The one-year-old African Union has rolled up its sleeves, determined to show the world it has the muscle to settle Africa’s crippling disputes.
The second AU summit came to an end in Maputo on Saturday, after three days of deliberations during which heads of state elected a new leadership facing the daunting task of transforming the organisation into a functional entity.
Its first priority is the establishment of a Peace and Security Council, loosely based on the UN Security Council and able to intervene in genocidal wars.
The AU Commission, headed by former Malian president Alpha Oumar Konare, is also responsible for the implementation of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (Nepad), a social and economic rescue plan offering good governance in return for more help from the industrialised world.
The Maputo summit came a year after the AU was inaugurated in the eastern Indian Ocean city of Durban, South Africa, and had been touted as the event that would ”operationalise” AU organs.
It closed with the election of an AU Commission chairman and deputy, and seven commissioners — five of them women — who are expected to realise the ”operationalisation”.
It will not be easy.
The AU — which is far more assertive than its predecessor, the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) — plans to set up the Peace and Security Council, a Pan African Parliament, a common court of justice and, eventually, a common African currency.
”One can ask whether the agenda is not too ambitious. … Some of these bodies are going to eat up a tremendous amount of resources,” said Jakkie Cilliers, a South African expert on African security.
But Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade, one of the architects of Nepad, said the AU should not be underestimated.
”It is going to happen. Why would you want us to go faster than the Europeans did with their union?” he asked. ”We have already succeeded in gathering all Africans in one union. It’s a miracle.
”Don’t limit our ambitions. If we tell you that we will walk on the moon one day you have to believe us. We will make trains run, we will build roads,” Wade said at the end of the summit.
He pointed out that the AU Commission, more than half female, was a step ahead on gender issues.
”You see, on that issue we are already ahead of Europe and the United States.”
European Commission chairman Romano Prodi and UN Secretary General Kofi Annan attended the Maputo meeting, and their message to the African leaders was clear: There is a willingness to support Africa, but it should soon start looking after itself.
Prodi told delegates: ”The ultimate aim is not to send peacekeeping troops here or there, but to bolster Africa’s own capacity to deal with conflict situations and peace enforcement.”
US President George Bush, who ended a five-nation African tour on Saturday, did not show up at the summit.
But he might not have felt very welcome had he attended the closing session, when Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi trashed efforts by the developing world to help Africa.
South African President Thabo Mbeki, who handed over the revolving AU chairmanship to his Mozambican counterpart, Joachim Chissano, listened poker-faced to Kadhafi’s impromptu speech.
Mbeki, one of the driving forces behind Nepad, has acknowledged the need for Africa to prove to the world it is serious about solving its own problems.
African affairs consultant Herman Hanekom believes it is time to do exactly that.
”Nepad hasn’t offered us anything yet, but we should not be negative. It may be a bit cynical, but we need to give Ne[ad a chance to establish itself. It is time for Africa to pull up its socks and start working.” – Sapa-AFP