/ 1 January 2002

AU’s new chairman rolls up his sleeves

An extraordinary session of the newly-launched African Union (AU) will be held in six months’ time, according to South African President Thabo Mbeki.

He made this announcement at the first assembly of AU heads of state in Durban on Tuesday, an occasion that saw the demise of the 39-year-old Organisation of African Unity.

Mbeki, first chairman of the new body, did not indicate where the special session would be held, and what its agenda would be.

Officials attending the Durban summit said proposed amendments to the Constitutive Act of the AU would so far be the main item to feature at the next meeting of African leaders.

They said Libya tabled proposed changes to three articles of the Act on Monday, but the substance of these were not discussed.

”The debate revolved more around technicalities, and the question of whether it was possible to tamper with the Act at this point,” one senior official said.

Libya wanted, among others, an amendment that would compel the AU chairman to serve his term at the headquarters of the organisation.

The officials indicated that South Africa was not receptive to the idea as it would be impractical.

Libya also asked for a change to the stipulation that the host country of the summit automatically became AU chair for the subsequent one-year term.

Another proposal was that AU member states not be allowed to renounce their membership whenever they wished.

The outcome of Monday’s discussion was that a range of amendment procedures had to be adhered in order to changes the Act, which had already been ratified by the parliaments of member states.

Officials said clarity was also needed on time frames with regard to the establishment of the AU Commission, which will be the new body’s secretariat.

This commission had a key procedural role to fulfil in any amendments to the Constitutive Act.

It was expected that the Commission’s formation would be high on the agenda of Tuesday night’s discussions of the African leaders.

Officials said when heads of state signed the Act in Togo about two years ago, several members raised reservations about some articles. Time constraints, however, made it impossible for these to be considered.

Monday’s meeting also dealt with a report by a commission set up to examine the murder conviction of Libyan national Lockerbie bomber Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi.

The commission concluded that the former intelligence agent had been found guilty largely on circumstantial evidence. It called for the conviction to be set aside.

A Scottish court sitting in the Hague convicted Megrahi of murder last year for smuggling a bomb aboard Pan Am flight 103.

The device exploded over the town of Lockerbie on December 21 1988, killing 270 people in the air and on the ground. An appeal was rejected in March this year.

Officials said the African leaders noted the OAU commission’s report, without coming to any resolution. – Sapa