Ban Ki-Moon in a race against time
Can the UN secretary general weigh in on Africa's major crises before he steps down at the end of the year?
On 11 March, the United Nations (UN) Security Council adopted a groundbreaking resolution intended to curb sexual abuse by UN peacekeepers. Resolution 2272 states that if there are abuses by peacekeepers from a certain country, the entire contingent will be sent home if the allegations are not sufficiently investigated by the country concerned.
This in fact happened last month when all Congolese peacekeepers were recalled from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and the Central African Republic (CAR) due to allegations of sexual abuse.
This is a victory for outgoing UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, who has made it a personal aim to fight sexual abuse in peacekeeping missions. He also made good on his promise to African leaders at the African Union (AU) summit in January when he vowed to deal with this issue before he steps down at the end of the year.
Sexual abuse by peacekeepers has become a huge problem and taints the image of UN peacekeeping worldwide. In 2015 a total of 69 cases were reported, most of which were in CAR and DRC. Not only African peacekeepers are among the accused. A number of French peacekeepers were accused of sexual exploitation in CAR last year.
Ban has many other issues on his plate, and it’s difficult to see how he is going to solve them before he steps down. He can, however, weigh in on a number of conflicts in Africa where the UN is a major roleplayer. In the last two weeks the UN secretary general went on a whirlwind tour of Africa’s hotspots that took him to DRC, Burundi, South Sudan, Algeria, Western Sahara and Mauritania.
Ban Ki-Moon has made it a personal aim to fight sexual abuse in peacekeeping missions
He is unlikely to be able to solve these before he leaves his post, but it certainly looks like Ban is making a last-ditch effort to speak out about abuses and steer things in the right direction.
In DRC, for example, relations with the UN – and its 20 000 peacekeepers – is at a low point even though the new envoy, Maman Sidikou, a former diplomat from Niger, seems confident that he can change things for the better. Besides the issues around succession and the likely delay of presidential elections in DRC – which Ban addressed head-on – there is still massive insecurity in the east of the country.
Apart from dealing with the myriad threats from militias and rebel groups in the east, peacekeepers could be sucked into the crisis in neighbouring Burundi if things take a turn for the worse. Sources at the January AU summit said the UN is already preparing to react if required.
Ban visited Burundi on 23 February and spoke to President Pierre Nkurunziza. According to the UN news service, he obtained certain concessions from Nkurunziza, including the release of detainees and unbanning certain media. Can the UN take over from the AU in Burundi because it is seen as a neutral broker?
Can the UN take over from the AU in Burundi because it’s seen as a neutral broker?
For now, there has been good synergy between the UN and the AU on urging the Burundian government to protect citizens, engage in dialogue with the opposition and respect the Arusha Accords. The AU welcomed the visit by Security Council ambassadors to Burundi in early January.
Some tension could, however, be created by the fact that the AU and the East African Community see themselves as the principle interlocutors in Burundi and don’t want other actors, like the UN secretary general, to increase the already large number of mediators and facilitators in the crisis.
Ban also visited South Sudan, where he urged President Salva Kirr to move quickly to implement the August 2015 peace agreement. He visited the UN base in South Sudan that has been unable to stop the dramatic humanitarian tragedy. The Security Council has yet to agree on comprehensive sanctions against the belligerents.
The last leg of Ban’s tour, to the camps of the Polisario Front in Algeria, was certainly the most controversial and gave him a taste of why the UN has been unable to solve the Western Sahara issue over the past four decades.
This was Ban’s first visit to the near-forgotten camps in Tindouf, western Algeria, where Sahraoui refugees have been languishing since November 1975, when Morocco claimed – or ‘occupied’ – western Sahara. Ban used this word in conversation while visiting the Tindouf camps at his peril.
On 13 March tens of thousands of Moroccans took to the streets of Rabat to protest against Ban’s alleged biased stance against Morocco on the Western Sahara dispute. Morocco also announced that it would cut its financial contribution to the UN Mission for the Referendum in the Western Sahara (MINURSO). This was certainly not what Ban had intended.
The job of UN secretary general is certainly a tough one and crucial for Africa
This conflict that has damaged relations between Morocco and Algeria for decades, and prevented Morocco from playing its part in the AU, is one of the continent’s most problematic issues. Multiple UN-envoys have failed to convince both sides to hold a referendum on autonomy vs. independence. Recently, the Western Sahara and the Tindouf camps have been singled out as breeding grounds for radicalism where groups like al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb find their recruits.
Ban was clearly moved by the plight of the Sahraoui in the camps and told Polisario Front leader Mohammed Abdelaziz: ‘I will spare no effort to help make progress’. The question is, will he have time to do that?
Finally, there is little hope that Ban will oversee any movement on Security Council reform. According to Jakkie Cilliers, Head of African Futures and Innovation at the Institute for Security Studies, Ban hasn’t shown much interest in this issue that is vitally important to AU members. ‘His predecessor Kofi Annan tried to play an active role. The 2005 report ‘In Larger Freedom’ was a brave attempt to kick start Security Council reform, but Ban seems to think this is impossible’. The intergovernmental committee of the UN General Assembly has been limping along since 2009 without any tangible results.
At the January AU summit Ban said that ‘the Security Council must be reformed in a more democratic, representative and transparent manner’. But he added that a lack of consensus among UN member states is blocking the process.
The job of UN secretary general is certainly a tough one and crucial for Africa. More than half of the 16 UN peace operations are in Africa and various UN agencies are helping refugees, feeding the hungry, stopping the use of child soldiers and many other tasks. Ban Ki-Moon has less than nine months left in the position and we might see increasing boldness on issues like the Western Sahara, the third-term bid in the DRC and human rights abuses in Burundi. He is not up for re-election so has nothing to lose.
Liesl Louw-Vaudran, ISS Consultant
