Global Policy Forum

African Union (AU) leaders will adopt a security and defense policy at a summit in Libya this month giving the 53-nation body the right to intervene in conflicts around the continent, AU officials said Friday.

Thirty-nine heads of state or government plan to attend the extraordinary summit in Sirte on February 27 and 28 following a meeting of African defense ministers on February 22 and 23. "The defense ministers are expected to finalize a document on the creation of African Common Defense and Security policy which the leaders are expected to adopt," one official said.

Security is possibly the greatest obstacle to Africa's development, with wars such as those in Burundi, Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo scaring off investors, uprooting millions and blighting the economies of entire regions. Progress in stabilizing the world's poorest continent is key to the AU's ambitious economic recovery plan, the New Partnership for Africa's Development, which aims to lure Western investment in return for improvements in governance.

The AU's inaugural summit in South Africa in 2002 approved the creation of a Peace and Security Council that will have greater powers to tackle conflicts than its predecessor in the Organization of African Unity, which the AU replaced. According to a draft policy framework obtained by Reuters, the policy aims "to strengthen Africa's capacity for dealing with conflicts, including instances of external aggression."

Definitions of external threats include invasion, use of mercenaries, international terrorism and terrorist activities and accumulation of weapons of mass destruction. Other situations that could trigger intervention include coup d'etats, situations which prevent and undermine the promotion of democratic institutions including the absence of the rule of law and good governance.

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