REUTERS

President Jacob Zuma with UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon, acting as president of the UN Security Council at UN headquarters in New York.

NEW YORK: Forging a closer relationship between the AU and the UN might avoid the sort of diplomatic crises that arose last year over the toppling of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, President Jacob Zuma told the UN Security Council yesterday.

“As everybody is aware,” the AU developed a “political road map that would have assisted in resolving the political conflict in that country,” Zuma told the 15 council members and UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon.

But, he said, “the AU’s plan was completely ignored in favour of bombing Libya by Nato forces”.

Zuma said that the “consequences of actions that were carried out in Libya in the name of the UN Security Council have spilled over into other countries in the region”.

Without giving specifics, Zuma added: “A problem which was confined to one country, Libya, has now grown to be a regional problem.”

Uprisings in Egypt, Tunisia and Bahrain preceded the Libyan revolt, which then spread to Yemen and, most notably, Syria, where some opposition figures are calling for a similar Nato operation to help overthrow President Bashar al-Assad.

Zuma said the Nato nations in the Libyan bombing campaign “should also be held accountable for the actions they take in implementing the security council’s binding mandates”.

Zuma’s remarks seemed to echo Russia’s call for a UN investigation into the uncounted civilian casualties caused by Nato’s Libya campaign.

“The views of the African Union must be listened to if we are to strengthen our relationship and prevent further conflict,” Zuma said.

He noted that a partnership between the AU and the UN was precisely what the UN founders had in mind when they drafted the organisation’s charter 66 years ago, calling for close UN relations with regional organisations even before any regional organisations existed.

Through its work to “co-ordinate and spearhead the continent’s efforts towards development and common security”, the AU had “sought to give practical meaning to the vision of the UN Charter on co-operation with regional organisations”, he said.

Though he recognised the primacy of the security council over the AU, Zuma told the security council that “regional bodies are closer to the situation, are familiar with the issues and often understand the dynamics of the conflict”.

And, he said: “Neighbouring countries often bear the burden and consequences of conflict in their neighbourhood.”

Because most of Africa was under colonial rule in 1945 when the UN charter was adopted, no African nation was given a permanent seat on the security council, Zuma said.

This was still the situation even though 70 percent of the council’s agenda concerned Africa.

The president called for the expansion of the council to include an African seat, for which Pretoria is a leading candidate. – Independent Foreign Service