The sensitivity of border problems and hence the conflicts which they could instigate were ably presented by speeches delivered in the founding conference. Maintenance of the status quo, especially for the conservatives, who sought ―a practical response to the balkanized condition of Africa…thus a real need for an organization capable of stabilizing the new continental political system,561 not only necessitated the establishment of the organization but also its charter was designed to serve to this end. One such solution as embodied in its charter, 3, paragraph 3, is the principle of ‗... respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of each state and for its inalienable right for independent existence.562
Unscrupulous partitioning of the continent was perhaps the most common charge which African nationalists leveled against colonial powers during and after independence. Paradoxically, however, this very accusation was sanctified by both the Organizations‘ charter and the first meeting of the Council of Ministers. The OAU‘s Cairo Declaration of 21 June 1964, stated that the border problems in Africa constituted ‗a grave and permanent factor of dissension‘ and that the OAU members ‗pledge themselves to respect the borders existing on their achievement of national independence. 563 Thus, previously denounced artificial frontiers have now become a ‗tangible reality‘ of African politics. 564 Bereket, expressed his distaste to this declaration by calling it ―the modern (post- colonial) equivalent of the Berlin Conference…‖ 565 This was another manifestation of the pervasiveness of the conservatives‘ stance for maintaining the territorial status quo against the radical‘s view of complete unity. Nkrumah who called African boundaries ―fatal relic of colonialism‖ said ―Only African unity, which will render existing
561 Legum, Zartman, Langdon and Lynn K. op. cit., p.37. 562
OAU Charter, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 25 May, 1963.
563 Sauldie, op. cit ., p.24.
564 Africa Report Nov.-Dece. 1975 vol.20 No.6 The OAU and the Secession Issue, p.34 565 Habte Selassie, Africa Today, 1988, p.61.
boundaries obsolete and superfluous, can heal this festering sore of boundary disputes between our various states.566 This, however, was not synonymous with maintaining
colonial boundaries as declared in Cairo in 1964.
Eritrea‘s question was one of traditional colonialism justified for self-determination in accordance with the Declaration by the General Assembly of the United Nations on the Granting of Independence to Colonial countries and People‘s.567
The UN decision to federate Eritrea with Ethiopia under the pretext of ‗accommodation of Ethiopian interest‖ implies recognition of Eritrea‘s right for self-determination. In essence, the Eritrean case is a question of denied decolonization like those of Namibia and Western Sahara. 568 Some argue, other than the Ethiopians, that the struggle for Eritrean independence was fraught with implications for the basic OAU principle of maintaining the integrity of boundaries inherited from the colonial era. 569 However, Eritrea with her own colonial boundaries was not a revisionist struggle, that was in contradiction to the sanctity of colonial boundaries but it was one which defended that very principle, which was being violated by a founding member.
Therefore, Ethiopian insistence of the inclusion of the sanctity of colonial boundaries was meant ―to make common cause with other African states whose fear of state disintegration was equally great, thus penning the Eritreans into the confines of the principle of respect for the existing inherited frontiers. 570 This is thus what Haile Selassie had in mind when he forcefully annexed Eritrea just six months before the founding conference of the OAU. He then presented a fait accompli of a ‗United Ethiopia‘ to the OAU summit, so that he could claim later that the decision regarding the colonially fixed
566
Summit Conference of Independent African States Proceedings of the summit conference of
independent African States volume 1 section 2 Addis Ababa May 1963 .United We Stand: An address by Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana May 1963 SUMMIT- CIAS/GEN/INF/36 P.7
567 G.A Res. 1514. 15 U.N GAOR. Supp. (No.16) 66. U.N Doc. A/4684 (1960) 568
Bereket Habte Selassie, The OAU and Regional Conflicts: Focus on the Eritrean War, Africa Today, 3rd/4th Quarters, 1988, p.66.
569 James e. Dougherty, the horn of Africa: a map of political-strategic conflict special report. institute of
Foreign policy analysis, Inc.
570 Christopher Clapham, ‗Historical Incorporation and Inheritance‘, in Timothy M. Shaw & Olajid Aluko
(eds.), The Political Economy of African Foreign Policy: Comparative Analysis, Trowbridge, Great Britain, Redwood Burn Ltd., 1984, pp. 85-86.
boundaries was not applicable to Ethiopia and Eritrea.571 Ethiopia one of the founding members of the OAU has been assiduous in cultivating African states and equally assiduous in ensuring that the issue of boundaries received higher priority than the issue of self-determination. 572 Thomas states the legitimizing the territorial status quo, implied legitimizing the involuntary membership of a territorial-political unit by certain peoples. Once colonialism had been eradicated, intervention on the grounds of upholding self- determination is disallowed.573 In fact, he did manage to skip the fear, which Modibo Keita of Mali voiced;
We must take Africa as it is, and we must renounce any territorial claims, if we do not wish to introduce what might be called black imperialism in Africa… [Emphasis added]574
African backed the sanctity of the OAU principle that the integrity of boundaries inherited from the colonial era must be maintained. One national grouping and culture in Eritrea: this means that the Eritrean question is not a nationalistic question. 575 Ethiopia asserted the territory known as Ogaden has belonged to her historically and that treaties between itself and the Europeans to whom Somali leaders had already consigned their sovereignty delimited the present boundaries. Ethiopia, therefore, had no choice but to sign boundary agreements with the power in control and these treaties are no different from the boundary treaties that have eventually given raise to scores of independent African countries recently.576