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| Sunday, 3 July 2005 |
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African Union a keen but not always successful peacemaker ABUJA, Saturday (AFP) The 53-nation African Union, whose leaders will meet next week, is increasingly taking a lead role in attempting to resolve the continent's many bloody crises but does not always meet with much success. The presidents who will gather in the Libyan city of Syrte are more than ever keen to demonstrate that Africa can tackle its own problems in-house rather than relying on the intervention of richer developed powers. And, under current chairman President Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria, the African Union has plunged its diplomats and peacekeepers into a string of recent conflicts in Burundi, Togo, Ivory Coast and Sudan's Darfur region. Burundi has now held elections and installed a rotating presidency and might well escape from its civil war, but elsewhere talks have stalled and conflicts have either continued or settled into wary and heavily-armed stalemate. The AU has nominated South Africa's President Thabo Mbeki to mediate in the crisis which has seen Ivory Coast split into two warring camps since September 2002 and put pressure on both sides to honour existing agreements. A new agreement was signed on April 6 and reaffirmed in Pretoria on Friday, but deadline after deadline have passed without either side seeming ready to disarm their militias or share genuine political power. It has been a similar story in Darfur, where the Sudanese government is facing two black African rebel armies opposed to the Arab-led regime. After 28 months of war up to 300,000 people are dead and 2.6 million homeless. Three weeks ago government and rebel envoys trooped back to Abuja to reopen peace talks after a six month suspension, squabble over the wording of statements and accuse one another of ceasefire violations. For the past week AU mediators have tried and failed to hold a full plenary session to agree a basic declaration of principles ahead of political dialogue. |
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