Mbeki: Africa needs commitment

2002-05-24 18:32

Cape Town - President Thabo Mbeki on Friday called on all Africans to commit "in our millions", on Africa Day on Saturday, to a determined effort to build the African Union and implement the New Plan for Africa's Development (Nepad).

Writing in the African National Congress' website, ANC Today, Mbeki said these two projects "are not merely about the further political and economic integration of our continent, important as these objectives are".

"They are about a true renewal of our continent. They are aimed to achieve Africa's Renaissance, the rebirth of our continent. Africa must become a continent of democracy, peace and safety. It must become a truly welcoming home for all its peoples, regardless of race, colour, ethnicity or religion.

"Africa must become a continent of prosperity and human upliftment. Africa must become a continent of great learning and rich cultural expression. It must become a continent of freedom for women, happiness for the children, respect and support for the disabled and the elderly," he said.

African dream

In celebrating Africa Day 2002, all Africa believed that the continent was poised to begin a new day.

"The millions of our people wait in anticipation for the further maturation of the African dream, building on what has been achieved since the Charter of the OAU was adopted in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in 1963.

"These masses wish for such an outcome because, correctly, they do not want a repetition or continuation of many of the wrong things that have afflicted the peoples of our continent during the last 40 years.

"They do not want to see their countries ruled by non-elected military regimes. They do not want to see their countries torn apart by war, imposing intolerable suffering on the people, as happened in Sierra Leone and elsewhere.

"They do not wish that again we experience the terrible genocide we witnessed in Rwanda. They desire that the millions of refugees and displaced Africans should return to their homes," Mbeki said.

Life of misery

"The peoples of our continent want to see an end to the poverty and underdevelopment, which condemn the majority of Africans to a life of misery. They want an end to the situation according to which as the rest of the world experienced growing economies, our continent regressed into even greater poverty. They want the global marginalisation of Africa to come to an end."

To bring about these results would require the united effort of all the peoples of Africa.

"None of us should stand aside as a spectator in the mistaken belief that the responsibility to rebuild our continent is the responsibility of only some of our people."

Africa's leadership would have to work hard to ensure that corruption in their societies was rooted out, so that all available resources reached especially the poor in their countries, Mbeki said.

- SAPA