Africans take stand against war

South News, 12 February 2003

AFRICAN leaders have closed ranks with France in opposition to the US-led drive for war on Iraq.

They made their stand at a Franco-African summit in Paris, which has been overshadowed by the controversial presence of Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe.

The use of force, which entails serious risks of destabilisation for the region, for Africa and for the world, should only be a last resort, the summit said in a joint declaration today.

Calling for the continuation of UN weapons inspections as an alternative to war, the statement from 52 African countries and France said: The disarmanent of Iraq is the shared goal of the international community.

The statement mirrors the position set out by Paris, which has repeatedly called for stepped-up inspections as an alternative to US and British calls for quick military action against Iraq.

The Iraq crisis has polarised Europe and particularly poisoned relations between France and Britain, with Mugabe’s presence in Paris another unwelcome irritant in cross-Channel ties.

Chirac, who defended the invitation as an occasion to confront Mugabe face-to-face over human rights abuses and lawlessness in his famine-ridden southern African country, had obtained a waiver to an EU travel ban on the Zimbabwean leader.

Chirac’s spokeswoman Catherine Colonna said he would meet with Mugabe to inform him of the concern in Europe and the world over the situation in Zimbabwe, where near economic collapse and widespread hunger are blamed in part on his land redistribution policy.

The French leader warned the opening session of the Franco-African summit, once limited to former French colonies but now open to the entire continent: The days of impunity, or when people were able to justify the use of force, are over

The world has welcomed the commitment of Africa’s leaders in favour of the principles that underpin the peace and prosperity of peoples everywhere, namely democracy, good governance, an open economy and respect for sovereignty.

Chirac said France wished to renew its commitment to stand alongside the peoples of Africa, which he said lay at the heart of France’s priorities.

Casting a shadow over the summit was the threat of renewed war in Ivory Coast, west Africa, where some 3000 French troops are deployed to keep a fragile peace.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, addressing the summit, joined Chirac in urging the Ivorian government and rebels to respect their commitments under a French-brokered peace deal aimed at ending five months of ruinous civil war.

I call again on all Ivorians, and particularly the country’s political leaders, in particular (President) Laurent Gbagbo, to make the agreement they signed last month a concrete first step towards peace, Annan said.

Gbagbo, conspicuously absent from the summit, has equivocated over implementation of the reconciliation accord. He sent his new Prime Minister Seydou Diarra to Paris in his place.

Chirac told the summit delegates: It is now up to all Ivorians .. to work with determination and good faith to revive a society at peace with itself once more.

Meanwhile, two dozen activists from the media watchdog group Reporters without Borders (RSF) condemned 23 African countries whose leaders were attending the summit for failing to ensure press freedoms.

French riot police kept them far away from the venue in western Paris, and took away their giant banner calling for freedom of the press across Africa.

We want to tell President Chirac that we’ve had enough of this doublespeak: our country presents itself as a model defender of human rights and we are welcoming sinister characters who are dictators, RSF secretary general Robert Menard told reporters.

Annan made an impassioned plea at the summit for redoubled efforts against AIDS, which he called a governance and development crisis of catastrophic dimensions on the world’s poorest continent.

He said women should be placed at the centre of the battle against a scourge affecting Africa more than any other continent, with nearly 30 million people living with HIV or AIDS and some 11 million children orphaned by the disease.

If you want to save Africa, you must save the African woman first, Annan told summit delegates.

AIDS is killing the most productive members of society including teachers, doctors, managers and civil servants the very people responsible for planning and implementing programs to address society’s key concerns, he said.

Warning that the number of AIDS orphans was set to balloon to 20 million by 2010, Annan said: In makeshift households, far from schools, far from opportunities indeed suddenly far from childhood itself they face the bleakest of futures.