'Africa holds key to problems'
2006-03-14 15:49
Cape Town - Despite their historical past, Africans cannot be absolved of their own responsibility to themselves and their children, said United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Tuesday.
Addressing a joint sitting of parliament, he said the African peoples had achieved much, but "whatever our pride in some specific achievements, much remains to be done".
"Africa continues, as we say in the United Nations, to face a major challenge.
"We all know the mountains of human misery behind those polite words: the grinding poverty and back-breaking toil; the hunger and thirst that force proud parents to give their children polluted water to drink; the millions who die of TB, malaria, Aids and other preventable diseases.
"The violence and humiliation inflicted on women by men, and on citizens by gangsters, warlords and corrupt officials; the misappropriation of natural resources the ravages of ethnic and social conflict..."
Africa has its own responsibility
Annan said it was easy to blame these ills on the past and on outsiders - the depredations of imperialism and the slave trade, the imbalance of power and wealth in a flagrantly unjust world.
"But that cannot absolve us, the Africans of today, from our own responsibility to ourselves and to our children.
"The truth is that development in Africa requires a new approach; and the good news is that South Africa is pointing the way.
"South Africa today reminds us all of the remarkable African capacity for forgiveness and reconciliation, despite the pain of racial discrimination and oppression," said Annan.
South Africa's robust economy, stable democracy, support for the rule of law, and fully inclusive constitution, made the country a beacon of tolerance, peaceful co-existence, and mutual respect between people of different races, languages, and traditions.
South Africa also was pointing the way by doing "what you are doing in your sub-regional neighbourhood", both through the Southern African Development Community and the vitally important peacemaking and peacekeeping contributions in Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
"This is important, because no country today can be unaffected by events in its neighbourhood.
"It is the responsibility of the stronger countries in each neighbourhood to lend a hand to the weaker, without seeking to impose their domination."
Taken the lead with African Union
"And the best neighbours are those who play a constructive part in helping to halt and reverse the spiral before it leads to a complete meltdown," said Annan.
The country was now the biggest foreign investor in the rest of sub-Saharan Africa, and had taken the lead in transforming the Organisation of African Unity into the African Union.
"Today, the kind of things South Africa is doing at home, and promoting on the wider African scene, may show us the best way for developing countries in general to respond to today's world," he said.
- SAPA