Zuma Calls for a Stronger African Union

(PANA)--South African President Jacob Zuma has called for the urgent strengthening of the African Union (AU) to enable it deal effectively with the peace and security challenges in Africa, while also advocating tougher measures against coup plotters.

In an interview with Citizen Television monitored here, Zuma said the AU must urgently adopt a ‘zero tolerance’ stance against plotters of violent power takeovers in Africa. ‘The African Union makes us speak with one voice. It helps us to entrench the unity of the continent. But we have to make it more effective to deal with the peace and security challenges facing our continent,’ the South African leader said.

He said African leaders had to entrench the role of the AU on peace building measures in Africa, but that this would only be achieved through reforms of the pan African organisation. ‘The AU must have zero tolerance to those who create violence, those who maim and kill,’ President Zuma said. The South African President spoke as efforts aimed at transforming the AU into a Union Government, which has been on the cards for several years, gets underway.

African leaders, including former South Africa caretaker president Kgalema Motlanthe, who took over as deputy president in the new cabinet, agreed to transform the AU Commission (AUC) into an Authority with more coordinating powers over African affairs. Zuma took note of the importance the AU as a unifying factor to all African states and the coordinating role it plays in ensuring that African states speak with one voice on global affairs. He said the organisation must rise to the challenges it faces and deal with the conflicts.

African leaders have been discussing measures aimed at strengthening the organisation’s capacity to deal with conflicts. These have led to the crafting of initiatives, among them, the Panel of the Wise, whose inaugural report is due for extensive discussions in July. The Panel of the Wise was mandated to undertake a comprehensive study on the causes or potential causes of conflict and provide systematic approaches of dealing with them.

The Panel has prepared a report dealing with the required electoral reforms, which it identified as one of the main trouble spots for Africa’s infant democracies. The report would be discussed during the next heads of state assembly in June-July, but the venue of the next meeting is yet to be determined.

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