Roundup: Great Lakes countries meet on peace, development

More than a dozen African heads of state gathered in Dar es Salaam Friday aimed at bringing peace, unity and prosperity to the conflict-ridden Great Lakes region, which was hailed by the United Nations and the African Union.

The recent improvement on the African continent "remains fragile and needs to be firmly anchored in solid ground for its expansion and sustainability," Tanzanian President Benjamin Mkapa said at the opening ceremony of the first summit of the International Conference for the Great Lakes Region.

"Today, we are gathered here to provide the Great Lakes region with such anchor," he said.

Except for Angola which is represented by its foreign minister, the presidents form Burundi, the Central African Republic, the Republic of the Congo, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya,Rwanda, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia sat together as the core members of the region.

They are expected to adopt an all-inclusive peace plan, the Dares Salaam declaration, to map out the blueprint for peace and development for the region that has been harassed and dogged by civil conflicts, exodus of refugees, famine and killer diseases.

At the summit, African leaders have tackled four key themes -- peace and security, democracy and good governance, economic development and regional integration, human rights and social issues.

"There is realization amongst us that there is need to find solutions to our problems, and this is what has been precisely demonstrated," said Tanzanian Foreign Minister Jakaya Kikwete on Thursday.

Such a conference for peace was co-chaired and hailed by the international community including the United Nations and the African Union. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan who presented the summit said "we come together in a spirit of shared purpose and with a common vision.

This conference builds on several national peace processes. These have gradually built on confidence, and have now reached a level of maturity that allows us to move to the next stage -- to promote constructive regional cooperation."

He called on African countries to stop shifting alliances against each other, suggesting that they solve cross-border issues by stronger regional cooperation. The African Union hailed the convening of the inaugural summit of the international conference as an important event in history.

Speaking on behalf of the AU Commission, Said Djinnit told summiteers that the conference in Dar es Salaam would be important in that the two-day meeting would make courageous decisions on how to move away from wars and conflicts, on how to secure sustainable security, on how to avoid marginalization, on how to orchestrate development and on how to eradicate poverty and diseases.

The summit is expected to work out short-, medium- and long-term workable programs, with the participation of not only heads of state from countries in and outside the continent but also representatives of women, children and non-governmental organizations, added Said.

Such a summit therefore will be a historic milestone that should mark the definite departure of the region from long-running conflicts and expected arrival toward sustainable stability and security.

Before the summit, foreign ministers from the Great Lakes countries and adopted the Dar es Salaam draft declaration after a three-day thorough discussion. The draft suggested the international community support the region in declaring it a "Specific Reconstruction and Development Area" and cancellation of the countries' debt.

The foreign ministers also called for region cooperation in disarmament programs. The leaders in the Great Lakes region were joined by presidents from South Africa, Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe as well as United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan, African Union (AU) Chairman and Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo and AU Commission Alpha Konare for their summit.

The summit was initiated by the United Nations and co-sponsored by the UN and AU, together with a group of 28 countries known as the Friends of the Great Lakes Region.

The summit will also form a tangible inter-ministerial body to see to it that the Dar es Salaam Declaration is materialized first through the formation of national action plans which will be endorsed at the next summit slated for 2005 in Kenya.

The Great Lakes region is rich in resources, but many of its countries are among the world's poorest 48 nations due to longtime conflicts.

It witnessed "Africa's first world war," or the Congolese war between 1998 and 2003, which killed 2.5 million people, and the Rwandan genocide that claimed 800,000 lives in 100 days. By the last decade alone close to 4 million have been killed in wars and conflicts. At present, there are still 3 million refugees within the region.

Source: Xinhua