African Union Summit Kicks Off in Tanzania

[XXPANTHAXX]

Harare Bureau

The international community should partner the African Union in
addressing the problem of refugees and internally displaced persons,
United Nations secretary-general Mr Ban KiMoon has said.

He said this in a message delivered on his behalf by Mr Antonio
Guterres, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, at the opening ceremony
of the AU special summit on refugees, returnees and internally displaced
persons that began at the Commonwealth Speke Resort here yesterday.

Mr Ban urged African countries to come together to address the drivers
of the problem of refugees and internally displaced persons.

He said the causes were not only conflict situations but also natural
disasters like floods and drought that perennially ravage different
parts of the continent.
Turning to his own message to the opening session, that was attended by
President

Mugabe and other Heads of State and Government and ministerial
representatives, Mr Guterres drew kudos from the delegates when he
linked the prevalence of refugees in Africa to external destabilisation.

He trashed the stereotype of endogenesis saying even he — a white
Portuguese — owed the enjoyment of his human rights to African
liberation movements that helped topple the dictatorship of Marcelo
Caetano by running his sponsored regimes off their territory.

“I lived under a dictator (then Portuguese leader Marcel Caetano). My
human rights were only safeguarded by the liberation fighters of
Southern Africa who drove the Portuguese colonialists out of Southern
Africa," he said.

Opening the Summit, host President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni urged the rest
of the continent to learn from Southern Africa, which fought just wars
of liberation after properly diagnosing the problem of colonialism.

To this end, he urged African countries to build strong institutions and
armies to safeguard peace and also to put an end to all externally
sponsored wars of aggression.

Mr Museveni attributed the presence of an estimated 17 million refugees
and internally displaced persons in Africa to poor, dysfunctional and
disorganised institutions on the continent.

He said the situation was created and perpetuated by colonisers so that
they could continue plundering the continent's resources.

''When you are badly organised you tempt others to come and colonise
you. So by being disorganised you invite the greedy to come and organise
you.

“Even the Bible says, in the Lord’s Prayer, ‘lead us not into
temptation’. So by disorganisation we tempt the greedy to come and
destabilise us, we are actually going against the Lord’s word.”

The Ugandan leader attributed the failure of mediation efforts in the
continent's hotspots to externally driven initiatives saying outsiders
compounded the problem by firstly, misdiagnosing the causes of the
conflicts, and secondly prescribing the wrong solutions.

To this end, he urged Western agencies to come in as helpers and not
drivers of Africa's peace building and peacemaking efforts.

AU Commission chairman Dr Jean Ping hailed the Summit saying the Draft
Convention for the Protection and Assistance of Internally Displaced
People, set to be adopted today, would help address the challenges of
refugees by presenting the first legally binding instrument to address
their concerns.

After the opening ceremony, the leaders toured an exhibition of
artifacts mounted by internally displaced people of the Great Lakes
Region and Uganda, before retiring into a closed session. The agenda
covers addressing the root causes and ways of preventing forced
displacement; encouraging burden sharing and dealing with protracted
situations; reconciliation and post conflict reconstruction; dealing
with refugees in mixed migratory movements; and establishing effective
and sustainable mechanisms to deal with natural disasters, climate
change and food security.

Today, the leaders are expected to adopt and sign the Draft African
Convention on the Protection and Assistance of Internally Displaced
Persons in Africa. This is the world's first such convention.