African roadmap

South African President Jacob Zuma made little apparent headway towards brokering a peace deal between government and rebel forces in the Libyan capital Tripoli on Monday.

Zuma and a delegation from leading African nations first delivered their African roadmap to peace to Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi in person in April, a month after NATO airstrikes began pounding Gadhafi's forces in a UN-sanctioned bombing campaign designed to avoid a humanitarian crisis.

The subsequent military action aimed at decimating Gadhafi's forces has made the mission by the African Union (AU) increasingly difficult and has so far rendered the peace plan redundant.

Peace deal hinges on Gadhafi's removal

Persuading Gadhafi to leave power after 42 years is a major stumbling block to the AU roadmap. The plan itself has taken the form of previous mediations in Kenya and Zimbabwe, which succeeded due to the fact that they left the ruling powers in control.

"The AU has extensive experience in mediation, and has taken on tough cases like Darfur and [Ivory Coast]," Richard Gowan, an Africa expert at the European Council on Foreign Relations, told Deutsche Welle. "However, the results have been mixed, reflecting the complexity of the conflicts involved, and critics argue that the AU is sometimes too respectful in dealing with autocratic governments."

The rebel National Transitional Council (NTC), however, has dismissed the AU's mediation on these very grounds, saying its roadmap to peace does not include their main demand: the removal of Gadhafi from power.

Just this weekend, NTC chairman Mustafa Abdul-Jalil repeated that the AU plan would be doomed to failure if it did not involve Gadhafi's departure.

"We would like to reconfirm that the basis of any consideration for the resolution of the Libyan crisis is the elimination of the main cause of this crisis: Colonel Gadhafi," said a statement from Abdul-Jalil, from the council's stronghold in Benghazi. "We welcome any political solutions that help end the bloodshed, but they must be predicated on the departure of Gadhafi, his sons and his regime."

Zuma's attempts to persuade Gadhafi to leave power may have received a timely boost after Russian President Dmitry Medvedev changed Moscow's position and called for Gadhafi to step down last week. Medvedev had previously refused to consider pushing for the Libyan leader's removal but has now joined the US and Europe in warning Gadhafi that time is running out.

"Because the AU's members are not directly involved in the air campaign against Gadhafi, they still look like fairly 'honest brokers'," said Gowan. "With Gadhafi now clearly weakened militarily and politically, an AU-brokered deal may offer him the last honorable exit available."

Thorsten Benner, the associate director of the Global Public Policy Institute think tank in Berlin, said the AU and its chief envoy Zuma certainly deserved their chance.

"There are not many credible mediators around," Benner told Deutsche Welle.

Libyan leader rebuffs AU attempts

Gadhafi, however, has also given the roadmap short shrift, making it even more difficult for the AU. After initially agreeing in April to the conditions of the cease-fire, the Libyan strongman reneged on the agreement and mounted increasingly heavy bombing operations against rebels in their eastern bastion of Benghazi and the oil town of Misrata.

"The AU-brokered cease-fire deal with Gadhafi in late April proved not to be worth the paper it was written on immediately after Zuma left Tripoli," said Benner.

The Libyan leader further discredited Zuma by misleading the South African president with assurances that a missing South African photojournalist, Anton Hammerl, was alive and in Libyan custody. After accepting Gadhafi's word, Zuma was furious to hear from four journalists released from prison in Libya that Hammerl had been shot and killed by government forces on April 5 and left to die in the desert. No body has been found.

The fate of the peace plan and Zuma's mediation could determine the future of the African Union's reputation, which has already suffered over its initial fractious approach to the Libyan crisis. It could also equally determine the future of the South African leader.

Zuma's and AU's reputation at risk

Zuma was initially at odds with other African leaders over the UN resolution authorizing a no-fly zone over Libya and the use of force to protect civilians. South Africa, as a rotating member of the UN Security Council, voted in favor of military action, ignoring the stance of the AU which demanded a peaceful resolution.

After threatening the AU's unity, Zuma then appeared to fall back into line with union by joining other African leaders in demanding an end to airstrikes and criticizing NATO's mission, calling the ongoing bombing campaign which appeared to be targeting Gadhafi himself a clear infringement of the UN mandate to protect civilians.

"Zuma's mission represents a big political risk for the South African leader," said Gowan. "He's faced a lot of public criticism for deciding that South Africa should back UN Resolution 1973, which authorized NATO's bombing campaign. He may not have realized how fiercely NATO would act."

But Zuma had equally been criticized in the West for appearing too ready to accept a cease-fire deal on Gadhafi's terms, he added.

Gadhafi's influence, West's meddling divides AU

The AU's relationship with Gadhafi is also causing ructions between members states, said Gowan.

"There is a specific problem for the AU in the Libyan case, which is that Gadhafi was a very important figure in both founding and financing the organization, and that he has a great deal of leverage in North African states like Mali and Niger," he said.

The AU has also been angered by the fact that other international powers have taken the lead on Libya when it feels that it should be the main player in any development, given that the conflict is taking place in its backyard.

"Some international players seem to be denying Africa any significant role in the search for a solution to the Libyan conflict," said Jean Ping, African Union commission chairman, at an extraordinary summit in Ethiopia last week. "Africa is not going to be reduced to the status of an observer of its own calamities."

According to analyst Benner, the AU has had "clear capacity problems" in its mediation efforts.

"At the same time, the AU often feels slighted and sidelined," Benner said. "Ping complaining is not a good way to exude self-confidence. Instead of repeating the mantra of 'African solutions for African problems,' the AU should try to convince through successes on the ground."

Gowan said the situation in Libya has highlighted the difficulties in the relationship between the AU with Western and European powers.

"It still relies heavily on their aid to fund its peacekeeping operations, such as the one currently taking place in Somalia," Gowan said. "But it also resents the West's continuing political influence in Africa."

In an attempt to restart the initiative, the AU has endorsed an African peacekeeping force for Libya at the summit in Ethiopia, pending the creation of an international mission made up of the Arab League and UN to independently monitor developments on the ground in Libya.

Author: Nick Amies

Editors: Martin Kuebler, Sabina Casagrande