Organisation of African Unity (OAU)

Context: The Emergence of a Pan-African Rhetoric

The Organisation of African Unity (OAU), established on 25 May 1963, was the
culmination of a number of diverse and far-reaching historical currents and
political trends both on the African continent and abroad. Of particular import to
the ideological formation of the OAU was the late 19th century Pan-
Africanist movement which emerged in the United States of America (USA)
among Black American intellectuals such as Martin Delany and Alexander
Crummel, who drew similarities between Africans and Black Americans. The
sentiment among these intellectuals centred on the belief that in order for black
civilization to prosper, it was necessary to establish their own nation free from the
USA where they would be able to pursue self-determination with dignity. Largely
influenced by their own religious - mainly Christian - beliefs, early Pan-Africanists
sought to advance the spirit of Pan-Africanism through missionary work on the
African continent.
The ad hoc and wavering Pan-Africanist train of thought began to consolidate itself
through the scholarship of W.E.B. Du Bois, a staunch advocate of African culture
and history, who propounded the idea that colonialism lay at the heart of Africa’s
economic, political and social problems. Building on this, Marcus Garvey, a Black
nationalist, further urged the return of Africans to the continent, which he
attempted to facilitate through the establishment of a shipping company, the Black
Star Line, aimed at transporting Black Africans back to Africa. This venture was
unsuccessful due to obstruction by both the US and British authorities concerned
with the future of their colonies.
On the continent itself, a number of prominent intellectuals and heads of state such
as Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, Julius Nyerere of Tanzania, Sékou Touré of Guinea
and Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia took up the cause of advancing the Pan-African
ideal. A series of Pan-African Congresses were convened to further the interests of
African peoples and discuss methods to achieve unification, and at the fifth
Congress held in Manchester, England and attended by Nkrumah, among others, a
number of significant aspirations and concerns were voiced. The Congress
advocated for the “complete independence of the African continent and total
rejection of colonialism and exploitation in all its forms,” and called for the
unification of Africa through regional blocs and the adoption of democracy. The
Congress also voiced the importance of economic regeneration to replace colonial
economies geared towards primary resource extraction and exploitation resulting in
a phenomenon that would later be termed ‘Dutch disease’. Of security matters, the
Congress preferred to assume a stance of “positive neutrality” or non-interference,
for which the OAU would later come under scrutiny.
It was these concerns that had formed the basis of Ghana’s post-independence
foreign policy, and Kwame Nkrumah (Ghana’s post-independence leader)
categorically linked Ghana’s independence to the continent’s own, recognising that
“the independence of Ghana is meaningless unless it is linked up with the total
liberation of the continent.” Nkrumah therefore established a series of conferences
hosted in Accra between 1958 and 1960 with the aims of assisting countries still
under colonial rule, fostering cultural and economic ties between countries and
considering the issue of world peace. Nkrumah also hosted the All African
People’s Conference which convened liberation groups and African nationalist
organisations, attended by the African National Congress (ANC).
The vision of a United States of Africa was, per contra, not supported by all, and
not as radically as Nkrumah, Sékou Touré of Guinea and Modibo Keita of Mali
would have preferred it. Despite a common vision, differing ideological
commitments and diverging opinions regarding strategy and structuring of a
continental organisation soon divided and obstructed the pursuit of unity. The
division led to the emergence of three ideological blocs on the African continent,
split between the Casablanca Group (consisting of Ghana, Guinea, Mali, Libya,
Egypt, Morocco and Algeria) which advocated for radical and full continental
integration, the Monrovia Group (consisting of Nigeria, Tunisia, Ethiopia, Liberia,
Sudan, Togo, and Somalia) which proposed a moderate approach to unification to
be undertaken in incremental steps, and the Brazzaville Group (consisting of
Francophone countries and led by Senegal and the Ivory Coast) which remained
tied to the interests of France. A number of African leaders, including Tanzania's
Julius Nyerere and Nigeria’s Abubakar Tafa Balewa, were supportive of the ideal
of African unity, but many felt that Nkrumah’s grand vision for a United States of
Africa was overreaching and ran the risk of dissolving sovereignty and territorial
integrity – a point of particular contention among countries who had recently
gained independence and hard-fought-for sovereignty. Perhaps Nkrumah naively
pursued a single-minded Pan-African ambition with the assumption that other
leaders would be of a like-minded predisposition. Nkrumah nevertheless
underestimated the support for a continental union which would require the
surrendering of sovereignty to gain a common monetary, foreign and defence
policy, and by the time the OAU was established it presented itself as a diluted
version of its former envisioned grandeur. The turbulence of the early 1960s
pressed the notion of African countries presenting a united front in the hopes of
being taken seriously on the world stage, although the newfound OAU
disappointed many of its founding members.
Formation
Thus, between 22 and 25 May 1963, delegates from 32 African countries convened
in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa to establish the Organisation for African
Unity (OAU), intended to form the continental base for pan-Africanism but
resulting in a watered-down compromise between competing ideological blocs. At
the outset, then, complete unification seemed unattainable. The divisions rendered
the construction of a union government based on a consensus of structural, military
and political institutions untenable. The OAU was thus founded with the intention
that the organisation would proceed, incrementally, with unification until the
eventual goal of a Union of African States was realised.

Fo
unding fathers of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), 1963.
While the immediate full integration of African countries was untenable, the OAU
did make significant steps towards identifying socio-economic development issues
which racked the continent after independence. Thus, the OAU Charter outlined
its objectives to
a) Promote unity and solidarity of the African states
b) To coordinate and intensify their cooperation and efforts to achieve a better life
for the peoples of Africa,
c) To defend their sovereignty, their territorial integrity and independence,
d) To eradicate all forms of colonialism from Africa, and
e) To promote international cooperation, having due regard to the Charter of the
United Nations and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
This was to be achieved by calling on member states to recognise
1. The sovereign equality of member states,
2. Non-interference in the internal affairs of each state,
3. Respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of each state and its
inalienable right to independent existence,
4. Peaceful settlement of disputes by negotiation,
5. Unreserved condemnation, in all its forms, of subversive activities on the part of
neighbouring states or any other states,
6. Absolute dedication to the total emancipation of the African territories which
were still dependent, and
7. Affirmation of a policy of nonalignment with regard to all other blocs.
Gradually, an additional 21 states joined the ranks of OAU member states, with
South Africa becoming the 53rd and final state to join.