Date: 10/07/2003
Source: The Presidency
Title: Mbeki: 2nd Ordinary Session of Assembly of Heads of State & Government of the AU


OPENING STATEMENT BY HE PRESIDENT TM MBEKI, OUTGOING CHAIRPERSON OF THE AFRICAN UNION, AT THE 2nd ORDINARY SESSION OF THE ASSEMBLY OF HEADS OF STATE AND GOVERNMENT OF THE AFRICAN UNION, Maputo, Mozambique, 10 July 2003

Your Majesty, King Mswati III,
Your Excellencies and Dear Brothers, Heads of State and Government,
Your Excellency, Mr Kofi Annan, Secretary-General of the United Nations,
Your Excellencies Ministers and Ambassadors,
Your Excellencies, the Interim Chairperson and Members of the Commission of the African Union,
Distinguished Delegates,
Distinguished Guests,
Members of the Media,
Ladies and Gentlemen:

We meet once again under the bright winter sunshine of the African sky, in a land of peoples who have welcomed us with open arms and the most generous of our traditional African hospitality that we have become accustomed to and are proud of. I wish to express our heartfelt collective appreciation to our brother, President Chissano, and through him to the government and people of Mozambique for their generosity.

Colleagues

The past year was again a challenging period in our efforts towards the regeneration of our continent. We continued to experience occasional setbacks as we march forward towards a new era in the evolution of our continent.

At the same time, however, there is no doubt that as a continent we have begun to experience a rebirth. We have started a journey of renewal, of reclaiming our glorious past, of using that which is good and best in our collective experience, for our development and for a prosperous future.

Indeed we have declared this, the 21st century, the African century, knowing the challenges that face our continent as it strives to clamber out of the chasm of despair into which it has been cast by the disheartening history of slavery, imperialism, colonialism, neo-colonialism, apartheid, economic exploitation and marginalisation.

We all agree that the new African world that we seek to build is one of democracy, peace and stability, sustainable development and a better life for all our people.

We articulated this rebirth of our continent during our Extraordinary Summit in Sirte on 9 September 1999, when we discussed ways of amending the OAU Charter to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of our Organisation. We will recall that we adopted the Sirte Declaration expressing our wish to establish the African Union in conformity with the ultimate objectives of the OAU Charter and the provisions of the Abuja Treaty.

We also decided to accelerate the process of implementing the Abuja Treaty, in particular regarding the shortening of its implementation periods; the speedy establishment of all the institutions provided for in the Abuja Treaty, such as the African Central Bank, the African Monetary Union, the African Court of Justice and in particular, the Pan-African Parliament; and the strengthening and consolidating the of regional economic communities as the pillars for achieving the objectives of the African Economic Community and realising the envisaged Union.

Since the historic Summit in Sirte, we adopted the Constitutive Act of the African Union during the Lom