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'Africa holds key to problems'
14/03/2006 15:49 - (SA)
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," he said.
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