Durban, South Africa — The first ever African Union summit ended Wednesday, with a common pledge from the assembled leaders to bring meaningful change to the continent to benefit their peoples.
In his closing address, the South African president Thabo Mbeki, also the inaugural head of the African Union, said: "We have created a lot of expectations with the birth of the AU, and we cannot disappoint them."
But there are people who are already disappointed by one of the first decisions taken by the new continental union, to maintain an embargo on Madagascar taking its seat in the AU, The African hierarchy refused to recognize the government of the Indian Ocean islands new leader, Marc Ravalomanana, calling it 'unconstitutional.
The position on Madagascar was a hand-me-down from the Organisation of African Unity, the AUs predecessor, which ceased to exist on Monday after a 39 year history. Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo told a news conference that "anybody who comes to power unconstitutionally cannot sit with us."
But there was not universal agreement on Madagascar, with reports of heated debates among the heads of state. They finally called for a repeat presidential election before the island could join the brand-new AU.
Obasanjo, along with the majority of African leaders in Durban, was adamant about not admitting Madagascar, adding "we have put our foot down. If at this stage of the African Union we dont do things on principle, we are going to fail before we start."
The United States, France and other European powers have recognized the Ravalomanana administration. However African leaders said they would be not be guided by the Wests decisions but by fundamental AU principles.
As the presidents and senior officials began leaving the South African port city of Durban on Wednesday, Madagascar - and the other crises that existed on the continent before their arrival - remained a reality, testing their resolve to take swift and effective action to end the many conflicts in Africa.
This was despite renewed efforts and high-level talks to try to help resolve the four-year war in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), which is crippling the whole Great Lakes region. In a meeting brokered by Mbeki, which ran well into the early hours of Wednesday, President Paul Kagame of Rwanda - which has troops over the border in the DRC - met the Congolese leader, Joseph Kabila, in the presence of the UN secretary-general Kofi Annan.
No concrete progress was made, with both sides sticking to their positions.
The Congolese had mooted a buffer zone, in the form of a 'security curtain manned by UN peacekeepers at the border, keeping out the Rwandan army. But Kagame told journalists on Wednesday that "to be able to pull out our troops, we need our security concerns addressed. The concerns of Rwanda remain and they have not changed."
Rwanda, which backs one of the Congolese rebel groups, maintains that it needs its continued military presence in Congo because the Kinshasa government has failed to secure the borders. Kigali accuses Kinshasa of continuing to harbour remnant Hutu Interahamwe militias, responsible for the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.
"They want to cause problems and want to come back to continue the genocide," said Kagame, concluding that until the militias were disarmed "those concerns are why we went into Congo, they are our main demand and they will be our demand until they are addressed by those concerned."
Kagame said Rwanda was prepared to continue talking with Congo, but would not commit himself further.
The AU's Peace and Security Council, whose creation was approved by the Durban summit is meant to handle precisely this sort of intractable problem in Africa. Once fully operational, the council should have the mandate to dispatch troops to continental trouble spots.
Although by agreeing to the council, African leaders have effectively accepted a partial erosion of their sovereignty - hitherto sacrosanct under the now defunct OAU - the proof will be in the pudding. Analysts say the real test will come if it ever becomes necessary to send in an African peacekeeping or rapid intervention force, or allow the monitoring elements of the Peace and Security Council to intervene.
And that is not forgetting the new system of peer review, albeit voluntary, which would require a 180 degree reversal for some of the presidents belonging to the old guard of African leadership, who have now joined the AU.
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Even some of the new-style presidents appeared to contradict each other on the final day of the summit. The incoming AU chairman, Mbeki, told journalists at a final news briefing that a special "extraordinary" summit would be held in six months time, ahead of the next scheduled annual assembly of heads of state in Maputo, Mozambique in 2003.
Mbekis announcement appeared to overrule some of his fellow presidents, including Obasanjo. The Nigerian leader announced a few hours earlier that there had been "two tendencies", one favouring the next summit in six months, but the majority opting for 12. "I believe that the point of view for an ordinary summit a year from now carried the day," Obasanjo told journalists.
But Mbeki later told a news conference after the closing ceremony, that the next summit "will take place in six months time. What Im telling you is a resolution of the summit."
The South African leader said the special summit had been agreed to allow early debate on some of the tricky and more difficult amendments to the AUs founding Act proposed by the Libyan leader, Colonel Muammar Al-Gaddafi.
