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The European Union and a selection of African leaders meet in Brussels, Belgium over the next two days. The EU-Africa Summit has, however, been overshadowed by a boycott by key African leaders who are unhappy with Brussels’ cherry-picking of countries and leaders to attend and those not to.
Europe refused to invite Eritrea, Sudan and Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic to the EU-Africa Summit in violation of a recent AU resolution that said all AU member states must be invited to the summit. The resolution stated that the EU had no jurisdiction in determining the constitution of delegations to the Brussels event.
After barring the three full AU member states and refusing to issue a visa to First Lady, Amai Grace Mugabe, the EU invited Egypt and Morocco. Egypt is under a US-backed military junta that toppled a democratically elected leader, President Mohammed Morsi. Following the coup, the AU suspended that country as the continental bloc does not recognise military governments. Morocco, which is refusing to recognise Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic’s independence, is not an AU member state.
By picking and sidelining which African countries to attend or not to attend the summit in clear disregard of the recent AU Permanent Representatives Committee (PRC) call, the EU is perpetuating its unacceptable customary contempt for African sovereignty.
We regret to note that as the EU disregards African resolutions, many among us don’t seem to care at all. Contrary to the PRC call made only last week in Ethiopia for all Africa to shun the EU-Africa Summit if the EU persisted in determining the composition of African delegations, some of our leaders were already in Brussels yesterday.
By Press time, only Zimbabwe and South Africa had announced they would not attend the conference in recognition of the PRC resolution out of 50 plus AU member states.
“I think that time must pass wherein we are looked as subjects, we are told who must come,” said South Africa President, Jacob Zuma on Sunday.
“We have not attempted to decide when we meet Europe, who must come and who must not come. It is wrong and causes this unnecessary unpleasantness. I thought the AU and EU are equal organisations representing two continents but there is not a single one of them who must decide for others.”
President Zuma is correct in making these strong observations. There are some pretty bad leaders in Europe – Britain’s David Cameron and Germany’s Angela Merkel for example – who have masterminded mass killings and military coups in Libya and Egypt and are working to effect more in Syria and so forth. They overthrew Libya’s last democratically elected leader, Muammar Gaddafi and murdered him in 2011. These have hands dripping with innocent African blood; they trample on democracy and human rights, but Africans have not sought to bar them from meetings.
It saddens us that Africa continues to fall to the old European tactic of divide and rule. Nothing highlights this more at this time than seeing African leaders and the AU Commission abrogating resolutions of their organs.
We were shocked when Eratus Mwencha, a deputy chairperson of the AU commission told the media on Friday that the secretariat of the continental body had concluded arrangements to attend the summit, just the time we had been told that the AU was holding consultations on how to proceed after the PRC boycott decision.
Briefing journalists jointly with Gary Quine, the EU head of delegation to the AU, Mwencha said:
“The trade relations between the two unions currently stand at 251 billion euros and needed to be promoted to attract more Foreign Direct Investment and address other funding gaps to Africa.
“The summit will also resolve on efforts to tackle the challenges of global warming, environmental issues and technology transfer to fast-track Africa’s development.”
Mwencha most likely attended the PRC meeting that urged Africa to avoid the Brussels summit. He is supposed to represent Africa and defend African positions and interests, but he openly defied a decision of a duly constituted organ of the AU.
We don’t foresee any sanctions on him as a continental civil servant or African presidents who undermined the PRC by proceeding to Brussels.
This highlights a frightening state of affairs for the mother continent.
Will Africa ever unite on matters of common interest? Will Africa ever be able to defend its interests against Western dictatorship and hegemonic designs? If not, where will that acquiescence take us?
We remind Mwencha and his ilk that the world’s greatest civilisations were not built on policies of docile appeasement of the oppressor by the oppressed. They were built on strong principles to defend their sovereignties and fundamental interests. Docile appeasement did not win us freedom and independence, and cannot earn us lasting socio-economic development and genuine respect we deserve from those who view themselves as the masters.
President Mugabe is showing the way. President Zuma, particularly in relation to this week’s EU-Africa Summit encouraged us.
Online Reporter