A peace academy named after late Malian diplomat Alioune Blondin Beye has been officially opened in Cotonou, PANA reported on Tuesday. Beye was the UN mediator in Angola when he died on 26 June 1998 in a plane crash just short of Felix Houphouet-Boigny International Airport, Abidjan.
The Alioune Badara Beye Peace Academy was set up on 11 June 1999 by Christophe Kougniazond, a political science professor at the University of Benin. The facility is to serve as “a centre of endogenous reflections and actions aimed at curbing all forms of violence” in Africa, PANA reported.
Kougniazond told journalists on Monday at the launch of the academy that foreign peace mediation in Africa often failed because of a lack of knowledge of African realities and sensitivities. African conflicts, he added, could be solved only through African initiatives.
The Academy will organise on 28-29 August an international conference on ‘Lessons from Ten years of Democracy in Africa’.
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