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Intraregional Conflict Management by the Organization of African Unity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 May 2009

B. David Meyers
B. David Meyers
Affiliation:
B. David Meyers is a member of the Department of Political Science of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. An earlier draft of this essay was presented at the Southern Political Science Association meeting in Atlanta, Georgia, 3 November 1973. The completion of the manuscript was facilitated by a grant from the Research Council of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.
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Extract

This article examines the intraregional conflict management activities of the Organization of African Unity (OAU). Three traditional regionalist claims are tested and suggestions concerning the future role of such organizations are provided. The findings indicate that in a number of cases the OAU was not an effective agent for conflict management; its limitations were clearest in internal disputes and those international conflicts involving allegations of subversion. Evidence from this study does not convincingly support the proposition that similarities of interests, problems, and loyalties found at the regional level make it more likely that attempts at settlement will be forthcoming and successful. Other findings indicate that the organization was able to isolate intra-regional conflicts from entanglement in more complex global disputes; this ability was, however, highly dependent on the desire of the great powers to remain uninvolved. The OAU was able to relieve the UN of the potential burden of numerous local conflicts, but this too sometimes proved dependent on policy decisions made by the United States or the Soviet Union. It is suggested that regional organizations may assist the superpowers in avoiding unwanted involvement in local disputes, but that unless the conflict management capacity of such organizations is increased, the result may be that many conflicts will remain unsettled.

Type
Articles
Information
International Organization , Volume 28 , Issue 3 , Summer 1974 , pp. 345 - 373
Copyright
Copyright © The IO Foundation 1974

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References

1 The collective legitimization function of international organizations has been examined by Claude, Inis L. Jr., The Changing United Nations (New York: Random House, 1967Google Scholar), chapter 4. The limits of such activity have been examined by Slater, Jerome, “The Limits of Legitimization in International Organizations: The Organization of American States and the Dominican Crisis,” International Organization 23 (Winter 1969): 48–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 President Johnson, Lyndon, “Four Fundamental Facts of our Foreign Policy,” Department of State Bulletin 55 (26 September 1966): 453.Google Scholar (Address made at Lancaster, Ohio, 5 September 1966.)

3 President Nixon, Richard, U.S. Foreign Policy for the 1970'a: The Emerging Structure of Peace, A Report to the Congress by Richard Nixon, President of the United States, February 9, 1972 (Washington, D. C.: US Government Printing Office), p. 14.Google Scholar

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5 This Soviet interest in regionalism has been manifested on at least two occasions. In 1964, the USSR suggested that Somalia, which it had supported in conflicts against Ethiopia, take its dispute to the OAU rather than to the United Nations Security Council. In 1969, Soviet leaders promoted the idea that south and southeast Asian states create a regional collective security organization.

6 Among the advocates of regionalism who advanced these claims were Winston Churchill, Walter Lippmann, and Edward Carr. See Churchill, Winston S., The Hinge of Fate (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1950), pp. 711–12, 804–7Google Scholar; Carr, Edward Hallet, The Txoenty Year Crisis, 1919–1939: An Introduction to the Study of International Relations, 2d ed. (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1946), pp. 80–85CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Lippmann, Walter, U.S. War Aims (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1944), pp. 80–85. For another effort to use conflict case material to test regionalist claims, seeGoogle ScholarNye, Joseph S. Jr., Peace in Parts: Integration and Conflict in Regional Organizations (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1971),Google Scholar chapter 5.

7 By substantial intervention I have in mind the direct involvement of American or Soviet forces as has been seen in Eastern Europe, Latin America, and south-east Asia.

8 The limitations of the OAU's authority and coercive power are analyzed by Tandon, Yashpal in “The Organization of African Unity,” The Round Table 246 (April 1972): 221–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9 Resources required for intervention in conflicts are identified and discussed by Young, Oran, The Intermediaries: Third Parties in International Crisis (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1967), pp. 80–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

10 The 1973–74 budget was $4.5 million; this was an increase of $0.7 million over the budget of the previous year. For purposes of comparison, the budget of the OAS is usually about $20 million.

11 This problem was pointed out by Saenz, Paul, “The Organization of African Unity in the Subordinate African Regional System,” African Studies Review 13 (September 1970): 218.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

12 For a more detailed discussion of the methodology and substance of this analysis, see Meyers, Benjamin David, “The Organization of African Unity: Conflict Management by a Regional Organization” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of California at Los Angeles, 1973).Google Scholar

13 Intensity was denned and operationalized in terms of deaths resulting from combat: no deaths—low, 1–100—moderate, 101−1,000—high, over 1,000—very high. Intensity is a measure of conflict behavior rather than of the perceived importance of the issues to the protagonists. Thus the kidnapping of diplomats or threats and allegations of subversion are of low intensity but not necessarily of little seriousness or importance.

14 The possibility of intervention by the superpowers was determined from statements concerning the conflict made by their national leaders, and by previous sup-port for a protagonist (i.e., financial or military aid). Neither the United States nor the Soviet Union had military treaties with African states involved in conflicts during 1963–73; a number of the protagonists had, however, received military assistance from one of the powers.

15 For further information on the OAU's role in territorial conflicts, see Touval, Saadia, “The Organization of African Unity and African Borders,” International Organization 21 (Winter 1967): 102–27CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Chime, Samuel, “The Organization of African Unity and African Boundaries,” in African Boundary Problems, ed. Carl, Gösta Widstrand (Uppsala, Sweden: The Scandinavian Institute of African Studies, 1969), pp. 63–78.Google Scholar

16 For further information on the OAU's role in the dispute between Algeria and Morocco, see 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 Among African States,” International Organization 20 (Winter 1966): 18–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

17 For further information on the OAU's role in the Ethiopian-Kenya-Somalia dispute, see Catherine, Hoskyns, ed., Case Studies in African Diplomacy Number II: The Ethiopia-Somali-Kenya Dispute 1960−67 (Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania: Oxford University Press, 1969).Google Scholar

18 For further information on the OAU's role in conflicts concerning subversion, see Tandon, Yashpal, “The Organization of African Unity as an Instrument and Forum of Protest,” in Robert, I. Rotberg and Ali, A. Mazuri, eds., Protest and Power in Black Africa (New York: Oxford University Press, 1970), pp. 1153–83Google Scholar; and Andemicael, Berhanykun, Peaceful Settlement Among African States: Roles of the United Nations and the Organization of African Unity (UN Institute for Training and Research [UNITAR] Publication no. 5, 1972), pp. 17–20, 39–44.Google Scholar

19 “The United Nations' Findings on Rwanda and Burundi,” Africa Report 9 (April 1964): 7.

20 The most serious recent incident of this type took place in March 1973 when soldiers from Burundi attacked a refugee village in Tanzania, killing 74 people, including 33 Tanzanians.

21 For further information concerning the invasion, see Dobert, Margarita, “Who Invaded Guinea?,” Africa Report 16 (March 1971): 16–18.Google Scholar

22 For further information on the OAU's role in the dispute between Ghana and Guinea, see Skurnik, W. A. E., “Ghana and Guinea, 1966—A Case Study in Inter-African Relations,” Journal of Modern African Studies 5 (November 1967): 369–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

23 For further information on the OAU's role in the Congo Civil War, see Pradhan, R. C., “OAU and the Congo Crisis,” Africa Quarterly 5 (April-June 1965): 30–42; andGoogle ScholarCatherine, Hoskyns, ed., Case Studies in African Diplomacy Number I: The Organization of African Unity and the Congo Crisis (Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania: Oxford University Press, 1969).Google Scholar