African Union council prepares for Sudan summit
Jan 20, 2006 (KHARTOUM) — African Union (AU) chief executive Alpha Oumar Konare opened final preparations for a pan-African summit in Sudan by urging both parties to the country’s Darfur conflict to be serious about peace.
“The peoples of Africa have become fed up with wars and conflicts and, for this reason, the African Union is doing its best to resolve the conflicts in the continent,” Konare told the opening session of the AU Executive Council of foreign ministers.
Sudan will on Monday and Tuesday host the two-day summit of the African Union, currently chaired by Nigeria, but has come under fire from human rights groups because of Khartoum’s record in Darfur, where fighting has claimed some 300,000 lives in two years.
Konare called for “redoubling the current efforts” for the success of peace negotiations being held in the Nigerian capital Abuja and appealed to “both the Sudanese government and rebel movements to demonstrate willingness for achieving peace in Darfur.”
On Friday, the two rebel movements drawn from the black population of the western Darfur region, the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), announced they were merging to create a single alliance.
“The two movements have agreed to join and coordinate all political, military and social forces, their international relations and to double their combat capacity in a collective body under the name, the Alliance of Revolutionary Forces of West Sudan,” they said in a press statement.
Though political issues such as the Darfur conflict will preoccupy heads of state next week, Konare said the main items on the agenda of the AU summit were education and culture and called for a revision of school syllabuses in order to serve the interests of the African continent.
“I hope progress will be achieved in the fields of culture and education, particularly as this year has been dedicated for African languages,” Konare said, declaring that the commission is planning for the establishment of an African languages academy.
The chairperson underlined the need for the freedom of movement of Africans within the continent and suggested “as a first step, the issuance of a unified diplomatic passport” to help the diplomats move around African countries without visas.
Sudanese Foreign Minister Lam Akol Ajawin noted in a speech he delivered at the opening session that “it is a good coincidence” that the summit came at a time when Sudan is celebrating “two happy occasions” — its 50 years of independence and the first anniversary of the signing of the comprehensive peace agreement (CPA) affecting the south of the country.
“The Sudan has managed to implement a considerable portion of the CPA provisions,” said Ajawin, enumerating his government’s accomplishments in this regard, citing as examples the passage of a transitional constitution, the establishment of the national unity government in Khartoum and a regional one in Juba, south Sudan, in addition to central and regional legislatures.
“What remains now is the burden of reconstruction and development,” said the foreign minister, appealing to the international donors to “speed up fulfilling the declared pledges so as to help the Sudan finance the processes of reconstruction, development and repatriation” of the refugees and internally displaced people.
Ajawin made a proposal for creation of an AU organisation for education, science and culture — an equivalent to the United Nations body UNESCO — to help African countries cope with global scientific progress and technology.