Amadu Sesay - The Oau After Twenty Years

African Security Issues: Sovereignty , Stability, and Solidarity , edited by Bruce E. Arlinghaus

Crisis in Africa: Battleground of East and West , Arthur Gavshon

Military development in Africa: The Political and Economic Bisks of Arms Transfers , Bruce E. Arlinghaus

* State Versus Ethnic Claims: African Policy dilemmas , edited by Donald Rothchild and Victor A. Olorunsola

African International Relations: An Annotated Bibliography , Mark W. DeLancey

Ethnicity in Modern Africa, edited by Brian M. du Toit

Regionalism Reconsidered: The Economic Commission for Africa , Isebill V. Gruhn

African Upheavals Since Independence , Grace Stuart Ibingira

* Africas International Relations: The Diplomacy of dependency and Change , Ali A. Mazrui

* Alternative Futures for Africa , edited by Timothy M. Shaw

Africa and the West , edited by Michael A. Samuels

* Nonstate Actors in International Politics: From Transregional to Substate Organizations , Phillip Taylor

* Available in hardcover and paperback.

The OAU After Twenty Years
Amadu Sesay, Olusola Ojo, and Orobola Fasehun

This book investigates the performance of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) since its inception, focusing on four areas of central concern to African states: decolonization, conflict control, development, and human rights. The authors examine the OAUs record against the challenge of apartheid and the OAUs lack of resources and effective sanctions. They make a number of suggestions for enhancing the OAUs future viability and its ability to address the continents pressing economic and social needs.

Dr. Amadu Sesay is a lecturer in the Department of International Relations at the University of Ife, Nigeria. He is coeditor (with Ralph cnwuka) of The Future of Regionalism in Africa. Dr.Olusola Ojo is senior lecturer in the Department of International Relations at Ife. He is author of Africa and the Arab World and coeditor (with Timothy Shaw) of Africa and the International Political System. Dr. Orobola Fasehun was a lecturer in the Department of International Relations at Ife and has published many articles on Nigerian foreign policy and on the OAU.

A number of propitious factors helped to make this conciliatory diplomatic initiative by the neutrals a success. First, with the formal independence of Algeria in 1962, the question of whether Algerian nationalists should be seated at pan-continental meetings (a very divisive issue in the past) was effectively resolved. Second, there was a lull in the tensions and conflict in the Congo following the assassination of Patrice Lumumba in 1961. Although some African states remained hostile to the new authorities in that country, by the end of 1962 such opposition was not as strong as it had been while Lumumba was alive. And third, it was becoming apparent that the factional politics that had plagued Pan-Africanism since the late 1950s could not be allowed to continue to debilitate the Movement much further. Many African leaders had come to think that it was in Africas interest to meet and resolve outstanding differences once and for all. Thus, the way was paved for the May 1963 African heads of state summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.