As African state leaders today launch the new Peace and Security Council of the African Union (AU) at a summit in Ethiopia, world leaders hail the strengthened African efforts to address its own problems. The fighting and ethnic cleansing in Darfur tops the Council's agenda.
- Nobody will build Africa in our place, said Alpha Omar Konaré, Chairman of the African Commission and ex-President of Mali in his opening statement launching the African Peace and Security Council in Addis Ababa today. "Nobody will establish lasting peace in Africa in the place of Africans," Mr Konaré added.
This clear message was repeated by several speakers at the Council's launch. "Africans are seeking solutions to their own problems," said for example Said Djinnit, the AU's Peace and Security Commissioner. If there was a genocide going on in one country, he could however not guarantee that Africa would have the capacity to decisively stop it. "But I tell you the African Union, African Leaders and troops will move" to stop an ongoing genocide, he added.
The AU's new Peace and Security Council is launched at a moment as there is growing concern over a possible genocide in Sudan's Darfur region. The fighting in Darfur therefore was set at the top of the Council's agenda. An AU fact-finding mission is already sent into Darfur and the Council is preparing to deploy an African ceasefire monitoring team.
African Security Council launched and hailed....***Other Coverage: