Organization of African Unity - SpeedyLook encyclopedia

History

Haïlé Selassié, King of kings d' Ethiopie, said that Africa was to speak about one only voice.

32 States created the OAU with Addis-Abeba (Ethiopia) in 1963.
Among the Heads of State founders, the opinions diverged on its nature. The partisans of the federalism, carried out by the president of Ghana Kwame Nkrumah, opposed holding of “Africa of the States” with at their head the Senegalese president Léopold Sédar Senghor. The latter imposed their vision and the OAU became a tool of co-operation, and not for integration, between the States.

the general headquarters of the OAU, were with Addis-Abeba (it is always the case for the current UA).
the charter of the organization (which was written in particular by the president Malian Modibo Keïta) was signed by thirty-two independent African States, in May 1963.
At the time of its decomposition, fifty-three of the fifty four African countries was members, the Morocco having left the organization in 1985 following the admission (disputed) of the the Western Sahara in 1982.

Bodies

The principal bodies of the OAU were:

the Conference: Meeting of the heads of state and government once the year. It was the decisional body of the Union.
the general secretary of the UA

If the Conference were kept in the institutional architecture of the UA, the secretariat was replaced by the Commission. This one remains the executive authority but also has a capacity of initiative

Principles of the OAU

The basic principles of the OAU are:

the respect of the layout of the borders inherited the colonial period
the respect of sovereignty
non-interference in the interior matters

Assessment

It is difficult to draw up an assessment of the OAU, only replaced since 2002 by the UA (organization created in 2000 in Durban in South Africa).

Even if the OAU were often turned in derision and were qualified office of commercial negociations without real capacities, the Ghanaian secretary-general of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, spoke in praise for its capacity of it to gather the Africans. During the thirty-ninth year of existence of the organization, the critics (in particular ONG) affirmed with always more insistence than the OAU did not protect sufficiently the rights and freedoms of the African citizens against their own political directors.

It should initially be noted that the States were very often divided on the subjects, which involved a certain opposition to progress in many fields.
According to the studies, the two federator topics within the OAU were the Décolonisation and the fight against the Apartheid in South Africa.
to be carried to the credit of the OAU: the support with the decolonization. The assistance towards the still colonized people will remain his most outstanding action. the OAU uses the United Nations (UNO) as a platform to plead their cause. It brings its political and material assistance to the independence movements.
On Aparheid: the Panafrican organization will be not very effective in the fight against the mode of apartheid in South Africa, although she denounces it with strength.

With regard to the payments of the conflicts: as the principles testify some to the OAU, the States of the organization chose non-interference. What was reproached to him. the OAU nevertheless carried out mediations to regulate certain conflicts. They will prove not very convincing. The Economic community of the States of West Africa (CEDEAO), which gathers 16 country, shows itself more active on this point, as with the Liberia in the years 1990.

At the economic level: the objective of economic integration is characterized by a too great ambition of the projects compared with the limited allocated resources. In 1991, the Treaty of Abuja (Nigeria) envisages the introduction of a continental Common Market by 2025. But the projections of the project leave the septic observers.

On the promotion of the human rights and the democracy: the OAU adopts in 1981 a African Charter of the human rights and people, ratified today by the near total of the States. Its control mechanism remained very limited: the Commission which undertook some could only make one report/ratio, often confidential, with the Conference of the heads of state and government which had the last mot.

Concerning the democratic aspect of the organization: the Conference, which is the supreme body bringing together the heads of state and government, made all the decisions.

According to the specialists, the OAU was before a whole forum of co-operation between Heads of States.
Its substitute, the African Union (UA) seems after a few years existence to make proof of more than effectiveness in the prevention and the resolution of the conflicts, and in the democratic opening (see African Union).

Specialized institutions

The specialized institutions the OAU were the following ones:

Panafrican Union of telecommunications (UPAT)
Panafrican Union of the stations (UPAP)
Panafrican Agency of news (BREADED)
Union of broadcastings and national televisions of Africa (URTNA)
African Union of the railroads (UAC)
Organization of the African trade-union unit (OUSA)
Superior council of the sport in Africa (CSSA)
African Bureau of Sciences of Education (BASE)

See too

Charter African of the human rights and the people, adopted by the OAU in June 1981
African Charter of the rights and the wellbeing of the child, adopted by the OAU in July 1990
African Union

References

“OAU After Twenty Years”; Pub. Praeger; ISBN 0030624738; (May 1984)
“Africa' S First Peacekeeping Operation: The OAU in Chad, 1981-1982” by Terry Mr. Mays, Pub. Praeger; ISBN 0275976068; (April 30th 2002)
“African Exodus: Refugee Crisis, Human Rights, & the 1969 OAU Convention” by Chaloka Beyani, Chris Stringer, Pub. Lawyers Committee for Human Rights; ISBN 0934143730; (July 1995)
" The Internationales" Organizations; by Marie-Claude Smouts, Paris, Armand Colin, 1995.
" The Internationales" Organizations; by Pierre Weiss, Paris, Nathan editions, 1998.
" International organizations with vocation régionale" , Paris, French Documentation, 1995.

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