By Fabienne Pompey
Lome - African leaders meeting in Lome on Tuesday discussed ways to curb the most pressing problems plaguing the continent: relentless war, a ravaging Aids pandemic, and crushing debt.
More than 30 African heads of state and government held closed-door talks at a main congress hall on the second day of the 36th summit of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) in the Togolese capital.
The first subject, how to intensify the fight against Aids, was raised by South African President Thabo Mbeki, who has incurred wrath from Aids victims and activists for resisting calls to provide the anti-retroviral drug AZT to pregnant HIV women, citing doubts about its efficacy and toxicity, and the prohibitive costs of the drug.
He has also garnered criticism for supporting dissident scientists who say that Aids, which combined with HIV affects 4,2 million people in South Africa, is actually caused by social problems such as under-development, poverty and malnourishment. South Africa is hosting the international Aids conference in Durban at the same time as the OAU summit.
At the summit's opening, Togolese President Gnassingbe Eyadema proposed that Africa develop a drug-producing industry for manufacturing Aids medications. Aids drugs and treatment are unaffordable for nearly all Africans afflicted with the disease.
With notable exceptions, such as Senegal and Uganda, African leaders have been lax in making the fight against Aids a priority.
Meanwhile, Eyadema, who has just taken over the rotating presidency of the OAU, launched the debate on economic concerns in his opening address.
He said African debt has grown from an estimated $116-billion in 1990 to $320-billion in 1998, amounting to about 270 percent of annual revenue across the continent.
Summit participants also discussed civil conflict, affecting some 20 out of 53 African countries, a day after UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said Africa was the only region in the world where the number of armed conflicts was increasing.
Noting that 33 of the world's 48 least developed countries are on the continent, Annan said: "This is not something others have done to us. It is something we have done to ourselves. We have mismanaged our affairs for decades and we are suffering the accumulated effects."
African leaders debated the issue of military intervention against separatists on the Indian Ocean island of Anjouan. The OAU has not deployed armed forces since its creation in 1963, but in early July threatened the Anjouan separatists with a military intervention after putting in place an embargo.
The island has already had its international telephone lines and transportation routes cut and an oil embargo imposed.
Anjouan unilaterally broke away from the Comoros in August 1997, a move that was not recognised internationally.
South Africa, along with other countries, wants the OAU to strengthen the embargo, and would be in favour of imposing a maritime blockade on the island, diplomats said.
African diplomats expressed "serious concern" about Ivory Coast, where a two-day mutiny broke out on July 4 over payment bonuses allegedly promised to soldiers who brought junta leader Robert Guei to power in December 1999.
The resurgence of war in Sierra Leone was also on the agenda, with west African leaders having agreed with Annan to set up a body to make their voice heard more powerfully on the crisis.
After meeting Annan on Monday, the heads of state of Ghana, Guinea, Mali, Nigeria and Togo and the foreign minister of Liberia decided to "set up a co-ordinating mechanism to tighten co-operation and strengthen dialogue between the Sierra Leone government, the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) and the United Nations".
Ecowas was reported to be furious after the UN announced a decision to set up an inquiry into allegations that Liberia has been trading in illegal Sierra Leonean diamonds and fuelling the conflict there.
Ecowas considers Liberia's President Charles Taylor, who has close links to the rebels of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), an essential part of the effort to stop the war in Sierra Leone. - Sapa-AFP