Ethiopian Review

ADDIS ABABA (RI) — As the conference opened, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi failed in a bid to hold on to the union’s rotating presidency for an extra year. He will be succeeded by Malawian President Bingu wa Mutharika.

The conference voted to grant Zimbabwe a place in the African Union’s Peace and Security Council. The Union’s decision to admit Zimbabwe to one of its most powerful bodies comes as the country emerges from international isolation after the power-sharing deal between President Robert Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai.

Gaddafi rebukes African leaders

(Reuters) — On the first day of a summit in Addis Ababa, Malawi’s President Bingu wa Mutharika was selected to succeed Gaddafi, even though diplomats said Gaddafi was seeking another term.

The Libyan leader used his farewell speech to again urge African leaders to begin the process of political unification, which was a large part of his agenda during his chairmanship.

He also criticized the AU for “tiring” him with long meetings and making declarations and reports without asking him.

“It was like we were building a new atomic bomb or something,” he said, referring to meetings that had lasted long into the night and that he characterized as “really useless.”

“The world’s engine is turning into 7 or 10 countries and we are not aware of that,” Gaddafi said, dressed in a white robe and black fur hat.

“The EU is becoming one country and we are not aware of it. We have to get united to be united. Let’s be united today.”

An African unity government is a goal of the AU’s founding charter goal and Gaddafi, supported by leaders like Senegal’s Abdoulaye Wade, has been pushing for union for years, saying it is the only way Africa can develop without Western interference.

But members, led by South Africa and Ethiopia, argue the plan is impractical and would infringe on sovereignty.

FOOD SECURITY IS PRIORITY

The Malawian leader promised to make battling hunger a top priority.

“Africa is not a poor continent but the people of Africa are poor,” wa Mutharika said. “Achieving food security at the African level should be able to address the problem.”

In recent years, Malawi has enjoyed bumper harvests following the introduction of a fertilizer and seed subsidy program.

Although leaders fought over who would be chairman, they agreed on the need to support leaders of transitional governments in Somalia, Guinea and Sudan, and for tough action against feuding politicians ignoring AU directives in Madagascar.

The chairman of the AU commission, Jean Ping, said there would be unspecified consequences for parties that go it alone in resolving Madagascar’s year-long political crisis. They have been given 15 days to respond to AU power-sharing proposals.

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki Moon said millions of people continued to be displaced in Sudan’s Darfur region. He added the United Nations would work with the African Union to see off a crisis with grave risks for regional instability.

“In Sudan, time is of the essence. The elections are three months away. The two referenda to determine the future shape of Sudan are in just under a year,” he said.

Ban said the United Nations also would continue to provide financial support to AU peacekeepers in anarchic Somalia, as the conflict has a “direct bearing on global security.”

An AU peacekeeping force of 5,000 — provided by Burundi and Uganda — is struggling to hold back Islamist rebels in Somalia. The AU has repeatedly asked for UN peacekeepers to bolster its efforts but has only been given funding.

UN chief slams Africa power-grabs

(AP) — UN chief Ban Ki-Moon on Sunday criticised power-grabs in Africa in a speech to the continent’s leaders as Libya’s Moamer Kadhafi reluctantly handed over the presidency of the African Union to Malawi.

The build-up to the three-day AU summit in Addis Ababa had been dominated by the expectation that Kadhafi would try to extend his 12-month tenure as head of the 53-member body.

But soon after Ban issued his appeal at the summit’s opening for leaders to stick to the rules, Kadhafi announced that an agreement had been reached for Malawi’s President Bingu wa Mutharika to take the helm for the coming year.

“My brother president of the republic of Malawi will replace me and take over,” Kadhafi said.

The veteran Libyan leader’s presidency of the body has been marked by his efforts to promote his vision of a “United States of Africa” — a project that has made little progress during his 12 months in charge.

It has also prompted awkward questions about the continent’s commitment to democracy, given the absence of free elections in Libya ever since Kadhafi took power in a bloodless coup in 1969.

In his address to the conference, Ban expressed concern about what he called a recent resurgence of “unconstitutional” power changes in Africa and rapped attempts by incumbents to change the law in order to help them stay in office.

“The resurgence of unconstitutional changes of government in Africa is a matter of serious concern,” said Ban, the United Nations secretary general.

“We must also guard against the manipulation of established processes to retain power.”

Africa has been dogged by a series of political crises in the last year, including in Madagascar where President Marc Ravalomanana was toppled in an army-backed coup in March and Guinea where an army junta which came to power in December 2008 was accused of massacring opposition followers.

Other recent trouble-spots include Niger where the president has brushed aside international pleas to allow himself another term in office and Mauritania where the country’s first democratically-elected leader was toppled by the army in August 2008.

In an interview with AFP on Saturday, Ban put particular emphasis on the fate of Sudan, where tension has been mounting in the run-up to a 2011 referendum in which the south is widely expected to choose independence from Khartoum, only six years after signing a peace deal.

He called the situation prevailing in the western Sudanese province of Darfur “a serious situation which reflects and exposes our limitations”.

“The UN has a big responsibility with the AU to maintain peace in Sudan and make unity attractive… This year will be crucially important for Sudan with the election in three months and the referendum in a year,” he said.

Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir arrived in the Ethiopian capital on Friday. His movements have been closely monitored since the International Criminal Court last year slapped him with an arrest warrant over the atrocities committed in the Darfur region since 2003.

Other leaders welcomed to Ethiopia include Zimbabwe’s veteran President Robert Mugabe who managed to stay in power when Morgan Tsvangirai, his challenger in polls in 2008, withdrew from a run-off vote after scores of his followers were killed.

In an interview with AFP in Davos, Switzerland, Tsvangirai said that a delicate power-sharing deal under which he became prime minister had made “significant progress” but warned that “toxic issues” remained to be resolved.

“I cannot predict that a coup will happen or derailment of the project, but I am satisfied that so far all the indications are that this process is irreversible,” he said.

The summit’s official theme is information technology, but the leaders barely touched on the subject in their opening remarks.

The assembled leaders also observed a minute’s silence in memory of the 90 victims of the Ethiopian Airlines crash off the coast of Libya in the early hours of January 25.

They also expressed their sympathy for the people of Haiti whose capital was devastated by a powerful earthquake on January 12, leaving 170,000 people dead and one million homeless.