ADDIS ABABA – The African Union said yesterday the exclusion from its summit of Mauritania and Guinea, which both suffered coups recently, proved the continent had moved on from its chequered past.
A Mauritanian military junta carried out a bloodless coup in August, overthrowing the West African country’s first freely elected head of state. A military junta seized power in Guinea in December. ‘You have seen the empty seats … I am told some of the delegation members from those countries are outside,’ Tanzania’s Bernard Membe told fellow AU foreign ministers meeting ahead of a February 1-3 summit in Ethiopia. The AU was formed in 2002 to replace the Organisation of African Unity, which had often been criticised for its failure to intervene or even comment on violence and tyrannical rule. The AU has tried to be more outspoken, and Membe urged his colleagues to reason with the delegates from Mauritania and Guinea and explain to them why they had been excluded. – Nampa-Reuters
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