The Commonwealth and Africa

Business Day

by Kaye Whiteman

29 July 2010

At the risk of readers muttering ‘there he goes again”, I find myself making a case for another look at the Commonwealth and its works, even though I wrote extensively last November on the Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM). If I return to the topic it is because the Commonwealth Secretary-General Kamalesh Sharma has been talking on ‘the Commonwealth and Africa’ at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) here in London. At the same time there is a evidence of unhappiness in some Commonwealth circles over the situations in both the Gambia and Rwanda.

Sharma has now been in office for over two years, and one has become accustomed to his nicely-shaped speeches, enhanced by his eloquent oratory. This one was no exception, examining the strength of the Commonwealth connection with Africa. One-third of the Commonwealth’s members are in Africa, he noted, and one-third of the members of the African Union are from the Commonwealth. After Nehru’s commitment of India to the organisation in 1949, it had become “the handmaiden” of the decolonisation process. Sharma also recalled Kwame Nkrumah’s role in 1965 in the putting of the “democratic” running of the Commonwealth into the Secretariat. In the Rhodesia/Zimbabwe crisis and in the struggle against apartheid in the next three decades, the Commonwealth was “hard at work doing the heavy lifting” The 1991 Harare Declaration marked the renewal of democratic values, not least in Africa, especially once the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group (CMAG) had been set up in 1995.

After looking at the case histories of Nigeria and Sierra Leone, the Secretary-General addressed the Zimbabwe problem, and the “irony that the country that gave us the Harare principles was found wanting”. Sad though Zimbabwe’s suspension and voluntary departure at Abuja in 2003 was, it was “a vindication of values,” and, by embracing those values, Zimbabwe will one day return to the Commonwealth, a hope officially enshrined in the communiqué of the Port of Spain CHOGM last November. He gave a more detailed presentation of Commonwealth involvement in different aspects of governance, especially in elections (since 1990 the Commonwealth had observed 52 African polls), as well as in the new Commonwealth electoral commissioners’ network to exchange information and experiences. A critical test for the Commonwealth will be observing the elections next month in its newest member, Rwanda, with a team headed by former OAU Secretary-General Salim Ahmed Salim. Sharma, has a tendency to look at the glass half full, eschewing what he calls negative headlines.

Although he also spoke of the organisation’s not inconsiderable development role (“making a little go a long way”), it was the political message, dressed in appropriate quotes from Mandela (“making the world safe for diversity”) and Nehru (“a touch of healing”) it was the political substance that was at the core.

Different perspectives came later the same day from the Annual General Meeting of the Commonwealth Association (former staff members of the Secretariat). While the presence of Zimbabwe’s Education Minister in the present Mugabe/Tsvangirai coalition government, Senator David Coltart, making a strong appeal for international support, was in line with the present higher profile of absent Zimbabwe, other issues were also raised. The CA had invited Richard Dowden, Director of the Royal African Society to speak to their Meeting, and he lobbed some critical thoughts into the benign consensus that tends to radiate from Commonwealth occasions.

Although part of his talk recalled the glory days of the Commonwealth in the 1980s, Dowden asked questions about present orientations, including worrying whether there was any single issue that could unite the Commonwealth in line with its core values. Unless there was a greater willingness to take on causes “you could be in trouble: those who would abolish it, will.” He expressed doubts about having another Eminent Persons’ Group – “the pressure should be upwards, not searching downwards.” More specifically he wondered about the present silence over Rwanda, when even the UN has called for an inquiry into recent troubles. Lastly, I have to record his frank question on the Gambia: “Why is the Gambia still in the Commonwealth? Its appalling government should have been booted out long ago.”

As a postscript, Gambian protesters had earlier been demonstrating outside the Secretariat, as well as the Nigerian High Commission and the Senegal Embassy, because July 22 (ironically called ‘Freedom Day’) was the sixteenth anniversary of the coup of Yaya Jammeh, whose last election received qualified approval from Commonwealth observers. The protesters highlighted human rights abuses, especially the murder and disappearance of journalists, but the Commonwealth, having taken the Gambia off the CMAG list in 2000, now says that any problems are dealt with under the discreet umbrella of ‘good offices’. The only problem is, we never know the results. No doubt it might be worse if there were no good offices at all, but one thing is sure, the protests are going to increase in the run-up to next year’s presidential elections.