DURBAN, July 9: African heads of state on Tuesday launched the African Union (AU), a body designed to integrate Africa along the lines of the European Union, with the power to send in peacekeepers to halt genocidal wars.

“This is a moment of hope for our continent and its peoples,” declared South African President Thabo Mbeki, the AU’s first chairman, saying the time had come for Africa to take its rightful place in global affairs.

“We must now defeat poverty, disease and ignorance and end the senseless wars and conflicts causing so much pain and suffering,” he said.

He was speaking as the birth of the union in Durban, on South Africa’s Indian Ocean coast, was celebrated at King’s Park stadium before a crowd of 30,000 people with a 21-gun salute, dancing, singing and a plane flyover.

“Africa has come to Durban to decide what it is going to do about itself,” he said.

The AU replaces the 39-year-old Organisation of African Unity (OAU), which was formed as the continent emerged from colonial rule but whose efforts to end the multiple conflicts in Africa were hamstrung by its doctrine of non-interference in the affairs of member states.

The AU was initially conceived by Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi, who first proposed it as a full-blown “United States of Africa”.

At the stadium, he delighted the crowd with a fiery speech in English, declaring: “You are the masters of your continent. You are strong now.”

To Zimbabweans and South Africans, he said: “Forgive the whites — we are bigger than them. If they want to go back, OK, goodbye to them.”

Kadhafi and Mugabe drew loud applause from the crowd but former South African president Nelson Mandela stole the show and got a standing ovation.

The AU will establish a Peace and Security Council, based on the UN Security Council, which will have a stand-by peacekeeping force drawn from African armies to intervene to stop crimes against humanity.

It will also establish an African parliament, an African Court of Justice, a central bank and, eventually, an African Economic Community with a single currency.

Amara Essy of Ivory Coast, the outgoing OAU secretary general, will be president of the AU’s commission, which replaces the OAU general secretariat and will be organised like the European Commission — the EU’s administrative wing.

The AU officially came into being after the African leaders unanimously ratified the documents setting up its four key bodies — the commission, the assembly (the annual summit), the executive council (of foreign ministers) and the permanent representatives (ambassadors).

It has 53 members — every African nations except Morocco, which withdrew from the OAU in 1985 after the admission of Western Sahara, a territory claimed by Rabat.

But the chair of Madagascan President Marc Ravalomanana was empty at the Durban summit.

He was barred from the meeting after winning a presidential election in December that the OAU considered illegitimate, even though his victory was confirmed by Madagascar’s constitutional court.

Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade, who wanted Ravalomanana to be present, said the people of Madagascar “should not go without representation” at the “historic conference” and tried to raise the issue of who would represent Madagascar during the summit’s plenary session. But Mbeki ruled it should be discussed later, behind closed doors.

Despite an AU emphasis on the importance of democracy, its leaders are still a mixture of elected representatives and strongmen who seized power.

And the problems facing Africa remain the same — abject poverty, a massive AIDS pandemic, endemic malaria, a crippling debt burden, tough terms of trade with the rest of the world and some 20 conflicts.—AFP