SA Moves To ‘Rekindle Flames Of African Solidarity’, Says Dlamini-Zuma

Posted on 29th May 2007, on BuaNews Online

Cape Town - A number of key events this year and the next are adding some velocity to the process of African unity while there is a also renewed focus on the progress of previous commitments made by the world towards the continent.

Speaking at the budget vote in parliament on Tuesday for the Department of Foreign Affairs, the minister, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma said that in July this year an African Union summit will discuss “the feasibility of an African Union government”.

This “grand debate”, said the Foreign Affairs minister, is scheduled to take place in Accra, Ghana, during the 50th year of the country’s independence from colonialism.

African foreign affairs ministers have already made preparations for this, at a retreat held in Durban recently, and Ms Dlamini-Zuma told MPs that she hoped South Africa’s own parliament would debate the issue itself, before the summit.

Another key event in line with progress towards African unity is a global summit focusing on unity between Africa and the African diaspora that are scattered around the world, from the Caribbean to Europe.

This event is scheduled to take place in South Africa next year, on the basis of a decision by the African Union in January 2006, said Ms Dlamini-Zuma.

The proposed theme of the summit is “Towards the realisation of a United and Integrated Africa and its Diaspora”, with the aim of producing “a shared vision of sustainable development for both the African continent and the millions of people around the world who share an African heritage.

Preparatory meetings for this summit have already started, in South Africa, in London and in Brazil, with further meetings planned in the United States, the Bahamas - to encompass the Caribbean and Central America - and in Addis Ababa.

A ministerial conference ahead of the African-Africa diaspora summit, which will involve heads of state, is to take place in Durban in October this year, added the foreign affairs minister.

And commitments towards development in Africa made at the G8 summit at Gleneagles in 2005 are receiving a renewed focus at this year’s G8 meeting in Helingendamm in Germany after being somewhat on the backburner for the past year.

With this year’s G8 summit being chaired by Germany, Ms Dlamini-Zuma, said that Chancellor Angela Merkel’s commitment for the summit to examine economic growth, governance, energy and the environment in Africa, “is encouraging”.

This year’s G8 summit - in which South Africa will participate as one of the five “outreach partners” along with China, India, Mexico and Brazil - will also look, said the minister, at partnerships on economic growth and reform, at the promotion of private investment and at medical schemes and HIV/AIDS.

“Together with other founding Nepad [New Partnership for Africa’s Development] countries and the chair of the AU, we will take this opportunity to assess how far the Gleneagles commitments of 2005 have been implemented,” said Ms Dlamini-Zuma.

In another key development, Ms Dlamini-Zuma pointed to the imminent launch of the Pan African Infrastructure Investment Fund - pioneered by President Thabo Mbeki - which is taking place during the African Union summit in Accra in July.

Other developments that all deliver momentum to eventual African unity is the establishment of the African Human Rights Court, which will, said the minister, eventually be amalgamated with the African Criminal Court.

Another instrument, the Pan African Parliament, is already pointing the way to African unity, while the Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, needs more resources, said the minister.

The important building block of African financial institutions are still to be established, with the new African infrastructure investment fund no doubt able to act as a foundation for further financial integration.

And as part of its role as a two-year, non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, South Africa “stands ready to continue making a case for Africa, the developing world and for sustainable peace and security, for the sake of present and future generations”, she said.

To this end, South Africa is to co-lead a Security Council mission to Sudan and Ethiopia and participate in a mission to Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana in June 2007.

On the question of peacekeeping operations, Ms Dlamini-Zuma said that African peacekeeping forces could move quickly in cases of outbreaks of conflict, but lacked the resources to sustain these interventions over lengthy periods, she said.

South Africa recently reminded the Security Council, she said, that an AU sumit had called upon the United Nations “to examine, within the context of Chapter 8 of the UN Charter, the possibility of funding, through assessed contributions, peacekeeping operations undertaken by the African Union or under its authority with the consent of the United Nations”.

This, she said, is “particularly important because the AU missions can move very swiftly but the constraint is that the African countries do not have the prerequisite resources - financial, logistical and otherwise - to sustain long missions, so they do need the support of the United Nations”.

“South Africa will continue therefore to pursue this initiative - on the relationship between the UN and regional organisations - throughout its tenure [on the Security Council],” Ms Dlamini-Zuma said.

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