The call for collective action came as leaders of the 54-member bloc opened their two-day annual summit in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, where they were addressing a string of crises across the continent.
“Terrorism, in particular the brutality of Boko Haram against our people, (is) a threat to our collective safety, security and development.
This has now spread to the region beyond Nigeria and requires a collective, effective and decisive response,” AU commission chair Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma said in a speech opening the summit.
Conflicts elsewhere, including civil war in South Sudan and the Central African Republic, as well as a new offensive launched on Thursday by Democratic Republic of Congo against Rwandan ethnic Hutu rebels in the east of the country, are also expected to be discussed.
The AU Peace and Security Council called for a regional five-nation force of 7,500 troops to stop the “horrendous” rise of the insurgents.
The proposed force will have the backing of the AU, and will ask for expected UN Security Council approval, plus a “Trust Fund” to pay for it, Dlamini-Zuma said.
More than 13,000 people have been killed and more than one million made homeless by Boko Haram violence since 2009.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told African leaders that Boko Haram was “a clear danger to national, regional and international peace and security”.
African leaders also named Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe to the bloc’s one-year rotating chair, replacing Mauritania’s President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz.
Mugabe, a former liberation war hero who aged 90 is Africa’s oldest president and the third-longest serving leader, is viewed with deep respect by many on the continent — but he is also subject to travel bans from both the United States and European Union in protest at political violence and intimidation of opponents.
He recalled attending the founding of the AU’s predecessor, the Organisation of African Unity in 1963, also in Addis Ababa.
“Africa has come a long way since then,” he said.
The leaders gathered in Ethiopia will also discuss the economic recovery of countries affected by the Ebola virus, setting up a “solidarity fund” and planning a proposed African Centre for Disease Control.
The worst outbreak of the virus in history has seen nearly 9,000 deaths in a year — almost all of them in the west African nations of Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone — and sparked a major health scare worldwide.
With over a dozen elections due to take place this year across Africa, the focus at the talks will also be on how to ensure peaceful polls — likely leaving little time for discussions on the official summit theme of women’s empowerment.
The Institute for Security Studies, an African think-tank, warns that many of these elections “are being held in a context that increases the risk of political violence”. Ban Ki-moon also told African leaders they “cannot afford” to ignore the wishes of their citizens.
“People around the world have expressed their concern about leaders who refuse to leave office when their terms end. I share those concerns. Undemocratic constitutional changes and legal loopholes should never be used to cling to power,” Ban said.
South Sudan’s warring parties met on the sidelines of the AU talks on Thursday, in the latest push for a lasting peace deal.
Six previous ceasefire commitments, however, have failed to end the 13-month-old civil war in the world’s youngest nation.
The South Sudan talks, which are being brokered by the regional East African bloc IGAD, are due to resume on Saturday.
Also topping the agenda is the question of financing regional forces, amid broader debates on funding the AU, a thorny issue for the bloc, once heavily bankrolled by toppled Libyan strongman Muammar Gaddafi.
Ninety-year-old Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe, one of Africa’s most divisive figures, ascended to the rotating chairmanship of the African Union (AU) on Friday, casting a shadow over the continental body’s relations with the West.
The only leader Zimbabwe has known since independence from Britain in 1980 assumed the largely ceremonial role when he was handed the AU flag and gavel at a summit in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa.
In his acceptance speech, Africa’s oldest head of state spoke of the need to guard against foreigners exploiting the continent’s mineral wealth and called for more assistance for African farmers. “African resources should belong to Africa and to no one else, except to those we invite as friends.
Friends we shall have, yes, but imperialists and colonialists no more,” he said, to applause from his peers.
In some corners, Mugabe is feted as a nationalist hero who triumphed over colonial power Britain on the battlefield and at the ballot box, and who remained steadfast in his commitment to the promotion of black African power in the 34 years since.
“Zimbabwe is an important member state, a very committed country,” Algerian Foreign Minister Ramtane Lamamra told Reuters on the sidelines of the summit.
In other corners, however, he is seen as a despotic pariah responsible for human rights abuses, rigged elections and turning one of Africa’s most promising nations into a basket case.
“Mugabe has trashed democracy in Zimbabwe and he and his party have ruined the economy,” said Obert Gutu, a spokesman for the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) in the Zimbabwean capital Harare.
“He lacks the political legitimacy to lead an Africa that should be looking to consolidate democracy and good governance.”
It is a view shared in the European Union and United States, which imposed travel and financial sanctions on Mugabe and his acolytes after election victories over the MDC in 2002 and 2008 marred by violence and charges of vote-rigging and intimidation.
Mugabe denies any wrongdoing.
Some Western nations were “not thrilled” about Mugabe’s appointment, a Western diplomat who follows African affairs said, though adding that it would not disrupt relations with the AU. “We are working with the African Union regardless of the president,” the diplomat added.
As AU chairman, Mugabe can influence topics for debate although other leaders and commissions also frame discussions.
Piers Pigou, southern Africa director for the International Crisis Group think-tank, said the continent needed to show it was improving the quality of its democracies, but that it was not only Mugabe who was likely to dodge such questions.
“Which African leader, if they were made chairperson of the AU, would stick their neck out and push such an agenda?” —Agencies
http://omanobserver.om/africa-seeks-7500-troops-to-fight-boko-haram/
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