The OAU and the Mozambique Revolution

1973 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-32
Author(s):  
D. Elwood Dunn
Keyword(s):  
Self Determination ◽  
Keynote Address ◽  
African Unity ◽  
Regional Organization ◽  
Kwame Nkrumah ◽  
Organization Of African Unity ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Total Agreement

One of the strongest impulses that led to the creation of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) in 1963 was the desire of free Africa to hasten independence in colonized Africa. When the leaders of independent Africa convened to inaugurate the first international regional organization of its kind in Africa, there seemed total agreement on the principle of self-determination. What Kwame Nkrumah had proclaimed six years earlier upon Ghana's accession to independence was echoed in the keynote address of the Ethiopian Emperor: “Our liberty is meaningless unless all Africans are free. Our brothers in the Rhodesias … Mozambique … cry out in anguish for our support and assistance.”

Separatism in the Comoros: Some Legal Aspects

1998 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 247-256 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gino J. Naldi
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Legal Aspects ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
Small Island ◽  
African Unity ◽  
Island State ◽  
Organization Of African Unity ◽  
State Of Affairs ◽  
Small Island State ◽  
The Relationship

Since its founding in 1963, the Organization of African Unity (OAU) has placed special emphasis on the preservation of the territorial integrity of African states. It has actively contributed to the development of relevant rules of international law, such as that of uti possidetis. Its opposition to the fragmentation of states has been absolute. However, the small island state of Comoros has challenged this state of affairs. The seemingly successful secession of ‘Anjouan’ has threatened the cherished principles of the OAU. This article critically analyzes the relationship between the principles at the heart of the dispute, those of self-determination and uti possidetis, and concludes that there is no legal proscription on the secession of ‘Anjouan’.

Beyond the African Unification Debate: Why is Pan-African Unity Still a Distant Dream?

2019 ◽  
pp. 15-21
Author(s):  
Sengulo Albert Msellemu ◽  
Hamisi Mathias Machangu
Keyword(s):  
African Diaspora ◽  
African Union ◽  
African Unity ◽  
Kwame Nkrumah ◽  
Pan African ◽  
The Future ◽  
Organization Of African Unity

The idea of the Unification of Africa is not one that should be easily discarded. It is an idea, however, that has experienced major difficulties for those seeking to implement it. Originating in the African Diaspora, it was taken up by figures such as Kwame Nkrumah and Julius Nyerere. In its first decades, the project of African unity was institutionalised in the Organization of African Unity. The OAU passed through many vicissitudes and was always a conceptual and political battleground divided between those who wanted swift and speedy unification of African states, and those who favoured more cautious approaches. In a period where the OAU has given way to the African Union, the authors make an impassioned plea for the continuation of the unification projection into the future, even if in a more sober manner more attuned to the complexities of a diverse continent.

Dream of Unity: From the United States of Africa to the Federation of African States

2013 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 169-188 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guy Martin
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Regional Integration ◽  
Addis Ababa ◽  
African State ◽  
The United States ◽  
Federal State ◽  
The European Union ◽  
African Unity ◽  
Kwame Nkrumah ◽  
Organization Of African Unity

Abstract The Pan-Africanists leaders’ dream of unity was deferred in favor of the gradualist/functionalist perspective embodied in a weak and loosely-structured Organization of African Unity (OAU) created on 25 May 1963 in Addis Ababa (Ethiopia). This article analyses the reasons for this failure, namely: the reluctance of newly-independent African leaders to abandon their newly-won sovereignty in favor of a broader political unity; suspicion on the part of many African leaders that Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana intended to become the super-president of a united Africa; and divide and rule strategies on the part of major Western powers (including the United States and France) meant to sabotage any attempt at African unity. The African Union which, on 26 May 2001, formally replaced the OAU, is also bound to fail because it is modeled on the European Union. The article then briefly surveys proposals for a re-configuration of the African states and a revision of the political map of Africa put forth by various authors, namely: Cheikh Anta Diop’s Federal African State; Marc-Louis Ropivia’s geopolitics of African regional integration; Makau wa Mutua’s and Arthur Gakwandi’s new political maps of Africa; Joseph Ki-Zerbo’s Federal African State; Daniel Osabu-Kle’s United States of Africa; Godfrey Mwakikagile’s African Federal Government; and Pelle Danabo’s pan-African Federal State. The article concludes with an overview of Mueni wa Muiu’s Fundi wa Afrika paradigm advocating the creation of a Federation of African States (FAS) based on five sub-regional states with a federal capital (Napata) and a rotating presidency, eventually leading to total political and economic integration.

The Quest for Unity in the Zimbabwe Liberation Movement

1975 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-18
Author(s):  
Simbi Mubako
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Southern Africa ◽  
African National Congress ◽  
African Unity ◽  
The Past ◽  
Kwame Nkrumah ◽  
The World ◽  
Organization Of African Unity ◽  
National Congress ◽  
Heads Of State

In the past fifteen years African heads of state and the Organization of African Unity have striven with little success to unite liberation movements fighting the settlers and colonialists in their countries in Southern Africa. The first attempt was made by Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana and other leaders, and was directed at uniting the Pan-Africanist Congress and its rival African National Congress of South Africa soon after both were banned and forced into exile following the Sharpeville demonstrations. When leaders of both parties fanned out into the world to solicit support, some of the would-be supporters forced them into a makeshift marriage of convenience.

The Organization of African Unity and the Algerian-Moroccan Border Conflict: A Study of New Machinery for Peacekeeping and for the Peaceful Settlement of Disputes Among African States

1966 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 18-36 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patricia Berko Wild
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
African Unity ◽  
Regional Organization ◽  
Peaceful Settlement ◽  
Foreign Policies ◽  
Organization Of African Unity ◽  
Settlement Of Disputes

The Algerian-Moroccan border conflict provided the Organization of African Unity (OAU) with the first test of its machinery and procedures for peacekeeping and for the peaceful settlement of disputes. The following examination of that dispute and of its treatment by the Organization of African Unity is a case study of the operation of a newly founded regional organization. The Organization of African Unity was endowed with no supranational powers which might have enabled it to enforce its will on the disputants in the Algerian-Moroccan case. The Organization had to function on the basis of cooperation among its members. Yet the Organization of African Unity was more than the mere instrument of the foreign policies of its members in the Algerian-Moroccan case. When individual African statesmen were disqualified from acting as mediators by their respective preferences for one or the other of the disputants, the existence of an organization representing all of Africa greatly assisted in the mitigation of the conflict and contributed much to the peace of Africa.

scholarly journals Rethinking the Bandung conference in an Era of ‘unipolar liberal globalization’ and movements toward a ‘multipolar politics’

2015 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-17 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tukumbi Lumumba-Kasongo
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
The United States ◽  
Authoritarian Regimes ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
African Unity ◽  
Political Leaders ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Political Unity ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Creation

In April 1955, a historic conference was held in Bandung, Indonesia. Political leaders from 29 Asian and African countries gathered on the initiative of the leaders from China, Indonesia, India, Pakistan, and Myanmar, to address the issues about economic co-operation, self-determination, decolonization and the peace. These ideas contributed to the creation of the non-alignment movement (NAM). However, in Africa, Nkrumah’s proposal for political unity was defeated, which led to the creation of the Organization of the African Unity as a compromise. NAM was later penetrated from within by the forces of imperialism, notably dictatorships and authoritarian regimes supported by the United States, the Soviet Union, the former colonial powers and their local cronies, weakening its functionality.

The Regional Law of Refugee Protection in Africa

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marina Sharpe
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Legal Framework ◽  
African Unity ◽  
Refugee Protection ◽  
Original Analysis ◽  
The Status ◽  
Organization Of African Unity ◽  
African Charter ◽  
African Refugee ◽  
Institutional Architecture

This book analyses the legal framework for refugee protection in Africa, including both refugee and human rights law as well as treaty and institutional elements. The regime is addressed in two parts. Part I analyses the relevant treaties: the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, the 1969 Organization of African Unity Convention Governing the Specific Aspects of Refugee Problems in Africa, and the 1981 African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights. The latter two regional instruments are examined in depth. This includes the first fulsome account of the African Refugee Convention’s drafting, an interpretation of its unique refugee definition, and original analysis of the relationships between the three treaties. Significant attention is devoted to the systemic relationship between the international and the regional refugee treaties and to the discrete relationships of conflict and relationships of interpretation between the two refugee instruments, as well as to the relationships of conflict and of interpretation between the African Refugee Convention and African Charter. Part II focuses on the institutional architecture supporting the treaty framework. The Organization of African Unity is addressed in a historical sense, and the contemporary roles of the African Union, the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, and the current and contemplated African human rights courts are examined. This book is the first devoted to the legal framework for refugee protection in Africa.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document