Below you will find three articles with different spins on the AU Summit.? The first is from Mathaba, a Libyan allied agency.? It takes the upbeat position pointing to the fact that the concept of United Africa was not shot down and quoting Libya's leader as stating that the way forward ..."The Leader stressed that the United States of Africa is coming and the way must be paved for that end" ? One would hope that all the elements on the continent, in particular, who want to see Union government will study Nkrumah's actual views on the concept and especially his?recipe for eradicating neo-colonialist and general imperialist opposition to the same. ? The second article?is from BUANews?-- which takes the middle road, content with the fact that the AU engaged in a repetition of the same old errors-- regionalism, gradualism, economics first (the classical anti-revolutionary line of economism -- that is preached to Africans and Africa by?the imperialist?governments and many so-called "socialist" formations in Europe and America)?and the general?litany that the AU and the regional economic community must get Africa's house in order. ? The third is from the Ghanaian Chronicle, which elaborates on the we are not ready posture of the gradualist in much more detail than found in the BUANews. ? The last is from Reuters, which takes a much more robust anti-Pan-Africanist position than BUANews.? It revels in the fact that the so-called gradualists were able to stop forces aligned with Libya and Senegal from creating a United government right away.? Senegal, by the way, is still floating the idea?of a Union Government composed of those willing to form one and ignoring the rest... ? ONE THING STANDS OUT -- It is clearer than ever that Nkrumah was right...there can be no true African unity until African people are organized to fight and win the continental (which by direct implication means global) war against enemies outside and inside Africa. ? 1. The Leader of Libyan Revolution: African Presidents Listened to the voice of African Masses for African Unity 2007/07/04 from Mathaba ? The Leader of Libyan Revolution underlined that the African Presidents have listened to the voice of African masses that declared their decision of the African unity. They also followed the movement of African crowds that exert pressure for the establishment of the African Federal Government. The Leader pointed out, in his response to journalists questions Monday afternoon, after the closed session of the AU (African Union) summit conference in Accra, that there is no African who says he is against the African unity, or the federal government or against the United States of Africa and that the aim of forming the African federal government and the establishment of the United States of Africa have been decided and were declared and signed in all AU conferences and that the African masses have said their word. He added that what is taking place now at the summit is a discussion for drafting the practical implementation of this goal to ensure its success and that all this discussion is within our project. The Leader stressed that the United States of Africa is coming and the way must be paved for that end. ? 2. Compiled by the Government Communication and Information System --------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 04 Jul 2007 Title: AU adopts Accra Declaration to plan integration --------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------- By Lavinia Mahlangu Accra - Timelines and the method for Africa's integration are to be set out according to the Accra Declaration, adopted late on Tuesday night by the 9th Ordinary Session of the African Union Heads of Summit. "We emerged from the Grand Debate with a common vision," AU Chair John Kuofor and President of Ghana said on Tuesday, minutes before midnight. "We all have a shared vision for a united, vibrant continental union." "To this end, we agreed to strengthen capacity of the Commission and the organs of our union. This will be reassuring to Africans in the civil society and diaspora who have been calling on us to build synergy within these organs." The re-energising of the union would depend greatly on the will of the member nations, he explained. Vice President of the AU Commission Patrick Mazimaka, read out the Accra Declaration which states the leaders are convinced that the ultimate objective of the African Union is the United States of Africa, with a Union Government as envisaged by the founding fathers of the Organisation of African Unity and, in particular, the visionary leader, Dr Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana. The summit also convinces, said Mr Mazimaka, "of the need for common responses to the major challenges of globalisation facing Africa and boosting regional integration processes through an effective continental mechanism." "We agree to accelerate the economic and political integration of the African continent, including the formation of a Union Government for Africa with the ultimate objective of creating the United States of Africa," he said. He also outlined the following steps to attaining the Union Government: * to rationalise and strengthen the Regional Economic Communities, and harmonise their activities...with a reviewed and shorter timeframe to be agreed upon in order to accelerate the economic and, where possible, political integration; * to conduct immediately, an Audit of the Executive Council; * to establish a ministerial Committee to examine the following: - identifying the contents of the Union Government concept and its relations with national governments; - identifying the domains of competence and the impact of establishing the Union Government on the sovereignty of member states; - defining the relationship between the Union Government and the Regional Economic Communities (RECs), - elaborating the road map together with timeframes for establishing the Union Government; and - identifying additional sources of financing the activities of the Union. "The outcome of the audit and the work of the Ministerial Committee will be submitted to the Executive Council, to make appropriate recommendations to the next ordinary session of our Assembly in January," Mr Mazimaka said. "We agree on the importance of involving the African peoples, including Africans in the Diaspora, in the processes leading to the formation of the Union Government." - BuaNews ? 3. ?Africa: Lesotho PM Puts Caveat On Union - Check AU Corruption First Ghanaian Chronicle (Accra) 4 July 2007 Posted to the web 4 July 2007 Charles Takyi-Boadu Accra EVEN BEFORE African Leaders settle on the issue of the much talked-about Union Government, people have started raising probing questions about accountability at the African Union Commission. They are agitating for a full-scale audit to be launched to look into the activities and operations of the Commission. First to bell the cat was the Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Lesotho, Pakalitha Mosisili who is agitating for the Commission to be audited. This he believes, would erase any lingering doubts about operations of the AU. Mr. Mosisili made this clarion call when he had the opportunity to address his colleague Heads of States at the 9th Ordinary Session of the African Union Summit in Accra. He emphasized, "this audit will identify the strength and weaknesses of the AU and it will answer our question as to whether the AU in its present form has delivered or not". For him, if the leaders decide now on a new organization or a Union Government without the benefit of the audit, they run the risk of falling victim to the pitfalls and problems that have characterized the AU in its brief lifespan. The Prime Minister thus welcomed the decision of the Extra-Ordinary Council for an all-inclusive audit to be conducted. Mr. Mosisili's concern comes amidst wild speculation that the AU Commission had been unable to account for an amount of US $7billion that was spent at a recent meeting held in Senegal. Though details of this allegation are sketchy, other sources at the AU Commission have been expressing similar concerns over the last couple of weeks, calling for the audit of the Union's account. He is therefore pushing for the principle of subsidiarity as contained in the Constitutive Act to be strictly adhered to. For him, it would seek to that the African Union remains a Union of independent sovereign states. In the face of the various arguments being advanced, he presented the position of the government and people of Lesotho, which subscribes to the 'bottoms-up' approach, with the entire process being people driven and not in the case where it would become leaders-driven. "It must be the voices of the masses that determines Africa's ultimate destiny", he said. The government and people of Lesotho have thus adopted the 'Gradualist' approach since according to them, such integration should be evolutionary than revolutionary. Mr. Mosisili thus warned his colleague President, "We must take care not to further divide Africa in our haste to unite it". Nigeria's President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua also opted for 'Gradual Incrementalist' approach, which espouses the need to merge existing institutions and structures within the continent. ? 4. Africa continental government step too far for now Wed 4 Jul 2007, 11:54 GMT By Pascal Fletcher ACCRA, July 4 (Reuters) - It was billed as a meeting of African leaders paying tribute to the lofty pan-African ideal. But an African Union summit in Ghana this week failed to produce a clear roadmap for continental government and laid bare a potentially divisive battle of opposing visions and influence among some leaders of the 53 AU member states. The three-day meeting, a lavish gathering on the world's poorest continent, was launched on Sunday with eulogies for Ghana's first post-independence president, Kwame Nkrumah, a pioneer of Pan-Africanism nearly a half century ago. It petered out close to midnight on Tuesday with a cautious and inconclusive agreement to study further how and when to create a United States of Africa that would stretch from the Cape to Cairo under its own single union government. Host President John Kufuor of Ghana put a brave face on the compromise that ended the summit, praising what he called a "common vision" for continental union. But even he could not hide that three days of speeches and sometimes heated debate had failed to produce even a workable definition of what a United States of Africa would look like. Instead, in a classic bureaucratic compromise, a ministerial committee was mandated to study details and timing and report to the next AU summit in Addis Ababa in January. "The tensions were very serious, the political battle lines were drawn. It was about the continental influence of ambitious leaders," Professor Chris Landsberg, director of the Centre for Policy Studies in Johannesburg, told Reuters. Prominent among the continental crusaders leading the charge for a strong united African federation and government was Libya's flamboyant leader Muammar Gaddafi. Casting himself as a Quixotic "soldier for Africa", Gaddafi had unrolled a pan-African roadshow from Tripoli to Accra, travelling by car to the summit and holding rallies to lobby popular support to his call for a united Africa speaking and acting as one in a globalised world. He was seconded in Accra by the dapper but temperamental Senegalese leader Abdoulaye Wade, who even suggested he might lead a small breakaway group of states willing to sign up to an immediate union government. ECONOMY BEFORE POLITICS But cooler heads prevailed. In the end, the so-called gradualists, mostly southern and east African leaders grouped around South African President Thabo Mbeki, appeared to have won the day with their argument that improved regional economic integration should precede the goal of supra-national political union. "Mbeki had a good conference. There was a clear message in favour of institution building," said Patrick Smith, editor of Africa Confidential, a publication which provides specialist analysis of the continent's affairs. Smith said the "sentimental outpouring" of the union government debate had distracted the conference from more pressing real problems such as the AU's own weak administration, continental poverty and the conflicts in Darfur and Somalia. "The AU itself is in crisis, its dues are not being paid," he said. He believed that the next summit in Addis Ababa was unlikely to dedicate a whole three days to the inspiring but clearly thorny topic of a continental government. In launching the grand United States of Africa debate, the heads of state had ignored widespread scepticism among ordinary Africans, most living in poverty, who find it hard to relate these gatherings to their difficult daily lives. "How can we unite in Africa? If I go to Togo or Benin or Nigeria they treat me different. This thing of a united Africa will take time," said Ghanaian taxi driver Kwakye Asare. Civil society groups begged the summit leaders to show they were serious about unity by throwing open national borders to free movement of people and goods. The Accra meeting left lingering fears of division. "We must take care not to further divide Africa in our haste to unite it," Lesotho Prime Minister Pakalitha Mosisili told his fellow leaders. (Additional reporting by Orla Ryan) ________________________________________________________________________ AOL now offers free email to everyone. Find out more about what's free from AOL at AOL.com.
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