Exploring the Challenges of the African Union (Au)-Led Mediation in Peace Processes: The Cases of Burundi, Libya, and Zimbabwe

• Main Author: Niyitunga, Eric Blanco
• Format: Dissertation
• Language: English
• Published: ProQuest Dissertations & Theses 01-01-2017
• Subjects: African Studies; Agreements; Authoritarianism; Charters; Conflict resolution; Data collection; Democracy; Diaspora; Economic development; Failure; Human rights; International relations; Labor unions; Mediation; Mediators; Peace; Peacekeeping forces; Political activism; Prevention; Satellite communications; Slave trade; Success; Violence
• ISBN: 9798708763105

Extensive research exists on the role of peacekeeping forces and yet relatively few studies have examined the role of AU mediation and the challenges it encounters in resolving African conflicts. While peacekeeping missions can halt political conflicts, however, literature depicts that they do not help deal with the conflicts from their root causes, and this is the reason why in many places political violence and insecurity have become intractable on the continent. The central aim of this study has been to study the role of mediation in resolving political violence and investigate whether the AU does fully own the mediation process and has autonomy over the mediation agendas and outcome. The study finds that Africa’s most important inter-state actor has no supremacy and wherewithal to act as an autonomous and powerful actor in the mediation process. Autonomous in that it is unable to act independently by setting and presiding of its agenda, and to act victoriously without being overcome by narrow endogenous (Africa) or exogenous (extra African) interests and influence. Challenges that were found depriving the AU of ownership and autonomy in mediation processes are both internal and external. The internal challenges were confirmed to include: the AU’s mediators’ failure to understand the origins, root causes and nature of African conflicts; the AU’s mediators’ lack of professional expertise in conflict analysis; unchecked divisions among AU member states; the AU’s lack of full control and authority over the mediation process; the AU’s lack of professionally trained and experienced mediators in mediation research; weakness of the AU mediation process; unfilled gaps in the AU’s Peace and Security Architecture; the lack of institutionalised mediation architecture and mediation teams at the AU; and lack of African originated resources to support AU mediation processes. The external challenges include: the presence of the seemingly unconquerable external conspiracy of dictatorial forces from the Western countries before and/or during the mediation process. Therefore, with these challenges, the study demonstrated that the AU does neither own mediation processes nor does it have autonomy over the mediation agenda item and outcomes. This was done through the close examination of how the AU mediation team applied the principles governing successful mediation in three African cases.The study found that the first step that leads to the AU owning mediation and having authority over the mediation agenda item is the capacity and ability of mediators to understand what African conflicts are about. It recommends that the AU policy-makers should establish a set of coherent principles that would guide the process of recruiting professionally trained and experienced mediators. There should be a unanimous effort to institutionalise mediation both at the AU and RECs. The study recommends that the AU member states need to put aside all the unnecessary divisions that open avenues for outsiders to rob the AU’s ownership and autonomy over the mediation process. The study concludes that for the AU to have ownership over the mediation process and conduct the process to success, it must institutionalise a mediation team made up of mediators who are scholars with a proven track record of professionalism and experience in the field of mediation research. This team must work under the AU mediation architecture which comprises of a set of coherent principles that guide the mediation process and must work independently of states.To arrive at these assertions, the study adopts a qualitative research design with an exploratory inquiry and case study approach. The cases are the AU-led mediation processes in Burundi, Libya and Zimbabwe. Through these cases, this study attested that the AU does neither own mediation processes, nor does it have autonomy over the mediation outcomes. In the process of data-gathering the methods used include a documentary analysis and field notes