Mbeki : UN Complicit In Wars In Africa
Mbeki says AU sidelined, can’t tackle NATO might
Citing the cases of Cote d’Ivoire and Libya last year, Mbeki said the UN was complicit in illegal power transfers and the murder of thousands of civilians.
“AU did what was correct when the Libyan problem arose. They moved quickly to put together a task team of five Heads of State to ensure the implementation of a peace programme.
“But that team was stopped, prohibited from flying into Libya. There was no way AU could have stopped NATO, physically we couldn’t mobilise forces to go and fight NATO,” Mbeki said.
Western countries use the United Nations as a Trojan horse to sideline African initiatives in brokering political dialogue and resolving conflicts in preference for military intervention to foist puppet regimes across the continent, former South African President Thabo Mbeki says.
Speaking to the media in Windhoek, Namibia, this past week, Mbeki said the UN was a willing tool for US interventionist policies and illegal regime change in Africa.
At the same time, Mbeki noted, the African Union is consistently ignored by both the UN and Western countries and lacks the military might to confront NATO.
Citing the cases of Cote d’Ivoire and Libya last year, Mbeki said the UN was complicit in illegal power transfers and the murder of thousands of civilians.
Mbeki mediated in Cote d’Ivoire from 2004 to 2006, and using his knowledge of the country’s political problems advised the international community on how best to tackle last year’s post-electoral crisis.
That advice was largely ignored by the UN, which joined forces with France and for the first time actually conducted offensive military missions in a member state rather than restrict itself to its peacekeeping role.
This past week, Mbeki narrated the genesis of Cote d’Ivoire’s problems, which culminated in a joint UN-French military raid that led to President Laurent Gbabgo’s ouster and Alassane Quattara’s rise.
He also spoke about NATO’s military intervention in Libya – through abuse of a UN Security Council resolution – which led to Muammar Gaddafi’s assassination.
In all cases, the UN was directly involved in illegal power transfers and the deaths of countless civilians as the West went on a rampage to “fulfil their agendas”.
Mbeki said the UN completely ignored the AU’s peace plan for Cote d’Ivoire.
He revealed that under AU-brokered dialogue, Gbabgo had agreed to step down and his party would choose a candidate to run in fresh elections against Ouattara.
“In the first place, Cote d’Ivoire was not supposed to hold elections under the political environment prevailing in the country at that time.
“It was not just feasible. How do you hold elections in a country divided into two?
“We had decided to re-unite the country first, disarm and integrate rebels in the northern parts of the country (who supported Ouattara) into civilian society.
“But the pressure on the UN from the outside world to hold elections became too strong,” Mbeki said.
“The AU had agreed with Gbabgo that he should resign and that there would be negotiations to look at the way forward.
“An AU delegation was standing by in Addis Ababa (Ethiopia, which hosts the AU headquarters) to fly into Ivory Coast.
“But the UN stopped the AU delegation from implementing the process in order to create space for military action they then took.
“UN effectively said ‘no – you can’t land because the airport has been occupied by rebels’, which was a lie.
“A story that is told of the failure of the AU on is not true. Western countries had other agendas and they took decisions to use military force to remove Gbabgo,” Mbeki explained.
This mirrors how Western powers used the UN to engage in military action to topple and facilitate Gaddafi’s assassination, Mbeki said.
The claim that Gaddafi was about to slaughter Libyan citizens “was not true”, Mbeki emphasised, adding that Western powers’ intentions to “remove the government of Libya leading to the assassination of Gaddafi” was evidenced by their outright rejection of an AU peace plan.
“The deliberate rejection of Africa’s own position about a member of the AU is evidence that their principal objective was regime change in Libya.”
Mbeki said the leaders of Britain, France and the US said exactly that in an article they jointly published when “justifying” war on Libya.
“It is impossible to imagine a future for Libya with Gaddafi in power.
“It is unthinkable that someone who has tried to massacre his own people can play a part in their future governmentColonel Gaddafi must go and go for good,” the three leaders wrote in the article that appeared in the Washington Post, the Times and Le Figaro in April 2011.
Mbeki said that the AU was marginalised despite warning of the consequences of military action in Libya.
He said the present problems in Mali “are the consequences of a wrong decision” taken by Western powers.
Armed citizens who fled Libya with arms supplied by NATO or looted from Libyan armouries are central to the military coup in Mali.
“These people (the West) had their objectives and they felt the AU was standing in their way.
“Libya ceased to be an African country ‑ the way they kept saying that we consulted with the Arab League and not the AU is clear evidence of this,” Mbeki said.
“AU did what was correct when the Libyan problem arose. They moved quickly to put together a task team of five Heads of State to ensure the implementation of a peace programme.
“But that team was stopped, prohibited from flying into Libya. There was no way AU could have stopped NATO, physically we couldn’t mobilise forces to go and fight NATO,” Mbeki said.
The former South African president, who is championing the African Renaissance, had a few choice words for America’s President Barack Obama, whom he said was a disappointment for Africa.
“The US policy towards Africa hasn’t changed in any significant degree. Obama has visited Africa twice.
“It was in Ghana he addressed the African challenges but there was nothing in that speech that marked a significant change in US policy.
“In 2002, G8 adopted what was called the Africa Action Plan which was supposed to be commitment to work with Africa in implementing objectives of NEPAD.
“This was a plan which was seen as responding to an African initiative.
“Since then the G8 has abandoned its commitment, they no longer talk about the Africa Action Plan but there were agreed positions globally.
“The US should come back to this solemn commitment which they have abandoned but which remains the only correct framework of co-operation,” Mbeki said.
