To everyone’s surprise, the Nobel committee awarded its very prestigious Peace Prize to the American President shortly after his election to the White House, on October 9, 2009, in Oslo. By making this unanimous decision, the committee sought to reward Obama “for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.”
Let’s also remember that candidate Obama made the new “moral leadership of the United States” one of the major themes of his electoral campaign. – This strong will of the man who became the first African-American President in the history of the United States undoubtedly contributed to this award. By awarding this Nobel Peace Prize to Barack H. Obama, the committee essentially entrusted him with a near “divine” mission.
To save the world from chaos, the barbarism of war, the clash of civilizations, and the ideological conflicts between peoples promoted by his predecessor.
This African-American candidate has managed to make the whole planet dream by giving it hope, but also by reconciling the American people with the rest of the world.
Sometimes, life events impose themselves on us without their meaning having an immediate logic. This Nobel committee may, unknowingly, have influenced the course of history.
In a previous column entitled “What if Barack Obama’s ‘yes we can’ were at the origin of systemic upheaval in the Arab world?”, we considered that his speeches in Cairo and Accra will remain in the history of the continent as two major events. They may have unconsciously played a determining role in the desires for democracy and individual and collective freedom on the African continent and, by repercussion, on all non-democratic states.
On June 4, 2009, after his famous “Salamm aleikum” that set the entire Arab world abuzz, Obama said, “I came here to Cairo seeking a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world, a start based on mutual interest and mutual respect… America and Islam overlap and feed off common principles, namely justice and progress, tolerance, and the dignity of every human being.”
On July 11, 2009, in Accra, he emphasized that, “Africa doesn’t need strongmen, it needs strong institutions” and made very harsh remarks against “those who use coups or alter constitutions to stay in power” and that in front of the completely stunned Ghanaian parliamentarians.
A few years after these two important speeches, the entire continent is facing major events that will fundamentally change the notions of democracy and freedom.
What if the future of democracy and individual and collective freedoms in Africa were being played out in Libya and Ivory Coast at this very moment?
Fifty years after the independence of many African countries, the age of maturity, the awareness of realities, the desire to finally fully assume their own destiny, and the will for change are coming about in violence and determination.
In Libya, after 42 years of the dictatorial madness of Colonel Gaddafi, it is a people’s revolution to decide their own future and embrace democracy and freedoms, which will remain in the history of North Africa as a symbol of emancipation obtained at the cost of many human lives. – In Ivory Coast, five years without elections have led the country into dreadful and fatal abysses. And this, despite many negotiations, political and diplomatic discussions, and despite the financial, moral, technical, and human commitment of the international community to finally guarantee impeccable elections.
In these two countries, the situation is disastrous today with a vertiginous and grim toll. After very long moments of hesitation, strategic positioning by various parties, and powerlessness, a strategy is finally in place.
Barack Obama’s decision, not to let initiative and leadership fall to President Sarkozy who was behind the 1973 UN Security Council resolution, finally allowed for military intervention.
This is the first time in history that the UN Security Council has voted a resolution regarding “the responsibility to protect civilian populations.” What a miracle! Or should we say, what a game of deception…
Historically, this UN council has locked itself into a macabre and anxiety-inducing role as a “death toll counter” in the different conflicts it was supposed to end or prevent. For example, one can cite: Bosnia, Rwanda, Somalia, Sierra Leone, Liberia, and today Ivory Coast. – In this last country, its daily grim tolls and its appalling impotence to protect civilian populations become nauseating and indecent. After weeks of hesitation, Obama finally gives his approval to assert American supremacy against France. This political act will then allow the UN to finally become credible.
The Libyan people will thus be saved from the murderous madness of the Guide.
And this despite the reluctance of the emerging BRICS countries and Germany, who want to preserve their strategic interests in the country in case the situation becomes uncontrollable like in Iraq or Afghanistan.
It seems that depending on the interests and strategic stakes of geopolitical positioning and influence, the political will to act can materialize relatively quickly. In Libya and Ivory Coast, the future of democracy on the continent is currently being played out. But once again, this consideration remains subordinate to the different stakes and interests of all parties involved, including African institutions and their leaders.
The “organized” uselessness of African and UN institutions
Asked about the difference in treatment between Libya and Ivory Coast, Alain Juppé, French Foreign Minister, invites “The African Union and the United Nations to play their role in Ivory Coast. The UNOCI Force is under chapter 7 (of the UN charter), and it can use force, it can interpose itself between the fighters.”
Too bad he doesn’t say why UNOCI doesn’t do it, instead of spending its time counting the dead, and fleeing before roadblocks made of simple branches of trees set up by one or two soldiers armed just with a rifle.
Predictably, the last African Union summit, supposed to adopt “binding measures” after the last mediation by the panel of African heads of state on the Ivorian post-electoral crisis, ended up as a farce. – The Ivorians and the international community are still waiting for these “binding measures.”
South Africa, which defended L. Gbagbo and opposed the recognition of his defeat, just aligned itself with the position of the AU, ECOWAS, and the international community.
Curiously, this happened after its president’s trip to Paris where, among others, France’s and the USA’s support for its candidacy for the permanent seat on the Security Council reserved for Africa was discussed.
Like magic, Angola, Gbagbo’s last supporter, now asks him in turn to acknowledge his defeat and leave. After this foreseeable failure by all political observers, the powerless AU shifted the Ivorian dossier once again to ECOWAS. There again, everyone expected the same “circus.”
The West African institution, after several days of summit for nothing, referred the dossier to the UN, asking it to vote on a resolution to unlock the Ivorian crisis through military intervention like in Libya.
All these African institutions are composed of corrupt and tyrannical dictators. How could it be otherwise? Since the start of this masquerade, these African institutions have shown how useless they are. Except for rehousing within them former high-ranking political officials and their relatives.
Moreover, all these African institutions are composed of corrupt and tyrannical dictators, except for one or two (Liberia, Ghana), who tremble at the idea that a legitimate military intervention in Abidjan sets a “precedent” for their future reelection.
They all know that after 30 or 40 years in power with a political class corrupt to the bone, it causes nausea and disgust to the youth of their country who dream of only one thing. See them all “get out” and be accountable to the people and the international criminal court for all the atrocities committed. How can we imagine, for example, judges being part of the mafia, judging and condemning mafia bosses impartially, without fear of falling with them?
As long as all these leaders from another era remain in power and financially dependent on foreign powers, it will be so. When one is a member of an “exclusive” club, it is difficult to impose sanctions against another member for practices commonplace in the club. – How can one want to claim autonomy from powerful foreign powers while continually referring to them, thereby showing one’s uselessness and dependence on them?
For a long time, Colonel Gaddafi financed the African Union as well as practically all the continent’s leaders, including those of the opposition. His objectives were to make African institutions independent and create the United States of Africa. This didn’t please everyone, including the Arab League. They needed his money but not his projects and ambitions. It gives one pause.
Today, the situation in Libya seems on the way to being resolved thanks to the French initiative in need of restoring its diplomatic image internationally, after making a fool of itself in Tunisia and Egypt. It is true that without Barack H. Obama’s agreement, which allowed the Security Council to vote this historic resolution, it was hard to see how the Libyan people demanding democracy and freedom could face the tyrant colonel’s murderous madness.
So, by referring the Ivorian dossier back to the UN Security Council, one can imagine that ECOWAS is waiting for the same responsiveness from Obama to save democracy and universal suffrage in Ivory Coast.
He who ardently wished for “strong institutions and not strongmen in Africa,” history is now confronting him with his responsibilities.
