Den skulle have været klar i 2008, indsatsstyrken, men nu er deadline foreløbig rykket til 2015 og imens har udenlandske magter med Frankrig i spidsen søgt at klare paragrafferne, når det brændte på rundt om på det p.t. stadig mere konfliktramte kontinent.
JOHANNESBURG, 21 February 2014 (IRIN): The African Union (AU) is rethinking on how it can most effectively deploy military forces to tackle the continent’s crises.
The African Capacity for Immediate Response to Crises (ACIRC) was first floated in the AU in 2013 as a stop-gap measure to counter the continued delays of an African Standby Force (ASF), which includes a quick reaction force, the Rapid Deployment Capability (RDC).
The recent spike in African conflicts, with former colonial powers stepping in to try preventing crimes from escalating into mass atrocities, has given the ACIRC concept renewed impetus.
In 2013 the AU’s Peace and Security Council convened “its greatest number of meetings… since it became operational in 2004”, but other than African armies participating in support of other military actors it had no capacity to respond to rapidly evolving conflicts and humanitarian crises.
“A humiliation for the AU”
“The French, in a period of less than one year, came to the ‘rescue’ of two countries (Mali and Central African Republic (CAR)) in need of military support [and] showed the failure of African countries to respond decisively and be in charge of the process,” said Solomon Dersso.
He is a senior researcher in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, for the Institute for Security Studies (ISS), a think-tank based in Pretoria, South Africa.
“AU member states failed to muster (stille med) the required responses, and whatever responses they marshalled in the end were too late, too little. AU member states failed to muster the required responses, and whatever responses they marshalled in the end were too late, too little,” he told IRIN.
African states bailed out (reddet) by former colonial powers are a “humiliation” (ydmygelse) for the AU, analysts say, and make a mockery of (latterliggør) “African solutions for African problems”.
The continental body’s January 2014 summit in Addis Ababa was called the Year of Agriculture and Food Security, but security concerns dominated the agenda.
One of the summit’s key decisions was the establishment of “a panel of independent experts to assess the status of the operationalization of the African Standby Force and its RDC, as well as the development of proposals for the operationalization of ACIRC.”
A “comprehensive report” on the progress of the ASF and the ACIRC is due in June/July 2014.
Nigerian cold feet
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http://www.irinnews.org/report/99683/long-road-to-an-african-rapid-reaction-force
