PAP Motions

Press Release—The Pan African Parliament (PAP) today in a sitting presided over by the Second Vice-President, Hon. Prof. Mohamed Lutfi Farhat from Libya, debated five (5) Motions tabled by MPs during this Eighth Ordinary Session.

The first Motion was tabled by Hon. Mokshanand Suni Dowarasing from Mauritius. It called for the establishment of a UN Parliamentary Assembly. The Motion asked that PAP develop a common African position regarding the further development of citizen’s involvement in international affairs, in particular in the United Nations and its specialized organizations, which enables it to address the democracy deficit in the international arena and take the initiative to achieve the establishment of a consultative United Nations Parliamentary Assembly (UNPA) within the UN system.

The second Motion, which was tabled by Hon. Michael Temple from Swaziland, called on African leaders and heads of government “to rise up to protect African indigenous knowledge and intellectual property from its present violations”. The Motion also commended the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) for the role they are playing in protecting intellectual property and called on them to “extend such protection to the intellectual property of indigenous peoples of Africa and their knowledge systems.”

The third Motion, tabled by Hon. Mohamed Alourafy from Libya, was on the issue of Libyan children injected with HIV/AIDS. It recalled that the Libyan judiciary had commuted the death penalty on the convicted Bulgarians to life imprisonment, and handed them over to the Bulgarian authorities to spend their sentences in their country. Instead, they were granted amnesty and given a welcome in the European Parliament not fit for convicted criminals.

The motion then asked the PAP to strongly protest against the attitude of the European Parliament and to call the families of the victims to speak to the PAP in a plenary meeting.

The fourth Motion was brought to the floor by Hon. Olebile Gabrone, MP from Bostwana. It asked PAP to “prevail upon all African Governments through the African Union (AU) not to accede to the United States of America’s Government’s request to host AFRICOM anywhere in the African continent.”

All four Motions were carried by the House after debating them.

However, the fifth Motion, tabled by Hon. Suzanne Vos from South Africa, which urged the Bureau of PAP “to proceed as a matter of urgency with arrangements required to send a fact-finding mission to the Republic of Zimbabwe”, as was agreed in the last Session, was rejected by the House.

<< Back to main