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Africa: Do Not Confuse One Country With a Continent - Guebuza
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Agencia de Informacao de Mocambique (Maputo)
5 November 2007
Posted to the web 5 November 2007
Maputo
Mozambican President Armando Guebuza on Sunday warned against the trend in some western countries to regard Africa as if it were a single nation, so that when some African leaders make mistakes, all of Africa takes the blame.
Speaking at a press conference at the end of the Third Africa- Germany Forum, held over the weekend in the German town of Eltville, Guebuza stressed that, just like European states, African ones have their differences and do not all face the same problems.
The trend to regard Africa as homogenous, Guebuza said, meant some western countries were inclined to think it not worth supporting any African countries, just because one has not acted as hoped.
Guebuza was speaking alongside host president Horst Koehler, and three other African presidents, Festus Mogae of Botswana, Umaru Yar Adua of Nigeria, and Thomas Boni Yahi of Benin.
Guebuza praised Koehler for his defence of the position that all African countries whose leaderships are committed to governing democratically, and who have done all in their power to rescue their peoples from poverty, should be supported.
He stressed the importance of dialogue between African and European countries, and between Africa and other continents. Only thus could mutual understanding be improved, Guebuza argued.
Yar Adua made specific mention of the Zimbabwean crisis, declaring that holding the Europe-Africa summit scheduled for Lisbon in December could not be made conditional on Zimbabwe or its president, Robert Mugabe, not participating. That would be precisely the mistake of confusing one country with an entire continent.
Yar Adua claimed it made no sense to threaten the summit, or to prevent Mugabe from attending. He agreed there were aspects of Mugabe's rule that should be condemned - but this should not be confused with a multilateral event such as the summit.
Koehler stressed the importance of the Lisbon summit as an opportunity to draw up a platform for cooperation between the two continents.
The Africa-Germany Forum, attended by representatives of more than 45 African and German civic organisations, took place under the theme "The Challenges of Change - the African and German Response".
Opening the event on Friday, Koehler admitted that globalisation has not benefitted Africa to the same extent that it has other continents.
He said that the persistence of poverty and endemic diseases in Africa could not be blamed simply on the peoples of the continent, because in recent decades they have shown great willingness and determination to climb out of the economic abyss.
He was sure that Africa could have exceeded its recent annual average growth rate of five per cent, if the rest of the world had purchased African goods at fair prices, or had increased its aid to the continent.
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Koehler warned that the world is making a mistake if it fails to realise that the fate of Africans is intrinsically linked to the fate of everyone else on the plant, and that there will be no better world while 600 million Africans are left in grinding poverty.
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| Copyright © 2007 Agencia de Informacao de Mocambique. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections -- or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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