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Exercising African agency in Burundi via multilateral channels: opportunities and challenges

2013; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 13; Issue: 5 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/14678802.2013.849848

1478-1174

Thomas Kwasi Tieku,

International Development and Aid

AbstractThis article joins an emerging body of studies that explore factors and conditions that enable African governments to exercise agency. It does so by showing that formalised African multilateral institutions such as the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) and the African Union (AU) enabled African governments to exercise agency in the resolution of conflict in Burundi between 1993 and 2009. It argues that the pan-African framework enhanced African agency in multiple ways, including making the African voice louder in a crowded conflict theatre, and turning representatives of the African international organisations into de facto leaders of actors who intervened in the Burundi conflict. The pan-African framework also created the space for African governments to establish an ad hoc regional conflict resolution institution called the Great Lakes Regional Initiative for Peace in Burundi (Great Lakes Initiative) to manage the disparate international players and belligerents in the conflict zone. The exercise of African agency in Burundi was not smooth sailing. Some of the challenges such as regional divisions and interests of powerful member-states that the OAU and the AU encountered in Burundi are classic problems associated with multilateral management of conflicts. These challenges are well documented and will not be the focus of the article. Instead, the article examines problems that emanated from OAU and AU inexperience in exercising agency in a crowded and complex conflict theatre. AcknowledgementsThe paper is based on interviews conducted as part of an independent study commissioned by the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue in Geneva and the Conflict Management Division of the Department of Peace and Security of the African Union. The empirical parts were extensively discussed at a Validation Worship at the AU Headquarters in Addis Ababa in October 2009. The Workshop was attended by almost all the actors involved in the Burundi peace process who were alive at the time. The author thanks the two organisations for the generous funding, the incredible access they provided and for organising the validation workshop. The research benefited from numerous interviews with Organisation of African Unity (OAU) and African Union (AU) officials, international mediators and key players involved in the Burundi conflict. Their identities have been kept intentionally anonymous. I am grateful to Patricia Boadi, Dickson Eyoh, Nakayike Musisi and Robert Rotberg for helpful comments on an earlier draft of this article and to Tanzeel Hakak for her research assistance. The views expressed here and any errors in the paper are solely mine.