Introduction
The recent secession of South Sudan raises a number of critical existential questions about the post-colonial state in Africa. In 1964, the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) declared colonially inherited borders sacrosanct and not to be changed. Consequently colonial boundaries were transformed into international borders, thereby acquiring international status and applicability in international law. The rationale for this approach to colonial boundaries was the fear that the colonially produced African state would not survive if identity groups were permitted to break away. It was feared that any secessionist assertion would open a Pandora’s box. The OAU and its successor, the African Union (AU), have thus pursued strict policies against any attempted secession, and secessionism has been seen as an act of criminality.
The recognition of the secession of South Sudan, however, seems to have ushered in a new era in the history of self-determination and secession. It represents a watershed in the adherence to the regime of colonial borders. This is so because the independence of South Sudan represents a breach of the OAU/AU Charter, which has governed African border issues and statehood for over 50 years. Once breached, the sanctity of the colonial border principle may prove difficult to patch up again. The following crucial question comes to mind: is the AU aware of the gravity of its action? Further, does this recognition set a precedent when other quests for self-determination and secession on the continent have to be addressed? Has the Pandora’s box already been prised open? Perhaps one should presume that the Pandora’s box will remain largely intact in the near future, as is suggested by the way in which the AU is dealing with the issue of Somaliland’s quest for sovereignty.
This double approach to affording recognition, as evidenced by the contrasting cases of South Sudan and Somaliland, perhaps illustrates how the AU is still bent on prioritising state integrity over people’s rights. Preserving the territorial integrity of the existing state or colonially created state would mean denying people the right to exercise their self-determination. In the case of Somaliland, the AU is distinctly reluctant to recognise it as a separate state. That implies respecting the territorial integrity of the Republic of Somalia, which was created by the fusion of two colonial territories (British Somaliland and Italian Somaliland) in 1960 and subsequently became a member of the OAU. In this context, however, both theoretical and legal challenges to the sanctity of colonially inherited borders arise, as do questions about the ambiguity and paradoxicality of the behaviour of the AU. Somaliland and its borders are the creation of colonialism, which came to an end in 1960. Somaliland gained its independence on 26 June of that year, but opted to enter into a union with the former Italian Somaliland to found the Somali Republic following the independence of the latter on 1 July 1960 (Hansen and Bradbury 2007; Bradbury 2008; Jhazbhay 2009; Farley 2010). This should have facilitated its recognition, as in the aftermath of the Second World War European colonialism became the basis for the right of self-determination in international law. Nonetheless, it may be argued that, by voluntarily joining a union and rescinding its independence, Somaliland consummated its right of self-determination. Consequently, it cannot revoke that right of self-determination.
The discrepancy between the immediate recognition of South Sudan and Somaliland’s quest for 20 years at the time of writing to gain recognition without success could be explained from both a theoretical and a legal point of view. From a theoretical perspective, the theory of suffering and remedial theory may serve as explanation (Anaya 1996: 80; Buchanan 1998: 231). These theories may also be reinforced by the theory of distance, which presumes that, where there is a great cultural distance between the superordinate and subordinate elements, secession may be warranted. From a legal perspective, international law stresses the importance of mutual consent between separatist entity and mother state. Nonetheless, self-determination is perceived as a fundamental human right of people in determining their political future (Whelan 2010).
Amid all the controversies and paradoxes surrounding the concepts of self-determination and secessionism, a critical question to be pondered is whether secession will bring peace, security, stability, democracy and development. The presumption underpinning the right to self-determination and secession is that it will lead to peace, security and development, or at least it will not perpetuate conflicts and wars. On the contrary, the rampant conflict that gave rise to the quest for self-determination and secession will abate subsequent to secession. Nonetheless, most empirical evidence shows that, at least initially, conflicts and wars continue even after secession. The question then becomes: if secession cannot resolve conflicts and wars, is it a goal worth pursuing? The opposite outcome, maintaining territorial integrity, has also proven to be problematic in sustaining peace, stability and development. The recent increase in secessionist movements is itself testimony to this problem. The predicament is rather an expression of the limits of self-determination (Burke 2010: 57).
This book aims to contribute to the debate on self-determination and secessionism in Africa. Both issues are perhaps the most neglected in academia and in policy circles related to Africa, even though several self-determination and secessionist movements are active on the continent. Indeed, new movements are frequently emerging. The objectives of the present book include: 1) generating serious academic debate on the challenges of self-determination and secession on the continent in the twenty-first century; 2) identifying various cases of self-determination and secession; 3) examining whether self-determination and secession spawn peace, security, stability and development; and 4) explaining how international law, as well as the UN and AU charters, deal with self-determination and secession.
In this introductory chapter, the next section presents a conceptual overview of the two concepts, while the third section discusses the OAU’s principles of self-determination and secession. The fourth section explores whether self-determination leads to peace, security and stability, and the fifth examines the merits of regional integration following secession. The last section reviews the structure and themes of the book.
Conceptualising self-determination and secession
Self-determination
The attempts at reaching consensus within academia concerning the concept of self-determination have not led to consensus. Among the hurdles have been the varied approaches to and interpretations of the concept, but other obstacles have been the political, legal and international relations dimensions of the concept. The plethora of approaches to analysing, defining and understanding self-determination gives rise to serious challenges (Tesfagiorgis 1987; Etzioni 1992/93; Mayall 1999; Ferdous 2007).
The debate over self-determination can be divided into three broad categories: state-centric, society-centric and legalistic. This theoretical framework draws on all three categories. The concept of self-determination is intricately connected to the right of state formation. Nonetheless, the conceptualisation of the right of self-determination varies greatly depending on what is being discussed: the rights of the individual, group, ethnic entity or nation; economic, cultural or political rights; or the right to autonomy, independence or union.
The moral, legal and political foundations of the discourse also differ considerably depending on political and ideological persuasion, ranging from leftist (Marxist), to liberal, to conservative. In Marxist literature, particularly by Lenin (1974), Rosa Luxemburg and Stalin (1976), the right to self-determination (including secession) relates to oppressed nations and classes. The Marxist notion of self-determination (and secession), with its emphasis on class relations and materialism, contends that working-class interests should determine the exercise and outcome of self-determination. Notwithstanding all the divergences between the various schools of thought, the notion of self-determination seems to be grounded in a ‘philosophical affirmation of the human drive to translate aspirations into reality, coupled with the postulates of inherent human equality’ (Anaya 1996).
The criteria of statehood are invariably seen as 1) territory, 2) population, 3) government, and 4) independence (White 1981; Castellino 2008). Peoples who meet these criteria should in principle be accorded international recognition. In the culturalist perspective, there is greater emphasis on the congruence between the cultural and the political: the assumption tends to be that any culturally homogeneous community deserves to form its own state (Gellner 1983). In this conception of self-determination, the seceding nation should meet certain preconditions; notably it has to be culturally different from the entity from which it is seceding. The underlying logic is that multi-ethnic societies are inherently unstable and perhaps unable to sustain statehood: hence the perception that multi-ethnic states in Africa have failed or collapsed (Spears 2004, 2010).
There are a number of theoretical approaches that grapple with the issue of self-determination and secession. These include democratic theory, liberal theory (Beran 1998), communitarian theory (Raz 1986; Margalit and Raz 1990), realist theory (Buchanan 1991; Shehadi 1993) and territorial justice theory (Lehning 1998). Democratic theory stresses the democratic right of people to govern themselves and the right of free political association, while liberal theory advocates the right of the individual to determine her destiny and communitarian theory conversely seeks the right of self-determination for the collectivity, the nation. Realist theory focuses on the principle of the territorial integrity of states (Freeman 1999), while territorial justice theory advances the idea that people have the right to supremacy on their territory (Steiner 1998; Castellino 2008). Other less known theories of self-determination include the theory of suffering and remedial theory (White 1981; Freeman 1999).
Arguably, underlying these theoretical positions is the notion of the moral and political rights to secession (Lehning 1998). Not every act of self-determination, however, leads to secession. Indeed, self-determination may take the form of: 1) emergence of an independent state; 2) free association with an independent state; and 3) integration with an independent state (White 1981: 149; Anaya 1996: 84). Apparently, the controversy over the concept of self-determination relates to whether it has a universal value. The Wilsonian Doctrine limited the right of self-determination to only European nations (Hobsbawm 1990: 32, 102; Anaya 1996: 76; Karmis and Norman 2005: 12), while the post-Second World War debate on self-determination restricts it to societies subjected to European rule: the decolonisation debate (Burke 2010). In the post-colonial debate, self-determination has been deemed a closed chapter (Anaya 1996: 77), since peoples and nations subjected to alien European colonial rule have achieved independence.
The international regime governing the principle of self-determination is based on the traditional state-centred approach, according to which self-determination is viewed as stemming from the state as the legitimate unit (Castellino 2008: 501). A recent, humanitarian approach, however, sees the right of self-determination as a fundamental human right (Anaya 2000; Hannum 1996; Burke 2010). This is a profound shift from the familiar state-centred approach. However, the humanitarian approach has already been subjected to scathing criticism on the grounds that it has nothing to offer the project of nation-state building, which is widely perceived as the crucial problem in Africa (Zongwe 2010).
Colonial borders in Africa have long been accepted as sacrosanct and not to be tampered with. The principle of uti possidetis (Latin for ‘as you possess’) was enshrined in the charter of the OAU when the latter was launched in 1964. In the African context, uti possidetis thus entailed converting colonial borders into international boundaries (Farley 2010: 802). The leaders who gathered at the historic launching of the OAU declared that ‘all Member ...
