Excerpts from Ghadafi speech at the AU meeting in Libya

[RWalker]

We are honoured to have you with us today at the inauguration of the Fifth Ordinary Summit of the African Union. I welcome you in the city of Sirte which the Libyans call the frontline city because it was confronting the colonial onslaughts and Sirte resisted several colonial campaigns aimed at the heart of Africa since the Roman, Byzantine, Turkish and Italian colonial eras, alongside other incursions by the vandals who were seeking to penetrate deep into the African continent. Sirte was always the first line of defence against those campaigns. Leaders of the great African Union: let us remember that five years have now passed since the union was established and I want you to take note that these five years are not short in the current calculation of the passage of time. I would say that the pace at which were moving during those five years was not satisfactory. This is one of the concerns about Africa which makes the African people feel frustrated that the union which is supposed to achieve their aspirations has slid into the same mire which engulfed the Organisation of African Unity. Some of the unions institutions have yet to be established, namely the African Central Bank, the African Monetary Fund and the court of the African Union. Now we should put an end to this and assume our historical responsibilities. These institutions should be there. If any country has voluntarily offered to host those institutions and was not able to do that they should give way to any other member state to host an institution which has yet to be established. We compete to host union institutions and this is something positive but sometimes we don't bear our responsibilities to do what we should vis a vis these institutions on which we pin great hopes for the African Union. As stated in Article 3, Section B the objectives of the union include safeguarding its integrity and independence. We put this in the statute and the people ratified it. But what does this mean? What have we done to defend the sovereignty of the member states and their integrity and independence. We are in need of a means of defence. We promulgated the Security and Defence Charter and it was a great achievement but this should not be only paper - there should be a mechanism for its implementation. Who should preside over the African Peace and Security Council? Who should be the commander of the African Peace Keeping Forces and who decides on the deployment of these troops when there is a need for them to be deployed, as the third statute decrees. Who implements the Joint Security and Defence Charter. We are in dire need for the defence minister to implement this? In section C the Constitutive Act calls for the speeding up of the social and economic integration of African. We put that in the statute but we did not put it into practise. Acceleration is on - we should speed up the social, economic and political integration. Why did we write the word 'acceleration' - because there was a need to speed up the social, political and economic integration. The following paragraph of the statute says preparing a conducive environment for the continent to play an appropriate role in the world economy at an international negotiations but how can we prepare the continent to play such a role in the international economy when, for example, Gambia is negotiating with the giant blocs on an individual basis, along with Tunisia, Libya, Djibouti and so on. What are we going to achieve? What weight do these states have vis a vis the huge markets and great blocs: China, Japan, Nafta, Kafta or Euro. A collective means is required to achieve this. Therefore we have to appoint a minister for foreign trade who can negotiate with the major blocs in the world on behalf of the one African market. This market should have its fair share of competition in international organisations. We are a big consumer and producer market but who represents it now? We are doing that individually. There is a need to express ourselves collectively. Therefore there is no alternative but to appoint a minister of foreign trade who can collect Africa's exports, no matter how small. When they are brought together they will become huge when they are placed on the international markets. All of Africa's orders must be collated, no matter how small. Then they will become huge when they are placed on the market for bidding. Without a minister of foreign trade we cannot play this role which was stipulated by the Constitutive Act.

The fourth article of the statute speaks about devising a joint defence policy for the continent. We have worked out a charter for security and defence and the peace and security council. But the two need a defence minister to achieve this policy. We laid down the general policy which needs somebody to implement it. We have to have a federal defence minister because such a minister will oversee and lead the council of peace and security. We have to have peace keeping forces to intervene when necessary and military industries and military training to carry out those missions. All of this has to be under the supervision of the federal minister. Who will oversee this now? No one. We have to remember during this summit the shortfalls of the Organisation of African Unity which was in place from 1963 - 2000 . During its 40 year life span this organisation did not achieve anything. We meet every year without achieving anything which is needed by the African people. I hope that we will not find ourselves in a situation where we again squander our opportunities and lose out like the Organisation of African Unity. Fifteen years have no passed since the treaty of Abuja, the African Economic Community. That treaty which stipulated that something would be achieved in the first year and something else would be achieved in the following year for a period of 15 or 20 years. Fifteen years have elapsed but we are not coming any closer to the implementation of the treaty which created the economic bloc. When we sensed that the Organisation of African Unity had failed the regional groups started to form and the existing regional groups are were formed because the Organisation of African Unity failed.

This is what Nkrumah warned about since 1963 and I see it is appropriate to quote some words from his speech of 1963 in which he predicted what we are going through now. Had we heeded his advice at that time Africa would now be like the United States of America or at least close to it. But we did not heed his advice, and even worse we ridiculed those predictions. So we are still standing in the same place we were in in 1963. Nkrumah said :"I warned in Addis Ababa that unless we unite as soon as possible under one government there will be incidents over borders and our people in their desperate attempt for a better standard of living will rebel against the revolutionary authority and saviour of the people". This is exactly what happened. All revolutionary authorities were overthrown. We have problems over borders. If we made one step forward the enemies made several steps and our weakness is growing and widening and benefiting our enemies. Subsequently conditions in Africa will be conducive to the neo-colonialists. This is what Nkrumah said. The call to achieve African unity gradually means the sacrificing of Africa on the altar of neo-colonialism. Nkrumah said :"Then the time and place were overcome and are no longer considered an obstacle." This is the speech Nkrumah made in 1968. What about now in the third millenium. Nkrumah also says unless you are able to establish bigger industrial complexes in Africa and this can only be achieved collectively we will be in a situation where we are forced to leave our cultivation to the mercy of the foreign cash crop markets and face the same instability which followed the overthrowing of the colonialists. What is the point of building capacities, training farmers and providing machines and even the capital for development if we cannot guarantee a fair price and an accessible market. Who is going to provide this? You cannot do that unless you are supported by a unified negotiating position, a single market and one minister of foreign trade and a single export policy along with a unified customs and one tariff. What did the farmers gain from political independence if they are not guaranteed worthwhile earnings and a better standard of living. This is true. Then he says that African unity is the only way to heal the wounds of the cross border conflicts between neighbouring states. Nkrumah says the remedy for these illnesses is within our grasp, staring us in the face at every customs post between two African countries. Nkrumah said that this wound is found at every barrier. We have to be united. We do not have to compromise our sovereignty, in large and small matters. He means that those countries who are using their sovereignty as a pretext to undermine African unity. But their sovereignty was undermined and threatened by a lack of African unity. We have to unite but we do not have to compromise our sovereignty and we can now reach a political union based on defence. Look at what Nkrumah was demanding since 1963 regarding common issues like defence, foreign affairs, citizenship, currency and a central bank. The central bank was an issue for which Nkrumah campaigned since 1963. We have to unite in order to achieve total liberation for our continent. We need a mutual defence system with a supreme leadership to guarantee peace and stability in Africa. These are sound predictions. Nkrumah says there is no chance for an independent African country today to follow an independent path of economic development. Those of us who have tried to do that were destroyed and forced to return to the framework of the old colonial rule. There is no African state which can afford to be independent or become a target for re-colonisation. This situation cannot be changed unless we have a coherent and just policy on the level of the continent. The first step towards that is by creating an integral economy and a unified monetary zone. Our proposals since 1963 contain one voice for Africa, a single currency, an African monetary zone, an African central bank, a continental communication system. These are the words of Nkrumah in 1963. His words were brushed aside and Africa paid the price. The average African has paid a price in the form of subjugation to disease, exploitation, backwardness and blackmail.


...

We cannot make the future of Africa by begging. Begging cannot make the future of any nation, nor it can make the future of Africa. Begging at the doors of the big 8, 10 or 7 cannot make the future of Africa. We are in need for a plan for our mutual cooperation, and between the big or the small. We offend Africa when we go to the doors of the big and extend our hands seeking charity. For when we ask for the debts to be alleviated, written off, or rescheduled we subject ourselves to one-hundred insults and we deserve them because we exaggerated the use of debts...


(speech translated into English by the JANA news agency)