Two things stood out at last week’s AU summit in Addis Ababa. One was South Africa’s growing influence on the organisation.
The other was the AU’s increasing desire for greater independence.
The two are related, as South Africa is in the vanguard of the drive to free the AU of its dependence or perceived dependence on external forces in so many different ways.
It was largely for the sake of greater independence from these outside forces – particularly France – that South Africa campaigned so aggressively to put Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma in the chair of the AU commission in 2012.
She is now poised to restructure the commission and to ensure member states themselves finance it in order to lessen or end its heavy financial dependence on foreign donors “who we euphemistically call partners”, as she frankly put it last week.
At last week’s summit, the quest for greater independence was evident across the spectrum of AU endeavours.
The most important was the summit’s decision to authorise a new rapid response force of volunteer African governments to form self-funding “coalitions of the willing” to intervene swiftly in crises on the continent.
This force is championed by President Jacob Zuma and was inspired by the embarrassment of having to stand idly by as France saved the day in Mali a year ago.
Since then, French troops have also prevented the Central African Republic (CAR) from descending into even further chaos.
On the economic front, the AU’s economic commissioner, Anthony Maruping, declared the AU’s economic master plan would be “home-grown” with “no contamination from any external failed ideas” such as those emanating from the World Bank and IMF.
In another sign of independence, the AU held an unusual solidarity initiative where Africans pledged help mostly in kind to Misca, the AU peacekeeping mission in the CAR.
The idea was to give Africans a sense of ownership of the CAR problem, even if only symbolically.
International Relations and Co-operation Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane enthused after the initiative saying: “In the olden days, this would have been a proverbial donor conference where people came and pledged so many millions that never reached their destination. Things seem to be changing.”
A similar spirit infused discussion of judicial affairs.
The AU has become increasingly estranged from the Hague-based International Criminal Court (ICC) because of its indictments of two sitting African presidents, Omar al-Bashir of Sudan and Uhuru Kenyatta.
And so the AU is trying to increase the powers of its own African Court, which can now only adjudicate inter-state and civil disputes, to judge also criminal matters, like the ICC.
“We are now determined to find African solutions to African problems,” said Nkoana-Mashabane.
And she added that in keeping with the renaming of the AU’s main plenary hall as the Nelson Mandela hall, it was important “to remove pessimism” and live up to Mandela’s dictum: “It always seems impossible, until it is done.”
All these moves to greater independence are undoubtedly worthy in themselves.
But it ought to be possible and prudent to assert independence without rancour, autarky, ingratitude and blame.
Zuma told journalists that Europe was still looking at African countries “as former colonies, former subjects”, rather than as equal partners.
A French journalist wondered if he had forgotten that French soldiers had died in Mali and the CAR.
After the minister spoke about the African Solidarity Initiative, the usual donor suspects pledged about $200 million (R2.2 billion) for the CAR.
Most important for ordinary Africans, though, is to ensure that the greater independence their governments seek at the AU is in their true interests.
For instance, only seven African governments have allowed the African Court to hear civil pleas from individuals and NGOs, when their own governments fail them. South Africa is not one of them.
And the attempt to give the African Court jurisdiction over criminal matters has resulted in it being bogged down over disagreements, including whether the proposed new crime of effecting unconstitutional changes of government should include popular uprisings.