President Thabo Mbeki has called for a new beginning to tackle Africa's economic and political problems, imploring the continent's leaders, gathered in Durban for the birth of the African Union, to form vibrant partnerships with their people for the fundamental reconstruction of the poverty-wrecked region.
Welcoming 53 African heads of state and hundreds of delegates from across the continent to the opening ceremony of the 38th ordinary session of the assembly of heads of states and governments of the Organisation of African Unity at the International Convention Centre on Monday, Mbeki urged African leaders to expand their economies and make them internationally competitive to ensure that they generate enough resources to provide a better life for their people.
He said African leaders should use the continent's experience of 40 years since independence from colonial rule to take new steps towards the further political and economic integration of the continent as well as its unity.
"It (experience) says that our peoples need democracy, good governance, the eradication of corruption, human rights, peace and stability.
"It informs us that these masses require human development, necessitating that we eradicate poverty and attend to such questions as food security, health, education, clean water, housing, gender equality, safety and security and healthy environment.
"Our experience communicates the unequivocal message that we must respond vigorously to the challenge of ensuring the growth and development of our economies," Mbeki said.
He added that Africa had to overcome the "debilitating effect of inertia, which makes us act in the old ways to which we are accustomed, to do things as we have always done them because this is the way we have always done them. We have to work with the masses of our people in a vibrant partnership for the fundamental reconstruction of our continent.
"The situation demands that we make a new beginning," Mbeki said.
He also had words for critics of the OAU, who had dismissed it as an organisation that was bound to fail, predicting that it wound end in disarray and collapse.
"Nevertheless, the OAU proved our critics wrong. It engaged in struggle for almost four decades to realise the goals its founders set in 1963. It created the possibility for us today to be working confidently towards the establishment of the African Union and the pursuit of the goals stated in the New Partnership for Africa's Development (Nepad)."
