Zeitschrift für Kunst- und Sozialwissenschaften

Responsibilities and Challenges of the African Union in Maintaining Continental Peace and Security: A Case Study of the Malian Crisis

Abstract

Abebe Wolkanto NA

The issue of peace and security is one of the most important concerns in the politics of the African continent. Particularly in the period of immediate post-independence there had been experiences of grave political unrests that are manifested by ethnic conflict, civil war, border disputes, military coups etc. which had something to do with the colonial experiences and were to be handled by the then continental organization known by the name Organization of African Unity (OAU). In the final decade of the 20th century, the mounting need for greater continental integration resulted in the transformation of OAU in to AU (African Union) in 2002. Among the priority agendas of the new organization became issues of peace and security. Despite the commitment and efforts to build institutional capacity to confront problems, objective realities on the ground reflects the fact that situations of political instabilities in the continent were far from significantly resolved. Therefore in this study the researcher tried to portray the challenges AU facing in the maintenance of continental Peace and Security in light of the Malian political crisis. The Malian case was preferred in consideration of the fact that it is one of the incidents where AU's involvement for crisis management was significantly curtailed by the outsiders). Besides it is a complex event thought to be identified with separatism, religious radicalism and organized regional "terrorist" groups that struck the researcher's curiosity and prompted him to conduct this study.