent membership sets the stage for future anomalies and provides no avenue for normal evolution as states' status and power rises and declines in the international system.

"One ambassador from an elected delegation in the Council called the permanent members mockingly the "H-5" or Hereditary Five, to highlight the anachronism of their status in a world that aspires to democracy. The present five permanent members already burden the Council heavily. Ten or eleven permanents would make matters much worse. Their presence would block future reform and make limitation or outright elimination of permanency far more difficult," Paul and Nahory wrote.

However, the two agree with the position taken by AU leaders with respect to the veto - at least where its elimination is concerned - although the African leaders have gone beyond and demanded for the goose what is also good for the gander - the five principal World War II allies clung to their privileged status. "Reform of the Council must seek to restrict (and eventually eliminate) the veto, but this obviously cannot be done in the near future through Charter revision, which itself is subject to the veto process. Instead, states must mobilise pressure and persuasion to get P-5 (five permanent members) members to limit their veto use, especially the threatened or "hidden veto" that casts a shadow over the Council's proceedings at all times.

"If Germany, Japan, Brazil, India and the other aspirant states abandon their quest for permanency, they can provide major diplomatic muscle in this veto-restriction effort along with support for a regional approach to membership. The veto should be immediately ended in such cases as decisions on new UN memberships, election of the Secretary General and other cases rarely touching on core P-5 interests. Similarly, the 185 non-permanent states should make joint efforts to limit other special P-5 privileges, such as claims on high Secretariat posts and World Court seats. Eventually, in the more distant future, permanency itself should be negotiated into well-deserved oblivion and the oligarchy eliminated once and for all."

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