Presidents Omar Hassan al-Bashir of Sudan along with Thabo Mbeki of the Republic of South Africa. Both nations have sought an independent foreign policy towards Africa and the rest of the world.
Originally uploaded by Pan-African News Wire File Photos
By Mike Cohen - Sep 10, 2010
Former South African President Thabo Mbeki accused the United Nations of neglecting its mandate to prevent and halt conflict in Africa,
saying the result was the needless loss of millions of lives.
While “the international community, as represented by the UN Security
Council, is capable of mobilizing the necessary means, it has
repeatedly failed to show the will to assume its legal responsibility
as the principal guarantor of international peace and security,” Mbeki
said in an e-mailed copy of an address to the Global Policy Forum in
Yaroslavl, Russia, today. “Urgent action should be taken to ensure
that international law and procedures relating to the prevention and
resolution of armed conflict are revisited” to rectify this situation.
Mbeki served as South Africa’s second post-apartheid leader between
1999 and his ouster in 2008. Since then he has been working to broker
an end to armed conflict in Sudan.
The Security Council failed to halt the Rwandan genocide in 1994 or
conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo in the late 1990s, which
is estimated to have cost between 3 million and 5 million lives, Mbeki
said.
“Currently, beyond supporting the African Union Mission to Somalia,
the United Nations is refusing to intervene to end the anarchy that
reigns in Somalia,” he said. “Here we have an example of a failed
state, which, among other things, has led to piracy in the high seas
and the establishment of a jihadist base which further escalates the
threat of international terrorism.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Mike Cohen in Cape Town at
mcohen21@bloomberg.net;
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