At its close, the First Pan African Congress, held in London, England, in 1900, issued a call “to the nations of the world”, in which it said: “In the metropolis of the modern world, in this closing year of the 19th century, there has been assembled a congress of men and women of African blood, to deliberate solemnly upon the present situation and outlook of the darker races of mankind.

“The problem of the 20th century is the problem of the colour line, the question as to how far differences of race, which show themselves chiefly in the colour of the skin and the texture of the hair, are going to be made, hereafter, the basis of denying to over half the world the right of sharing to their utmost ability the opportunities and privileges of modern civilisation.”

In these famous words, 112 years ago leaders from the African continent and the African diaspora, including the Caribbean and the US, made the assertion that the 20th century would have to address the related issues of:

l The liberation of the peoples of Africa and the Caribbean from colonialism and imperialism, enabling them fully to enjoy the rights to self-determination and development.

l The emancipation of the peoples in the African diaspora, especially in the US, from racial discrimination and oppression, to enable them to enjoy equal citizenship rights and thus access all available opportunities for development.

To underline all this, in his closing address on July 25, 1900, the outstanding African American, W.E.B. du Bois said: “Let the nations of the world respect the integrity and independence of the free Negro states of Abyssinia, Liberia, Haiti, and the rest, and let the inhabitants of these states, the independent tribes of Africa, the Negroes of the West Indies and America, and the black subjects of all nations take courage, strive ceaselessly, and fight bravely, that they may prove to the world their incontestable right to be counted among the great brotherhood of mankind. Thus we appeal with boldness and confidence… for a generous recognition of the righteousness of our cause.”

Five weeks ago we celebrated the centenary of Dullah Omar’s movement, and ours, the ANC.

As we continue to mark this historic achievement during the rest of this year, the question we will have to ask is – has the ANC realised the goal which was proclaimed by the first Pan African Congress!

We say this because in fact that congress, held 12 years before the ANC was formed, set the agenda for all African liberation movements, and therefore the ANC itself.

All this relates directly to the important topic we have been asked to address – reflections on peacemaking, state sovereignty and democratic governance in Africa.

Recent events on our continent, and specifically what happened in Ivory Coast and Libya last year, have given particular and immediate relevance to this topic.

In the context of this lecture I will focus on Libya, even as the events in Ivory Coast would also confirm much of what I will say about Libya, relating to the purposes and outcome of contemporary foreign armed interventions in Africa.

On March 10, 2011, the AU Peace and Security Council adopted a roadmap for the peaceful resolution of the then Libyan conflict.

Among other things, this roadmap provided for an end to the violent conflict in Libya and the institution of a process whereby the Libyan people would engage one another in inclusive negotiations freely to determine the future of their country, including its obligatory and genuine democratisation.

The AU secured the agreement of the Gaddafi regime to this roadmap, relying on the fact that Libya is one of its members.

This created the framework to address the issues identified in the theme of this lecture – peace-making, state sovereignty and democratic governance in Libya – without further resort to force and therefore the needless killing of tens of thousands of Libyans and the destruction of valuable national infrastructure and other property.

The AU forwarded its March 10 decision to the UN, the league of Arab states and other relevant organisations.

However, the UN Security Council (SC) wilfully elected to ignore the decisions of the AU, treating these decisions relating to an African country, and therefore us, the peoples of Africa, with contempt.

Even in its communications, the Security Council virtually decreed that Libya had ceased to be an African country. Accordingly it argued that it derived the legitimacy of its actions from decisions taken by the league of Arab states.

On March 17, seven days after the AU had adopted its roadmap for the peaceful resolution of the Libyan conflict, it adopted its Resolution 1973, which created the space for Nato, an independent US-European military and political alliance, to intervene in Libya to impose a violent resolution of this conflict, centred on regime change, which objective was completely at variance with Resolution 1973.

I am certain that all of us are familiar with what then happened.

In essence, Nato intervened not to impose a no-fly-zone to protect civilians, as prescribed by the UN Security Council, but to lead and empower the opposition National Transitional Council in a military campaign to overthrow the Gaddafi regime. Indeed, once the Nato campaign was launched, we were forewarned that this was the intention of the major Western powers.

As early as only a month after the adoption of Resolution 1973, the architects of this resolution and the Nato campaign, US President Barack Obama and French leader Nicolas Sarkozy and British Prime Minister David Cameron, publicly announced their intentions.

In a joint letter published in the newspapers, The Times of London, the French Le Figaro, and the International Herald Tribune, these three permanent members of the Security Council, shamelessly repudiating the SC mandate, said: “There is a pathway to peace that promises new hope for the people of Libya: a future without Gaddafi… So long as Gaddafi is in power, Nato and its coalition partners must maintain their operations… Colonel Gaddafi must go, and go for good…”

Having become slaves to this illegal regime-change objective, the relevant United Nations institutions betrayed all the prescriptions they are obliged by international law to respect. Thus:

l The UN Secretary General allowed the representatives of the rebel National Transitional Council to act as the legitimate representatives of the UN Member State of Libya, contrary to all UN protocols.

l The UN Secretary General refused to accredit the representatives of the Libyan government.

The naked reality is that the relevant organs of the UN – the Security Council and the Office of the Secretary General – elected to betray their binding obligations in terms of international law, especially as prescribed by the UN Charter.

Rather, they chose to give free reign to the so-called P3, the US, France and the UK of Great Britain and North Ireland, exclusively to decide the future of Libya.

In this context I would like to state that there is absolutely no evidence that the Gaddafi regime either committed or had any intention to commit any genocide or wage a war against civilians, justifying the evocation by the UN, the P3 and Nato of the so-called “right to protect”.

In this regard, in a report published in June last year, the International Crisis Group said: “Much Western media coverage has from the outset presented a very one-sided view of the logic of events, portraying the (Libyan) protest movement as entirely peaceful and repeatedly suggesting that the regime’s security forces were unaccountably massacring unarmed demonstrators who presented no real security challenge.

“This version would appear to ignore evidence that the protest movement exhibited a violent aspect from very early on.

“To insist that (Gaddafi) both leave the country and face trial in the International Criminal Court is virtually to ensure that he will stay in Libya to the bitter end and go down fighting.”

In an article published by the US newspaper, The Boston Globe, on April 14, 2011, Professor Alan Kuperman wrote: “Evidence is now in that President Barack Obama grossly exaggerated the humanitarian threat to justify military action in Libya…

“(The Nato) intervention did not prevent genocide, because no such bloodbath was in the offing. To the contrary, by emboldening rebellion, US interference has prolonged Libya’s civil war and the resultant suffering of innocents…”

Together with everything I have said, we must nevertheless accept that various concrete realities in Libya provided the excuse for the Western powers to intervene in the manner they did.

The fact is that Libya was not a democratic country, having lived under a military autocracy since 1969, when young military officers, led by Colonel Gaddafi, took power through an anti-imperialist coup to overthrow a feudal regime beholden to the Western powers, thus to advance the objective to assert the right of the African and Libyan people to self-determination.

For the record, we must state this that at that time, more than four decades ago, the entire global progressive movement welcomed this coup as a progressive step forward, because it was against feudalism and imperialism.

It is also true that seen as part of the so-called Arab Spring, it was inevitable that any repressive action taken against unarmed demonstrators, as happened at the beginning of the Libyan demonstrations, and also in Tunisia, Egypt and Bahrain, would be unacceptable.

We must also understand that Gaddafi’s Libya occupied a particular position in the context of the system of international relations.

Through its actions, it had earned the wrath of the major Western powers, partly informed by the conviction that Libya had carried out terrorist actions which had claimed many lives of citizens of these powers.

Similarly, it was in the bad books of especially the Arab Gulf countries, and generally the Arab League.

Within Africa, it had made many enemies and had positioned itself as a rogue element, intent to establish client states which would serve its interests.

At the same time, it was attractive to the Western powers because of its large reserves of high quality crude oil, and the need to recruit it into a geo-strategic arrangement focused on tying the countries of North Africa into a particular partnership with the EU.

For all these reasons, it was relatively easy for the Western powers to intervene in Libya as they did, knowing that they would meet little resistance in this regard, as actually happened.

In the result, they have achieved what to them are welcome strategic outcomes, which:

l Will secure Libya as a “friendly” state in the context of the Middle East, especially with regard to the unresolved and globally strategic issue of the fate of the people of Palestine.

l Will guarantee them favourable access to Libyan oil.

Some of the vitally important lessons we, as Africans, must draw from the Libyan experience are that:

l In the post-Cold War setting, the Western powers have enhanced their appetite to intervene on our continent, including through armed force, to ensure the protection of their interests, regardless of our views as Africans.

l These powers will use the argument that they are our unique friends as defenders of our democratic and human rights, obliged to act in this regard especially when Africa, through the AU and our regional bodies, can be presented as having failed to act to defend these rights;

I trust that all of us understand that this makes the clear statement that as Africans we must act in a decisive manner to ensure the achievement of the objectives we have set ourselves, long before the Libyan debacle, based on the perspective we had elaborated together, to pursue the historic goal of the renaissance of our continent.

At the recent AU Assembly of Heads of State and Government, the AU Commission reported that the requisite number of ratifications had been achieved which brought the important African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance into force as a binding legal obligation affecting all AU Member states.

I would suggest that, perhaps starting with a pilot project, the AU Commission must take the necessary steps to help ensure the implementation of all the provisions of this charter.

Everything we have said makes the very important statement that:

l Recent events, as in Libya and Ivory Coast, have confirmed that the major Western powers remain interested and determined to attach Africa to themselves as their appendage, at all costs, ready to use all means to achieve this objective.

l These powers will intervene in our countries especially during periods of violent conflict, with no regard to the principle of the sovereignty of our states, taking advantage of the UN-approved principle of the “right to protect”, which they will interpret freely, to serve their interests.

l Unless, practically, we assume responsibility for the advancement of democracy, the protection of human rights and the realisation of the objective of good governance on our continent, and act to guarantee peace and security, these powers will intervene in our countries in pursuit of their selfish objectives, legitimising such intervention by presenting themselves as “friends of Africa”, intent to give us the gift of democracy, human rights, peace, good governance and progress, regardless of our wishes.

l In all instances we must expect that such interventions will be supported by some native forces, our own kith and kin, which the world powers concerned will present as the genuine representatives of our peoples, without regard to the truth in this regard. lThese powers will use their might to oblige the supposedly inclusive multilateral institutions to facilitate the achievement of their objectives, including through the imposition of sanctions.

l They will also use the global media to demonise whomsoever they view as their enemy, and present in the best possible light whomsoever they determine is their friend.

l If necessary, they will misuse especially the UN Security Council to legitimise their actions.

On other occasions I have sought to draw our attention as Africans to the deeply troubling reality of the perspective that has surfaced in the aftermath of the end of the Cold War, which has argued for the re-colonisation of Africa.

Thus we return to the statement issued by the 1st Pan African Congress during the last year of the 19th century, that “the problem of the 20th century is the problem of the colour line”.

It is clear that despite the advances that were made, the 20th century did not finally solve “the problem of the colour line”, as understood by that congress.

The question therefore arises – will it happen that the 21st century, which we made bold to identify as the African Century, finally solves the problem of the colour line?

In the continuing context of the vision of the first Pan African Congress, we must understand that this question also relates to the African diaspora.

In this regard, using only the example of the US, I would like to cite some observations made by the prestigious US Pew Research Centre, relating to the comparative material conditions of the African-American population.

In a report released on July 26, 2011, entitled “Wealth Gaps Rise to Record Highs Between Whites, Blacks, Hispanics”, the centre said: “The median wealth of white households is 20 times that of black households and 18 times that of Hispanic households, according to a Pew Research Centre analysis of newly available government data from 2009.

“These lopsided wealth ratios are the largest since the government began publishing such data a quarter century ago and roughly twice the size of the ratios that had prevailed between these three groups for the two decades prior to the Great Recession that ended in 2009.”

This statement, based on hard empirical evidence, confirms that even in the African diaspora, during the second decade of the 21st century, the problem of the colour line persists.

A hundred and twelve years after Du Bois spoke in London, we must heed the directive he issued, that, in his words, “the black subjects of all nations (must) take courage, strive ceaselessly, and fight bravely, that they may prove to the world their incontestable right to be counted among the great brotherhood of mankind”.

To be part of that “great brotherhood”, and indeed sisterhood, surely means that we must conduct ourselves as Dullah Omar did, and remain loyal, in word and deed, to the objectives which inspired him throughout his life, to serve the ordinary people of our country, of Africa and the world.

Omar understood the intimate relationship between, and fought for the realisation of the integration through our efforts as Africans, of the objectives of democratic rule in Africa, the construction of sovereign developmental African states committed to serve especially the interests of the poor, and the achievement of peace among the Africans, regardless of race, colour, gender or religion.

I know that Omar shared with the Afrikaner youth I met 14 years ago, the vision that – “Yesterday is a foreign country – tomorrow belongs to us”.

As his movement, and ours, the ANC, celebrates its centenary, and honours the memory of Dullah Omar, it will have to ask itself the simple yet challenging question – does it, as it advances into its second century, remain loyal, still, to the dream to whose realisation Omar dedicated his life, up to his last day on earth, as a committed and unwavering Pan-African revolutionary democrat, ever-faithful to the clarion call that was made by the first Pan African Congress, 112 years ago?

What shall we, the Africans, do, regardless of the continent of our abode, to ensure that tomorrow belongs to us.

n This is an edited version of the Dullah Omar Memorial lecture courtesy of the Thabo Mbeki Foundation. It was delivered this week at the University of the Western Cape by former president Thabo Mbeki.