Annan points to importance of dialogue

Africa has “much to learn from its own traditions”, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said on Monday in Benin in a reference to bodies such as village communities that traditionally reached decisions by consensus after free discussion. Annan was speaking at an international conference on democracy that ends on Wednesday in Benin, the second leg of his four-nation African tour. He added that a free and vigorous mass media was essential to democracy. “The media in a democracy cannot be passive,” Annan said. “They must actively seek out the truth on the public’s behalf, and be free to tell it as they see it.” While poverty and oppression went together, he said, true development meant freedom from both. “No state can truly be called democratic if it offers its people no escape from poverty,” Annan noted. “No country can truly develop so long as its people are excluded from power.” The Sierra Leone visit Annan travelled to Benin at the weekend from Sierra Leone, where he told reporters on Sunday that the visit, his second to that country, was to support local and international efforts to buttress the peace process after it nearly collapsed in May. “I am also here to demonstrate my solidarity with the people of Sierra Leone, who have been traumatized by a catastrophic conflict,” he said. Many of these sufferers were children who, as combatants, committed atrocities or were victims of such abuses. Annan visited a centre in Lakka, eight km west of Freetown, set up to rehabilitate former child soldiers. The UN Security Council is now discussing a report and recommendations by Annan on the establishment of a special court to try war criminals. “It is my sincere hope that this will help to put an end to impunity and to discourage others, in the future, from committing egregious violations of human rights and humanitarian law,” he said.