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Story: Blair opens up Commission for Africa online

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First I would like to express my appreciation for Blair's initiative in addressing Africa's problems. We Africans know that the problem with Africa lies on its leaders. Power is monopolized in the hands of the few leaders. There is no genuine democracy, they only talk about it to attract the donor community, otherwise they don't seem to care for their poor uneducated people. They don't give opportunaty for the few educated people to participate in the political and administration affairs of their country; instead they prefer to drive them to exile because they are scared of losing their power to them.

So, I believe and initiative from Blair, EU at large or the US, should try to address the people's interest and not the interest of the very few who are in power and who would like to stay in power forever. I have an objection in UK's choice of Ethiopia as the base for the commission of this initiative. This country was involved in a war with its neigbouring country Eritrea on a pretext of a border claim. The fighting came to an end in 2000 when the two countries signed a cease-fire agreement followed by a comprehensive peace deal in Algies, with Algeria, AU, EU and the US as wittnesses and guarantors of the agreement.

According to their agreement, an international commission was set up to examine the case and pass a final and binding decision on the boundary between the countries. This decision was made in April 2002, and it was accepted by both parties at the time. But as time went by and when the work was about to start for the actual implemenatation of the decision on the ground to mark the boundary between the countries, Ethiopia decided to create obstacles and finally rejected the Boundary commisiion's decision.

It became evident that Ethiopia was not willing for peace in the first place. It accepted the deal initially only to attract the donor community. The country's leaders are playing seek-and-hide game and they are trying to fool the international community, which they appear to succeed in many cases. Over a 100 million people in the region (Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia, Djibouti and Sudan) are in danger of another eminnent war, unless the UK and the international community put enough pressure on Ethiopia to accept and abide by the international agreement it signed. It should not be allowed to go by violating the rule of law. The security council and the EU have released statements after statements calling upon Ethiopia to accept the International commissions decision but with no result. What Africa needs at this time is action and not just words.

As a conclusion, I think that Instability and conflict are the major obstacles that prevent Africa from moving forward in the paths of economic and social progress. So a priority task in Blair's commission for Africa should be to push forward and apply all the necessary pressure on the leaders of the continent so that they make peace with eath other, and with their own people. They should give priority to the people in education, health care and other fundamental necessities, than wasting the continent's resources in fighting and corruption for the sake of power and wealth at the expense of their poor people.

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