Leaders of the African Union begin a three-day summit in Accra, Ghana, on Sunday focused on plans to forge a confederation of states that can help the world’s poorest continent exercise greater clout on the world stage.
Police and soldiers lined the streets of the Ghanaian capital as the heads of state of the 53 members who make up the AU began arriving on Saturday for the summit, the ninth since the AU’s creation five years ago.
But while previous summits have been dominated by crises in individual countries, the latest gathering is almost entirely devoted to debating the creation of what has been dubbed by some as the United States of Africa.
One of those in town is Libyan leader Moammar Gadaffi, seen as the prime instigator behind the project that he would like to see result in a common foreign and defence policy.
His journey to Accra has taken him through some of the poorest countries of Africa such as Mali, Guinea and Liberia at the head of a vast convoy — stopping to rouse the people for their support.
”In Accra, the voice of the people must be heard … the leaders [will be] forced to listen,” he said in one rally in Guinea.
Some leaders, such as host President John Kufuor, are broadly supportive of the idea of a closer union and he will preside over a the first main topic on the agenda after the opening ceremony, entitled the grand debate on union government.
The founding president of Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah, was the first major proponent of the idea that Africa could only hope to be a force for good through unity.
Exactly 50 years after Ghana became the first African nation to free itself of colonialism, the continent still has no permanent representative on the United Nations Security Council.
Leaders of larger countries, such as South African President Thabo Mbeki and Nigeria’s Umaru Yar’Adua, are thought to be much less keen on the idea of a closer federation.
Mbeki caustically remarked at the last summit in January, in Addis Ababa, that the ”foundations” of the AU needed to be cemented before anything more ambitious was attempted.
Indeed, it is only five years since the AU was formally established as a new, improved version of the Organisation of African Union.
However, its failure at the last summit to persuade anyone but Uganda to send troops on a peacekeeping mission to Somalia has underlined shortcomings that critics say can only be overcome with a common foreign and defence policy.
Events in Addis Ababa were also marred by the continued bloodshed in Sudan’s Darfur region, which effectively scuppered Khartoum’s ambitions of becoming president of the organisation.
A force of about 7 000 AU troops has been unable to stop the bloodshed in Darfur and is now desperate to be bolstered by troops from the UN.
Further embarrassment was contained in reports revealed to foreign ministers in preparatory meetings for the summit, showing that all but seven countries are behind in their payments and 21 are more than one year in arrears. — Sapa-AFP