Can the AU Deliver Pax Africana? | Think Africa Press.

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia:

Last week in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, African Union (AU) leaders celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) – the AU’s predecessor. They spoke of the OAU’s leadership in past liberation struggles and offered lofty visions for the future.

But, in his final speech as AU assembly chairperson, Benin’s President Yayi Boni took a more critical look at the present.

Referring to France’s recent military intervention in northern Mali, he asked: “How can we understand that when danger threatened its very basis, Africa, which has the means to organise its own defence, continued to wait?”

Boni’s frustration speaks more broadly of the AU’s continued difficulty in achieving Pax Africana: a peace kept in Africa, by Africa…