Solutions to Africa’s problems will work only if they genuinely reflect the will of the continent’s people, President Thabo Mbeki said on Friday.
Writing in the African National Congress’s online publication, ANC Today, Mbeki said the Pan African Parliament (PAP) — currently holding its third session at its seat in Midrand, Gauteng — confirms the determination of the peoples of Africa to promote and achieve continental unity.
Undoubtedly, the PAP will be interested, consistent with its mandate to contribute to Africa’s renaissance, in three particular events.
These are the March 31 elections in Zimbabwe, the summit meeting of the leaders of Côte d’Ivoire starting in Pretoria on Sunday, and the initiation of the training programme in South Africa for representatives of the leadership from southern Sudan, which is preparing itself to assume governmental positions both in the south and in Sudan as a whole.
Mbeki said perhaps the most challenging task posed by the establishment of the African Union and the initiation of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (Nepad) is the ”requirement that, at last, as Africans, we must take full responsibility for our destiny”.
In this regard, the AU’s Constitutive Act (CA) even includes the pursuit of the goal of self-reliance.
Practically, this means that as it strives to implement its mandate ”to ensure the full participation of African peoples in the development” of Africa, the PAP should help ensure that Africa acts to solve its own problems.
”In any case, such solutions can only be stable and lasting if they genuinely express the conscious will of the peoples of Africa,” he said.
This also means the new partnership of equality, shared interest and mutual respect that has to underline Africa’s cooperation with the rest of the world has to be strengthened.
”Self-reliance does not mean that we should cut ourselves off from the rest of the world, or treat the rest of humanity as our adversaries or enemies.
”What it means, however, is that we should fight to assert our right to determine the future of our countries and continent, insisting on our right as Africans to decide the future of the unique and only common home of all Africans, Africa.”
Zimbabweans have just exercised their right to choose their elected national representatives, and the leaders of the people of Côte d’Ivoire will meet, hopefully to take the necessary decisions that will end the crisis in their country, in the interest of the masses of the Ivorian people.
”In both instances, it is important that the leaders and peoples of these countries (and Sudan), should respect their national obligations as member states of the AU, and honour the commitments contained in the CA.”
But it is equally important that the PAP, and the AU as a whole, should defend the right of the peoples of these countries, acting as members of the AU, to exercise their right to self-determination.
”To give birth to the new Africa of our dreams, we must have the courage to say, ‘Hell no!’ to any intervention that seeks to compromise our possibility to determine the future of our countries and continent.
”Democracy, development and unity in Africa, and the realisation of the goal of an African century, depend on the achievement of real peace and stability in all our countries.
”This can only come about as a result of our sovereign and purposeful actions as Africans. Only when we accomplish this will a meaningful Pax Africana become reality rather than a dream,” Mbeki said. — Sapa