From Africa Recovery, Vol.14#3 (October 2000), Briefs page

Summit charts course for an 'African Union'

African leaders decided in mid-July to begin establishing a new "African Union." Proponents see the move as a logical extension of the existing Organization of African Unity (OAU) and a way for the continent to better confront the challenges of globalization.

Gathered at the 36th OAU summit meeting in Lomé, Togo, African leaders debated and adopted a founding document, called the Constitutive Act, laying down objectives, principles, institutions and an operational framework. Reviewing the conditions facing Africa at the start of a new millennium, they stressed the urgency of accelerating economic integration and political solidarity.

The leaders of 27 OAU member states signed the act before leaving Togo. Subsequently, South African President Thabo Mbeki and Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo signalled support by holding a joint signing ceremony in September at UN headquarters in New York, in the presence of OAU Secretary-General Salim Ahmed Salim. Formal accession to the treaty requires ratification by OAU member states. The Union itself would come into formal existence 30 days after ratification by two-thirds of the OAU members. Mr. Salim told reporters in Lomé that after the Union has been in force for a year, "the OAU will be absorbed into it."

While few Africans oppose the concept of greater unity, some observers have questioned the timing or realism of the current proposal. Proponents talk optimistically of achieving the necessary ratification by more than 36 countries before the end of 2000. Libyan President Muammar al-Qaddafi, who has played a prominent role in promoting the project, believes the Union will be put in place at an extraordinary summit already scheduled for Sirte, Libya, in March 2001. In Lomé, he suggested that the rapid creation of a "United States of Africa" could end conflicts and speed Africa's long-awaited renaissance.

But by the beginning of October only a handful of countries had reportedly completed the ratification process. Angola, Namibia and Zimbabwe stayed away from the summit itself, because of a UN Security Council inquiry indicating that Togo had provided assistance to the Angolan rebel movement UNITA, in defiance of Security Council sanctions. Their absence made serious discussion of security and peacekeeping issues difficult.

So far, the Lomé decision has stirred little public debate. Seasoned community observers are sceptical about any easy or rapid creation of such institutions as an African Central Bank, a Pan-African Parliament or a Court of Justice, all proposed in the Constitutive Act. Representatives at a week-long meeting of the Africa branch of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association referred discussions on the proposed Pan-African Parliament to individual countries for study.

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