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Africa vows to fight terrorism
28/09/2007 09:47 - (SA)
Dakar - Twenty-three African countries ended a meeting with United Nations experts on counter-terrorism on Thursday resolving to co-operate more closely to better tackle terrorism.
The countries from central and western Africa, many post-conflict and still security fragile, urged each other to be party, without delay, to relevant international conventions on counter-terrorism.
Senegal's director of cabinet in the ministry of justice called on the countries to brace themselves for a complex battle against extremism pointing to the growing links between terrorism and other crimes threatening the region such as drug trafficking, money laundering and arms smuggling.
Birane Niang said: "African countries should therefore be prepared to face the complex problem and strengthen their co-operation. There is no doubt our security mechanisms should be reliable."
Fighting terrorism 'a priority'
Piera Barzano, a Vienna-based expert on terrorism prevention at the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), which organised the three-day meeting in the Senegalese capital, pointed to the tough choices many African countries had to make to invest in counter-terrorism activities.
Barzano said: "Fighting terrorism is a priority competing with other pressing priorities for African countries, at the same time it is becoming clear that terrorism does not choose, so is not possible to say we are not concerned or we have other priority issues."
The region housed some of the most poverty-stricken countries on earth, where millions lived on less than a dollar a day.
But even desperately impoverished countries like Liberia were determined to play their part in the fight against terrorism.
Elias Shoniyin, a Liberian junior minister for international co-operation in the foreign ministry, said: "Liberia has joined the international community to ensure that terrorism will be history and I am sure that it will be possible."
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