African leaders gather next week to debate the conflicts holding back development on the world’s poorest continent as well as the potentially even more devastating threat of global warming.
The eighth summit of the 53-member African Union, being held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on Monday and Tuesday, will also feature appearances by United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on his first trip since taking over as well as his Commonwealth counterpart, Don McKinnon.
Africa has been cursed by more conflicts than any other part of the world, and two of the bloodiest battlegrounds of recent years — the Sudanese region of Darfur and Somalia — will top the agenda in the Ethiopian capital.
An AU force is already in place in Darfur while the deployment of peacekeepers to Somalia has also been approved.
But while both missions may highlight a growing desire for the AU to handle problems in-house, the difficulties they have faced also illustrate the limitations of an organisation that only began operating in 2002, when it replaced the moribund Organisation of African Unity.
About 7 000 AU military observers are currently stationed in Darfur to try to ensure the implementation of a 2004 ceasefire but the under-equipped and cash-strapped contingent has failed to stem the bloodshed.
The AU is now keen for help from the UN, but despite coming under intense international pressure, the government in Khartoum has yet to approve the presence of blue-helmeted troops.
The Darfur debate will be further complicated this time around as Khartoum is meant to be taking over the AU presidency from the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Khartoum’s stance on the crisis has upset many within the ranks of the AU, which last month called on the Sudanese government to ”immediately disarm” pro-government Arab Janjaweed militias in Darfur or face sanctions.
”Normally the presidency would go to Sudan, but there has been strong opposition from member states and those that haven’t declared a position are hoping that the others are going to find an alternative solution,” a senior AU official told Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Questioned over the issue at a recent press conference, Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi simply replied: ”We will discuss it; I’m sure a very good decision will be taken about it.”
The situation in Ethiopia’s eastern neighbour Somalia is of particular concern to Meles, who dispatched forces last month to help a weak interim Somali government topple a coalition of Islamists who had ruled the capital, Mogadishu, for the last six months.
But a long-heralded stabilisation force to Somalia has still only attracted pledges from three nations — Nigeria, Malawi and Uganda — even though it is meant to be on the ground by the end of the month.
A first batch of about 200 troops withdrew from the Somali capital earlier this week but thousands remain and Meles said no security vacuum would be allowed to develop ahead of the arrival of a proposed 7 600-strong AU force.
”We’ll withdraw our troops in three phases. My expectation is that our last phase will coincide with the AU deployment. There will be no vacuum.”
Meles and other key regional players such as Kenya are expected to press once more for other countries to commit troops as well as reiterate appeals for funds to finance the force.
In a new report obtained by AFP ahead of the summit, AU Commission chief Alpha Oumar Konare outlined how talks were still going on ”to see how best to expedite the deployment of a peace-support mission”, which could ”stabilise the situation and enhance the prospects for lasting peace and reconciliation”.
Another conflict zone set to be discussed is Côte d’Ivoire, where the prospect of direct talks between President Laurent Gbagbo and rebels who rule big swathes of the north and west has raised hopes for a breakthrough in the stalled peace process.
Time has also been put aside for the leaders to debate climate change in Africa, which already suffers more than its fair share of droughts and floods.
Britain’s Hadley Centre for Climate Change said in a report released late last year that temperature increases over many areas of Africa will be double the global average increase, and drought patterns stand to worsen catastrophically. — Sapa-AFP