Boutaflika's opening speech at African - European summit
Regional-Algeria-Africa, Politics, 4/4/2000

The following is the text of Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika's opening remarks yesterday at the current African - European summit in Cairo, as presented by the official Algerian news agency:

Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,

Africa and Europe are meeting today. It is both an intrinsically important event and one, which could have particular significance for certain major problems in our time, problems in which Africa has, in many regards, vital stakes.
 
I should firstly like to thank all those who have wanted this summit to be held and pay tribute to all the efforts which here, there and everywhere, have made it possible. I should especially like to thank president Hosni Mubarak and the Egyptian authorities for the hospitality that they have so kindly shown this gathering, in a place which is a profound symbol of the evolution of mankind and the ancient links between our two continents.

Let this historic site be a witness to a new departure, a veritable renewal of these links, for the furtherance of mutual understanding and universal progress.

Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,

The world has entered a new era following two centuries of history marked by prodigious development in science and technology, but also troubled for a long time by the unleashing of power struggles, ideological fanaticism, and the abuse of force, which have caused immense disparities between the living conditions and the levels of cultural and technical development of different peoples.

Africa has suffered from this more than any other part of the world. Africa is experiencing, in an atmosphere of daily suffering and frustration, this ever-growing discrepancy between peoples, between the southern and the northern hemispheres.

For its part, during these last two centuries, Europe has long been at the forefront of intellectual and scientific change, but has also been, let it be frankly said, the main author of the excesses which have generated so much collective misery throughout the world, so many injustices, so many human trauma, even whilst the civilizing progress that the countries of this continent have promoted has been couched in the most complete expression of the supreme values in men's lives: dignity, equality and liberty.

The countries of western Europe, weakened by two world wars and the loss of colonial empires due to the emergence of movements of emancipation and liberation throughout the third world, overtaken in the fields of technological capacity, military power and political influence in a world immersed in a Cold War for fifty years, have undertaken a process of unification which has led to remarkable results in terms of economic integration and capacity for international negotiation.

We should pay tribute to the progressive emergence of this grouping because we are convinced that the demands for equality and fair dealings in international relations would not sit well with a monopolized concentration of power and influence.

It is to this new power --an important determining factor in international economic relations and one which is gaining more and more political clout-- that Africa is addressing itself today. It is doing this in the hope of being heard, all the more since it believes that Europe should be more inclined to be understanding. For, above and beyond the dark episodes of history's encounters, and because of them, Europe is more able to realize the complex nature of our continent's terrible difficulties and to measure their depth. Because, also, Europe, which has had a tumultuous, fragmented history, of which it still experiences here and there some upsurges, can understand the weight of the consequences of the past on the lives of people and the building of States.

Perhaps, finally, because our geographical proximity and the direction which our exchanges have taken, have led us to think that Europe is more aware of our problems, that it, more than anyone, can help us in overcoming them and that it will undoubtedly, with the Africans themselves, have the most to gain from helping us in the development and the developing, of our continent's gigantic resources, faced with the emerging groupings in the Americas and in the Pacific.

Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,

The message that I am entrusted, on behalf of Africa, with conveying firstly to our partners in the European union, consists of two main points.

The first is that Africa has developed a new awareness of the fact that it is lagging behind, and, with the advent of globalization, that there is a new risk of being pushed even further outside of the general movement of progress. As it is conscious of its own responsibility for the tragic situations it is experiencing. Africa has learned from its failures and the new demands of our time.

The OAU summit, held in Algiers last July, marked, in this regard, an important step. The will to settle, through consultation and dialogue, the fratricidal conflicts that are adding to the misery of the population and cruelly diverting energies and resources which are already so inadequate; the will also, to work, both individually and collectively, towards the promoting, on the political level, of democratic principles, that of resolutely fighting against the abuse of the law, against corruption and the will to develop more strictness, more rationality and more efficiency in the management of public affairs, were all forcefully asserted and reasserted in Algiers. Finally, the will to expand inter-regional economic cooperation which could be an important means of common development and the improving of the conditions of insertion into the world economy for each of us.

In this regard, very positive improvements have occurred recently in our continent. Such improvements are under way and constitute for Africa a cause of a legitimate pride and an encouragement for forward move.

On a collective level, the OAU has recently and significantly contributed to bringing the parties involved in painful open conflict closer to finding fair solutions. We are calling on the international community to become more closely involved in this process and to show concrete support for the mechanisms of prevention, management and settlement, of the conflicts set up by the Organization of African Unity. Besides the natural involvement of the UN in these matters, a greater involvement, without any ulterior motive, on the part of the main elements of the international community would be a recognition of a collective responsibility for these painful situations, as the causes of these conflicts have often been aggravated by the conflicting interests of outside forces.

The second point of the message is an acknowledgment and an appeal; the acknowledgment -that of the never-ending dramas of famine, disease and ignorance- is known to everyone. Africa's main concern at the moment is the fear of being locked for good into this tragic reality to which the orientations and the mechanisms of the new world order seem to condemn it.

Globalization, in conferring new powers on market forces, has not been accompanied by mechanisms capable of correcting the negative effects on the weakest, generated by the asymmetry of situations in a system of open relations.

Theories maintaining that the balanced development of the world should be simply left to market forces have been confounded by reality. For example, scarcely 1% of direct foreign investment has been channeled to Africa during the last two years. How could it be otherwise, given the feeble domestic demand, an infrastructure which is either missing or insufficient and which disqualifies the poorest countries from being at the receiving end of private investment.

And how can these handicaps be removed when public aid for development is being constantly reduced; when the absence, for the weakest, of the means of influencing the market means erratic variations in the price of raw materials which, for decades now, has followed its inexorable downwards spiral; when import restrictions are established for producers -such as in the textile industry and in farming- where the comparative advantage of the weakest could precisely be felt.

And aggravating all this, and even worse, Africa is sagging under the weight of a debt which prevents all possibility of improvement, even of the simple maintaining of social services which are already negligible compared to the need. A debt which never seems to diminish, because the way in which it is handled only takes into account the short-sighted interests of the creditors and because the reasons for its reproduction are never addressed.

A recent change has been noted as regards the issue of the debt of the poorest countries and various initiatives have been taken to relieve it. We are very pleased by this new attitude on the part of developed countries, especially Europeans, and we would like to pay tribute to them, even though subsequent concrete measures have been accompanied by conditions and time-scales which have somewhat attenuated their impact. But we consider that these initiatives are insufficient, both in their direct effect and in the lack of real accompanying measures, which could prevent the repetition of earlier occurrences by a relaunching of investment.

We also consider that the debt of countries with so called intermediate revenues should also no longer be handled solely according to the financial aspect of their capacity for reimbursement. The handing of the debt should be expanded to include a wide economic vision that would take into account the demands of a lasting development which would have a beneficial effect on less affluent neighboring countries, whilst favoring a mutually beneficial expanded cooperation with developed countries.

These are therefore, briefly laid before and essential element in the world's economic life and our main partner, the major common concerns of an Africa with the risk of exclusion hanging over it in its new world environment.

You are, of course, not unaware of them, and perhaps we could have attributed the delay in holding this meeting compared with those which the European union has held with other regions of the world, to a certain embarrassment, the king of embarrassment that one fells sometimes when visiting some poor relatives who are full of bitterness and resentment.

On one point, however, we hasten to reassure you: Africa harbors absolutely no resentment, it knows that its development depends firstly and essentially on itself and it is ready to furnish all the efforts required. But it is asking for understanding, and in this framework, the loosening of the yoke under which the international environment maintains it and prevents its efforts to stand up straight and unrestrained.

It would be unfair not to invoke the conditions of our meeting, which you Europeans, might have put down to a reticence on our part. In order to dissipate all misunderstandings, we would like to point out that Africa is fully aware of the great gaps in its rule of law and the excesses of all kinds which have engendered this situation. The great majority of Africans find these intolerable and try to limit them. They are not afraid of talking about them. But perhaps they do not accept easily to be judged summarily, with no consideration for the progress they are making, uneven though it may be. With no consideration for the special conditions which are prevalent here and there. For the difficulty in obtaining a minimal social consensus in a landscape made up of distress and frustration, where traditional ways of life are in conflict with the ways of life forced upon them by the dominant model and by technical progress which must be followed but is scarcely understood. Without consideration for the difficulties in the spreading of a civic spirit when the basic tools, schools and teachers are missing. For the difficulties in fighting corruption efficiently when it finds the ways and means of becoming even more rampant in the developed countries themselves. Without consideration for the time, the trials and the efforts needed to implant democratic culture and finally promote human rights in their entirety.

On this last subject, it is perhaps thought in Africa that the concern shown here and there for political and cultural rights, even though it is honorable and justified, is in contrast with the silence surrounding the dramas daily played out of famine, ignorance, unemployment, malaria, and aids which is threatening to wipe out huge human communities, and perhaps Africans think that the former concern is only shown to draw attention away from these.

In any case, the European union and Africa, as they know each other well, have a lot to talk about concerning all these issues and doubtless many more.
We consider, on our part, that they could also do a lot together in their well-perceived mutual interest, that of having a better balanced world, a world where Africa, where man had his beginnings, will not disappear before him.

Thank you.

Previous Stories:
  Baz: Africa-Europe Summit boosts development in Africa   (4/3/2000)
  Mubarak inaugurates Africa - Europe Summit in Cairo   (4/3/2000)
  German Foreign Minister: Cairo summit is a chance to focus on African problems   (4/3/2000)

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