United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan on Friday urged African leaders gathered for a landmark summit to overcome decades of suspicion and bring hope to those living in the volatile Great Lakes region, which has been riven by wars and genocide.
Opening a landmark two-day conference in Tanzania, Annan acknowledged the ”enormous task” ahead of the leaders in transforming words into ”programmes of action that will give the region a comprehensive peace agreement”.
”But it is within your power to give people hope by demonstrating your commitment to live as good neighbours by taking steps to bridge the suspicion gap,” Annan told the gathering in Tanzania’s commercial capital, Dar es Salaam.
Leaders from about a dozen African states are on Saturday expected to sign a declaration committing each country to ”making the Great Lakes region an area of lasting peace and security, of political and social stability and of shared growth and development”.
The draft of the text, fine-tuned by African foreign ministers in advance of the summit, also includes a clause on preventing countries from supporting armed groups in the region.
The UN-backed summit is to tackle four key themes: peace and stability, governance and democracy, economic development and regional integration, and humanitarian and social issues.
The 11 countries clustered in the region across East and Central Africa have known little peace since the 1994 genocide in Rwanda fuelled ethnic tensions around the area.
The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is also painfully emerging from its 1998-2003 war that dragged in forces from half a dozen African countries, and which led to the deaths of millions of people.
Burundi, Rwanda’s southern neighbour, is also struggling to emerge from 11 years of civil conflict.
Annan opened the meeting alongside Tanzanian President Benjamin Mkapa. Discussions were expected to take place behind closed doors in the afternoon session.
All the key players in the war in the DRC — including Rwanda and Uganda, which backed DRC rebel groups, and Angola and Zimbabwe, who supported the Kinshasa government — are represented at the conference.
In October, the foreign ministers of the DRC, Uganda and Rwanda signed a common security accord that included measures for disarming various forces in the region.
As well as heads of Great Lakes states, Nigeria’s Olusegun Obasanjo, the current chairperson of the African Union, and South Africa’s Thabo Mbeki, a veteran mediator in African crises, were also present.
Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe arrived on Thursday. Zimbabwe took part in the war in the DRC, fighting alongside government troops in the conflict that claimed up to three million lives.
Zimbabwe deployed up to 12 000 soldiers in the war that economists partly blame for economic problems faced by the Southern African country.
On Thursday, Rwanda said it is hoping the summit will result in greater dialogue, especially with the DRC.
”Rwanda considers that this conference opens a opportunity for dialogue for countries in the region,” said Rwandan Foreign Minister Charles Murigande. — Sapa-AFP