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African Union Institutional Capacity For Deal With Intrastate Conflicts

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African Union Institutional Capacity to Deal with Intrastate Conflicts
2.1 Introduction
Since its formation in 2001, the constitutive act of the AU has taken normative and constitutional steps towards the realization of a strong and effective political, economic and judicial organization for the continent . The ideals that led to the creation of the AU 's predecessor, the OAU proceeded from the notion that countries in Africa should unite to fight colonial subjugation as well as improve the lives of their people. Despite these noble ideals, it took a few wars, these are; Western Sahara (involving Algeria, Morocco, Mauritania, and France), the Shaba rebellions( the attempted invasions of Zaire), the invasion of Benin, and the Ogaden war against Somalia to show the weaknesses and disunited front of the OAU following its failure to respond to the emerging conflict situations.
The OAU emerged as a compromise solution to the ideological disputes and divisions which dogged African states at the initial stages of systemic relations. There were two main conflicting ideas, the "unionists" which advocated immediate political union of African states, and the "statists" which denounced any precipitate union, preferring, instead, a loose form of association of independent African states, based upon the principle of functional cooperation. These conflicting political ideas and interests resulted in the formation of an organization whose principles amounted to a compromise between unity

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