By Bayano Valy – SANF 04 no 45
Mozambican President and African Union (AU) chairperson, Joaquim Chissano, formally launched the organisation’s Peace and Security Council in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, headquarters of the pan-African body, on Africa Day, 25 May.
Africa Day is celebrated as the day that the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), predecessor of the AU, was formed in 1963.
The Peace and Security Council is charged with the prevention, management and resolution of conflicts through both diplomatic and military means.
The Protocol to facilitate establishment of a peace and security mechanism at continental level was signed in July 2002 in the South African city of Durban, and came into effect in December 2003 having been ratified by the requisite simple majority.
The Council comprises 15 members in a two-tiered system, being one for five members to serve for three years and another for countries willing to give two years. It is expected that the Council will enlist 15,000 soldiers by 2010, who will remain in their countries ready for deployment.
Speaking at the ceremony, Chissano said, “we are placing lots of hope on the Peace and Security Council which we view as an efficient tool for the realisation of the African Agenda in issues of prevention, management and resolution of conflict.
“Hotspots are a threat to the hard work the continent is undertaking to achieve sustainable development” he said, adding that “these residual conflicts are a challenge to our capacity and determination in search of peace.”
Currently, the AU has a peace-keeping mission in Burundi with a force of 2,700 troops to be substituted by a United Nations mission in June. The first task of the Peace and Security Council has been to authorise the sending of support teams to bolster peace processes in the Comoros and Darfur, in Sudan.
Countries such as Sudan, Somalia, and the Ivory Coast remain a major concern which it is expected, the Council will give special attention.
Chissano said the continent has achieved important milestones, and apart from the creation of the AU, he singled out the establishment of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) as a major development. “The adoption by the AU of the NEPAD was a fundamental milestone in the history of our continent,” said Chissano.
He said NEPAD has come to substantiate the high ideals and anxieties of the peoples of Africa by affording them a platform for the shaping of a united, cohesive and prosperous continent.
Much as NEPAD is geared towards the continent’s socio-economic development, this cannot be attained without peace and stability.
“Peace and stability remain essential conditions so that the goals set up in NEPAD are completely achieved and translated into the upliftment of the peoples of Africa,” he stressed.
The AU chairperson called on all African countries to harmonise their poverty reduction plans and other government programmes with NEPAD and the Millennium Development Goals, as well as finding solutions for the external debt burden and the struggle against HIV and AIDS.
“Each and everyone of us has to contribute for NEPAD’s success since it represents the triumph of our collective work for the promotion of the continent’s sustainable development,” urged Chissano.
Much progress has been achieved in the AU’s short life, he said, as a result of the dynamism of African leaders who wanted to render it a modern, efficient organisation facing up to challenges of the 21st Century, which has been dubbed Africa’s Century.
The AU has established the Pan-African Parliament in order to secure improved participation of African societies in the continent’s development, added Chissano.
He also called on Africans in the diaspora to contribute as advocates for the continent and its development.
“In this modernisation effort of our continental organisation, we are also guided by the pledge we made of giving the African woman the space she deserves in leadership and development of Africa and its institutions,” he said, adding that this pledge is reflected in the balance of gender in most organs of the body.
Chissano called for a positive attitude from the international community, saying development cannot be attained in isolation because “the global village in which we live will not be safe for just a few whilst it is not safe and stable for everyone else.”
“No island of progress and stability will be sustainable while it is surrounded by an ocean of misery, of those without either present or future.” (SARDC)
