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Mozambique: Country Opposes Report On 'United States of Africa'
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Agencia de Informacao de Mocambique (Maputo)
29 January 2008
Posted to the web 29 January 2008
Addis Ababa
Mozambique is among the African countries that oppose adoption by the African Union (AU) of a report calling for the creation of the "United States of Africa".
According to Mozambican Foreign Minister Alcinda Abreu, the proposal contains grey areas - notably it fails to specify what type of government this "United States of Africa" would have, and what would happen to the sovereignty of the individual states.
She told the Mozambican reporters in Addis Ababa for this week's AU summit that the report, analysed by the AU Executive council (consisting of the continent's foreign ministers), merely presented the powers of the putative "African Government", and the common values it would hold.
Mozambique, she said, thought that this was a matter that had first to be discussed by each AU member state, and recommendations emerging from such discussions could then be debated in "an appropriate forum".
"This report doesn't answer the question about the kind of government it is intended to create", Abreu said, "whether it should be a confederation, a federation of states, or the model chosen for the European Union in which each state is autonomous. At the last meeting, held in Accra, the heads of state and government recommended that the nature of the state to be created for the continent should be analysed. But so far we don't have this information".
Abreu said that the AU members who want immediate adoption of the report include Libya (which is the main force pushing the idea), Sudan, Benin, Gabon, Senegal, Chad, Cameroon and other countries that receive Libyan support.
Within SADC (Southern African Development Community), there are some countries, which Abreu did not name, which believe that certain aspects of the report should be developed and adopted immediately.
"Most countries on the continent don't want the report on the project to be adopted immediately", she said. "During the meeting the proposal was made to set up a group that will hold a specific session to go into these grey areas concerning the nature of the State, and what will happen to the sovereignty of each AU member".
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This issue dominated the meeting of the Executive Commission, and seems likely to take up much of the time of the summit as well, even though its main theme is supposed to be the industrial development of Africa.
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