The African Union: A Legacy of Betrayal and Western Puppetry

Since its inception, the African Union (AU) has been paraded as the beacon of African unity and progress. Yet, when examined critically, its history is riddled with betrayals, failures, and contradictions that have prevented the true liberation of the continent. The AU’s foundation was not an organic movement by revolutionary leaders but rather a carefully orchestrated compromise to serve Western interests.

At the heart of this deception is Haile Selassie, Ethiopia’s Western-backed ruler, who played a pivotal role in undermining the radical Pan-African movement and ensuring that Africa’s political trajectory remained under foreign influence. By flattening the Casablanca Group, Selassie and his allies removed Africa’s strongest voices for genuine economic and political liberation, setting the stage for the AU’s transformation into a mere puppet organization.

Even more disturbingly, the AU is headquartered in Ethiopia, a country that has never embodied unity but rather civil unrest, ethnic conflict, and foreign interference for over a century. Ethiopia’s role as a Western stronghold in Africa raises an important question:

How can the headquarters of African unity exist in a nation that has never known unity itself?

This fundamental contradiction exposes the AU’s true nature—not as a vehicle for African empowerment, but as an institution designed to maintain Africa’s subjugation under global imperialist powers.

The Casablanca Group: Africa’s Silenced Revolutionaries

To understand how the AU was set up to fail, we must revisit the early 1960s, when two competing visions for Africa’s future emerged:

1. The Casablanca Group, led by Kwame Nkrumah (Ghana), Sekou Touré (Guinea), Gamal Abdel Nasser (Egypt), and other revolutionary leaders, sought immediate African unification, a common currency, and a single military to protect Africa from neo-colonial exploitation.

2. The Monrovia Group, led by Haile Selassie, Felix Houphouët-Boigny (Ivory Coast), and conservative pro-Western leaders, opposed immediate unification and preferred a gradual approach that maintained the borders set by colonial powers.

The Casablanca Group’s vision was clear: a free, independent, and economically self-sufficient Africa that could not be manipulated by the West. The Monrovia Group, on the other hand, was more aligned with the interests of Europe and the United States, favoring slow integration while allowing foreign influence to remain intact.

With Western backing, the Monrovia Group prevailed, and the Organization of African Unity (OAU) was established in 1963—the precursor to today’s AU. This was the first great betrayal, ensuring that Africa remained politically fragmented and economically dependent on its former colonizers.

By ensuring the destruction of the Casablanca Group, Haile Selassie and his allies laid the groundwork for a weak, compromised African Union, one that would never serve the true interests of its people but instead act as a gatekeeper for Western interests on the continent.

Ethiopia: A Symbol of Division, Not Unity

The decision to place the AU headquarters in Ethiopia is one of the greatest ironies of modern African history. Ethiopia, despite its carefully curated image as the symbol of African resilience, has been a nation plagued by civil wars, ethnic massacres, and internal oppression for over a century.

• Haile Selassie himself ruled with an iron fist, crushing Eritrean independence movements and perpetuating feudal exploitation of his people.

• The Derg regime that followed engaged in widespread mass killings, including the infamous Red Terror of the 1970s.

• The TPLF (Tigray People's Liberation Front), which ruled Ethiopia for nearly 30 years, was heavily backed by the West and used to destabilize the region while enriching a small elite.

• Today, under Abiy Ahmed’s rule, Ethiopia continues to experience brutal conflicts, ethnic cleansing, and war crimes, particularly against the Amhara and Oromo people, as well as continued aggression toward Eritrea.

How, then, can Ethiopia be the chosen home of the African Union? A country that cannot even unite its own people is in no position to lead a united Africa. Instead, Ethiopia serves as a Western puppet state, ensuring that the AU remains in a location where it can be closely monitored and controlled.

This control was blatantly revealed in the recent AU map controversy, where the organization published a distorted African map that falsely connected parts of Eritrea and Somalia to Ethiopia. This was no mistake—it was a deliberate move to support Ethiopia’s territorial ambitions while undermining Eritrean and Somali sovereignty.

Ethiopia’s aggressive stance toward Eritrea, and the AU’s silent endorsement of this, further exposes the deep-rooted neo-colonial agenda that still dictates African geopolitics.

The New AU Leadership: More Western Puppets

The upcoming selection of a new AU chairperson is yet another example of how the organization is designed to protect Western interests, not African autonomy. The leading candidates come from nations that have a history of aligning with Western powers, ensuring that Africa’s leadership remains compromised.

Historically, AU leaders have:

• Remained silent on Western military interventions in Africa, from Libya’s destruction in 2011 to ongoing French military presence in the Sahel.

• Failed to hold AFRICOM (the US Africa Command) accountable for its expanding military footprint.

• Turned a blind eye to economic exploitation, allowing corporations like De Beers and multinational banks to continue pillaging Africa’s resources.

Instead of being a strong, independent body, the AU is structured to maintain Western dominance while keeping African nations weak and divided.

How Can the AU Claim to Represent Africa While Aligning with the West?

The AU’s consistent subservience to Western institutions contradicts its very purpose.

• The AU has done nothing to challenge neo-colonial trade agreements that keep Africa dependent on Europe and the US.

• It refuses to take a strong stance against sanctions imposed by Western nations on countries like Zimbabwe and Eritrea.

• It continues to accept Western funding, including from the very nations that exploited Africa for centuries.

How can an organization that claims to represent the African people constantly align itself with Western powers? The answer is simple: the AU was never designed to liberate Africa—it was designed to manage it.

The Future of Pan-Africanism: A Call to Action

If Africa is to achieve true liberation, the entire structure of the AU must be reevaluated. The following steps must be taken:

1. Relocate the AU headquarters to a nation that has consistently resisted Western influence—Eritrea, for example, which has remained independent despite international pressures.

2. Dismantle Western-aligned leadership structures that prioritize foreign interests over African unity.

3. Hold the AU accountable for its failures, particularly its silence on military interventions, economic exploitation, and border distortions.

4. Push for an alternative African governance structure, one that prioritizes economic sovereignty, military cooperation, and cultural unity.

The current AU is nothing more than a bureaucratic tool of global elites, ensuring that Africa remains controlled, exploited, and divided. If Africa is to break free, it must abandon this hollow institution and build a new revolutionary structure that embodies the true spirit of Pan-Africanism.

Africa does not need the African Union in its current form. Africa needs a radical movement that refuses to bow to Western influence—a movement that will finally complete the liberation that the Casablanca Group started over 60 years ago.