AU chairman addresses foreign ministers

The chairman of the African Union (AU) has called on the international community to "trust" Africa's leaders to solve the continent's many crises.

In an upbeat message on Wednesday, Alpha Oumar Konare said that despite enormous problems, Africa's future was not all doom and gloom. "The situation of our continent is not in itself a fatality," Konare told African foreign ministers meeting in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, ahead of a three-day AU summit intended to get African leaders to fulfil pledges made towards resolving the many problems facing the world’s poorest continent.

The summit hopes to see leaders take action on establishing a standing army to prevent conflict, a pan-African parliament and an African Court of Justice, and to extend the reach of their anti-poverty blueprint – the New Partnership for Africa’s Development.

Konare has drawn up a four-year road map for agreement by the 27 heads of state who are expected to open their summit on 6 July. "Africa may be seen by many as a risk, but for us, Africa is a major opportunity," he said, stressing that the road map must be "ambitious but realistic" enough to meet the challenges facing the continent. "Our partners should trust us and they should have confidence in Africa," he urged.

He devoted the greater part of his address to the crisis in Sudan's western region of Darfur, to coincide with the ongoing visits to the country by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and US Secretary of State Colin Powell. "We must support the efforts made by the government of Sudan," he told African and international diplomats at the UN Conference Centre in Addis Ababa. He added that support must also be extended to humanitarian organisations, noting that an Arab militia blamed for perpetrating many atrocities in Darfur must be disarmed.

Darfur will be a critical issue at the summit, and Konare could recommend that an African peacekeeping force be sent there to prevent further killings. To date, the AU has sent in 27 military observers, with more to follow, into the region as part of a US $30-million one-year AU mission.

Konare also spoke of AU support for peace efforts in Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, of its help in strife-torn Burundi, and its efforts towards preventing another derailment of the peace deal in Cote d’Ivoire.

"In order to ensure lasting peace in the perspective and prospect of human security on our continent, we should ensure we implement our common defence and security policy," Konare added, referring to the AU’s newly formed Peace and Security Council.

Another speaker at the venue, Kingsley Amoako, the executive secretary of the UN’s Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), stressed that good governance lay at the heart of the African road map, noting that an ECA study on 28 African countries had found that governance in them was improving.

"Contrary to what could be said two decades ago, and contrary to what is still often said abroad and also inside Africa, overall governance in Africa is getting better," he said.