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The Early Years of the OAU: The Search for Organizational Preeminence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 May 2009

Immanuel Wallerstein
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Extract

Organizations, like human beings, are not born to an identity. They establish one in the course of their maturation. The identity they can develop is limited by the social origins of the organization and by the environment during their early years, but it is not predetermined by these factors in any simple fashion.

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Articles
Information
International Organization , Volume 20 , Issue 4 , Fall 1966 , pp. 774 - 787
Copyright
Copyright © The IO Foundation 1966

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References

1 I have analyzed the movement toward African unity and the role the OAU played in it in my forthcoming book Africa: The Politics of Unity (New York: Random House, 1967)Google Scholar.

2 Including the Republic of South Africa, which for the purposes of PAFMECSA, was classified as a territory to be liberated.

3 OAU Council of Ministers Resolution 5(1), August 10, 1963. (OAU Council of Ministers' Resolutions hereinafter cited as OAU Council Resolutions.)

4 The original membership of the UAM, when founded in 1961, was Cameroun, the Central African Republic, Chad, Congo (Brazzaville), Dahomey, Gabon, the Ivory Coast, the Malagasy Republic, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal, and Upper Volta. Rwanda was admitted in March 1963. Togo was admitted in July 1963. These same countries formed OCAM in February 1965. In May 1965 OCAM voted to admit the Congo (Leopoldville). Partly becauseof this, Mauritania withdrew from OCAM in July 1965.

5 OAU Document CIAS/Plen.2/Rev.2/F, May 22–25, 1963.

6 OAU Council Resolution 7(1), August 10, 1963.

7 See “Progress Report of the Acting Secretary-General on the Implementation of the Resolution of the Council of Ministers on the Integration of CCTA with OAU,” OAU Document STR/4, January 15, 1964.

8 OAU Document STR/39/Res.s(I).

9 See OAU Document CM/24, paragraphs 73–77.

10 OAU Document CIAS/Plen.2/Rev.2/E, May 22–25, 1963.

11 OAU Document ECOS/17/RES/3(I), December 13, 1963.

12 OAU Document ECOS/RES/17(II), January 22, 1965.

13 UN Document E/CN.14/RES/132(VII), March 3, 1965.

14 UN Document E/CN.14/L.237, February 11, 1965.

15 UN Document A/6174, December 16, 1965, Annex.

16 See the more detailed discussion of these matters in Wild, Patricia Berko, ”The Organization of African Unity and the Algerian-Moroccan Border Conflict: A Study of New Machinery for Peacekeeping and for the Peaceful Settlement of Disputes,” International Organization, Winter 1966 (Vol. 20, No. 1), pp. 18–36CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Touval, Saadia, ”The Organization of African Unity and African Borders” to appear in International Organization, Winter 1967 (Vol. 21, No. 1)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

17 OAU Document ECM/RES/1(I), November 18, 1963. The resolution also considered that “the Commission of Mediation, Conciliation & Arbitration provided for in Article 19 of the Charterhas not yet been set up”; thus, the ad hoccommission. The permanent commission was subsequently established, but the Algerian-Moroccan dispute was left in the hands of the ad hoccommission.

18 Ibid.

19 OAU Document ECM/Res.3(II), February 15, 1964; and OAU Document ECM/Res.4(II), February 15, 1964.

20 OAU Press Release, February 7, 1964.

21 The Rwanda crisis, long in the making, grew out of a social conflict between the once dominant Watutsi and the Bahutu who, since 1959, controlled the governmental machinery. In late December 1963 some armed Rwanda Watutsi came from neighboring Burundi, where Watutsi still maintained their traditionally superior position, and attempted unsuccessfully to overthrow the government. This resulted in a widespread slaughter of Watutsi, and at least 100,000 left the country as refugees to the various neighboring African states.

22 OAU Council Resolution 18(II), February 24–29, 1964.

23 OAU Council Resolution 36(111), July 13–17, 1964.

24 On the third anniversary of the OAU in 1966 Secretary-General Diallo Telli said:

It isreassuring to note that the principle of submitting all disputes between African states to the organs of the OAU has obtained such strength that no African government has shown the slightest hesitance in acting in accord with it.

(Cited in Afrique Nouvelle, 06 2–8, 1966 [No. 982], p. 3.)Google Scholar

25 See the resolutions on this question: OAU Document EDC/31/Res./4(I), January 8, 1964; and OAU Council Resolution 47(111), July 13–17, 1964.

26 “Aide-memoire of Conversations between Officer-in-Charge of OAU and Deputy Director-General of UNESCO” in OAU Press Release, December 30, 1963.

27 OAU Document HSN/17/Res./I, January 14, 1964. See also, OAU Council Resolution 20(II), February 24—29, 1964, where the Council of Ministers urged the “closest possible co-operation” between the Health, Sanitation, and Nutrition Commission of the OAU and the Regional Office for Africa of WHO.

28 OAU Document ECOS/Res.8(II), January 22, 1965.

29 OAU Document CIAS/Plen.2/Rev.2/E, May 22–25, 1963.

30 OAU Document ECOS/5, December 2, 1962.

31 OAU Document ECOS/12/Res/I(I), December 13, 1963.

32 OAU Council Resolution 26(11), February 24–29, 1964.

33 OAU Council Resolution 43(III), July 13–17, 1964.

34 See OAU Council Resolution 27(11), February 24–29, 1964; and OAU Document AHG/Res.4(I), July 17–21, 1964.

35 OAU Document EDC/Res.13(11), January 29, 1965.

36 The difficult gestation of this structure because of the Casablanca-Monrovia split is recounted in Zartman, I. W., ”URTNA: Joint Approach to Media-Building,” Africa Report, 08 1963 (Vol. 8, No. 8), p. 20Google Scholar.

37 OAU Document EDC/Res.14(II), January 29, 1965.

38 The resolution also spoke of an African Youth Organization, an African Scouts Union, and an annual African Sports Game. See OAU Document CIAS/Plen.3/A, May 22–25, 1963.

39 OAU Council Resolution 24(11), February 24—29, 1964.

40 See “Problems of the Creation of an African Trade-Union Organization,” OAU Document ECOS/- 15(11), January 1965,

41 See the editorial by Sow, Alassane, Secretary for Press and Information of ATUC, in their journal Trade Union Africa, 01–02 1965 (No. 8)Google Scholar.

42 OAU Document ECOS/Res.7(II), January 22, 1965.