Efforts by Africans to seek a better life in Europe were brought to the fore on Wednesday as African foreign ministers started meeting ahead of a summit of heads of states.
The Gambian Vice-President Isatou Njie-Saidy and African Union Commission president Alpha Konare urged the ministers to come up with a common strategy on the ”vexing” issue of international migration.
Thousands of young African migrants have been dying in the Atlantic and the Mediterranean in recent months on perilous trips in barely seaworthy boats in attempts to reach Europe.
Njie-Saidy called on the ministers to start working on ”a united and common African position on international migration … as well as design appropriate stategies and course of action to ensure that all African international migrants wherever they may be enjoy the fullest protection from humiliation, racial attacks, xenophobia and abuse of their human rights”.
Last month Senegal refused to accept the repatriation of its nationals from the Spanish Canary Islands after allegations of abuse of the returnees by Spanish authorities.
Konare said Africa should go to the July 10 and 11 talks with the European Union in Rabat with a common position, especially around the so-called selective migration policy some European countries favour.
He said it is ”important for us to clearly reject it because it actually is a kind of brain slavery that we cannot accept”.
France recently passed a selective immigration law that discriminates against unskilled migrants.
The Banjul summit is also to examine the possibility of an ambitious project to integrate Africa into one ”united states of Africa”.
The Gambia’s Foreign Minister Lamin Kabba Bajo said ”harmonising and synchronising the activities” of existing regional economic and political blocs would be one of the focus areas.
Diplomats say the aim would be to reduce the number of regional groups from eight to five to speed up the integration process.
United Nations economic commission for Africa executive secretary Abdoulie Janneh said although there were officially eight regional economic groupings in Africa, in reality there are at least 14.
”Those which can really come together, that’s a step towards the actual unification,” said Bajo.
”Unless we find a better name we are working towards a united states of Africa,” he said.
But Africa’s integration dream stands threatened by conficts raging in such countries as Somalia and the western Darfur region of Sudan.
Konare warned that ”we have to be careful with countries in post-conflict situations”, citing the example of East Timor.
Darfur and Somalia would be among the top items on the agenda of the ministers preparing for the heads of states and government meeting on Saturday and Sunday.
The summit is also expected to check on progress in the preparations for elections in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the implementation of peace deals in Côte d’Ivoire.
Another subject coming up for discussion is the creation of a pan-African television and radio station to be based in Egypt and which Konare said was ”urgent”. – Sapa-AFP