Mubarak Addresses the 22nd Franco-African Summit
Egypt-Regional, Politics, 2/21/2003

Here follows is Egypt President Hosni Mubarak's address to the 22nd Franco-African Summit:

Dear Friend, President Jacque Chirac.
Dear Friends, Heads of African State and Government.

Our world today faces major challenges requiring concerted efforts on our parts to counter them effectively with a new thought, a modern vision and a strong will.

This should be based on the lessons learnt from past experiences and a genuine desire to achieve our aspired goals of human integration and equity as well as a genuine recognition of the common goal and destiny and the unity of the international community in confronting challenges.

Over the past two years, grave events took place, claiming thousands of lives and disclosing the ugly face of terrorism and organized crime. We have frequently warned against the threat by both to the world peace not only because of the losses of lives and property caused thereby, but also because of their role in deepening the rift currently existing among nations and societies, and wrongly discriminating against mankind on account of religion, race, colour, and difference of political, economic and social systems.

Our African societies had long suffered the scourge of terrorism, partly as a result of political problems that have not so far reached a just settlement and partly, due to the increasing accentuation of the chronic problems of our continent such as poverty, indebtedness, food crisis and unfair rules of trade. Moreover all these problems have been instrumental in strengthening extremist and radical forces, nourished by feelings of frustration and despair vis-a-vis forces of moderation and 'medianism', based on the human communication to be supposedly enhanced among nations and peoples.

It is interesting that serious treatment by the world of the phenomenon of terrorism had started only when the advanced countries themselves were subjected to its dangers. Still, the framework within which this phenomenon is addressed, is far from comprehensive, because of its overly emphasis on counteractive measures rather than serious endeavor to eradicate its underlying reasons. This framework is also far from being effective due to absence of an integrated international institutional framework to handle such phenomenon.

In this context, I believe it is necessary to emphasize some essential points:
chief of which are as follows:
First: The phenomenon of terrorism is not an offspring of a specific region or religion, rather it is a physical reflection of deficiencies in international dealing with political and economic problems in such a way that can achieve justice and equality. These include the issues of occupying others' lands by force, dismantling mass destruction weapons, eliminating inflow of small weapons, globalization and sustainable development.

Second: It is essential to create a legal institutional framework that serves as a solid base for a comprehensive treatment of the problem, both procedurally and objectively. This should be conducted within an international framework that allows all to contribute to its creation and imposes on all respect for its provisions. In this context, there is growing acceptance by all poles of the world community of the pressing need to convene an international conference under the aegis of the United Nations, to be dedicated to negotiating such legal framework.

Third: Until we have arrived at such integrated international legal framework, there is a pressing need to reinforce joint regional efforts, to which we all contribute our own share, on the one hand, and through multilateral cooperation on the other.

In the context of our self-help regional efforts in Africa, our endeavors resulted in the entry into force in late 2002 of the Organization of African Unity Agreement on Antiterrorism concluded in 1999. We started to discuss the optimal way to monitor the enforcement of its provisions with maximum efficiency and effectiveness. At the same time, the constituent document of the African Union expressly stipulates, as an underpinning of our regional work and a principal governing our pursuit of peace, stability and development, rejection of terrorism and extremism.

Hence, our African continent have sought to open doors of cooperation with the other continents. To this end, the action plan adopted by the Afro-European summit in Cairo, April 2000, stipulated fundamental provisions for coordination in combating terrorism and dispute settlement in Africa. The successive Afro-French" summits have been instrumental in developing a better understanding of African problems, positively reflecting in a growing interest by the European Union and major industrial countries in settling such problems.

No doubt, the willingness of both the European Union (EU) and the Group of Eight to support the NEPAD initiative, to lay down more effective strategies for joint treatment of a number of phenomena including terrorism and organized crime will be remarkably instrumental in supporting our regional efforts to eliminate both phenomena. We are looking forward to the upcoming G 8 summit in Evian, and to the leading role of President Chirac as chairman of the Group to translate what was agreed upon into tangible practical steps. These can reinvigorate African relations with G 8 and contribute to implementing an integrated strategy to support our virile continent's efforts towards political, economic and social advancement. At the same time, these can ensure more efficient coordination in the face of international challenges, mainly international terrorism and organized crime.

Your Excellencies,
Despite the progress achieved by African countries in integrating into global economy and in seeking to prepare our societies for integration into the outside world through political and economic reform, yet many African countries still suffer from the activities of the organized crime gangs. These activities threaten their economies, obstruct their developmental efforts and seek to undermine their political, economic and social systems. Above all, these activities aim in the first place at achieving private, individual interests at the expense of national interests. This situation is aggravated by a confluence of interests between organized crime and some international terrorist activities. This has created confusion as to African countries approaches to combat terrorism.

A cursory look will sufficiently demonstrate the threat posed by organized crime activities. Threats to African national security as well as international security will accelerate so long as illegitimate trade in nuclear and fissionable materials goes on. The increase in large-scale smuggling of weapons, precious stones and oil will further inflame regional conflicts and reinforce terrorist activities. Moreover, human effects of trafficking drugs, tobacco and alcohol in addition to smuggling illegal emigrants will increase and so will the negative environmental effects of illegal trade in rare fauna and flora. Similarly, the negative health and social effects of widespread of prostitution and pornography networks will augment. Money laundering operations in the developing world will jeopardize world monetary system. Documents forgery, industry, intellectual property, and computer and technology crimes will impair fair competitiveness of industrial and productive corporations, let alone other effects that are hard to enumerate accurately.

What aggravates the detrimental effects of organized crimes is that their perpetrators take advantage of our orientation towards economic integration, unceasing scientific and technological advancement, and differences among our economic systems and policies to make substantial gains estimated by the International Monetary Fund at more than US Dollar 1 trillion, per annum. Therefore, we should exert every joint effort to combat these crimes and severe any relationship between them and international terrorism.

The African countries have already exerted individual efforts in an attempt to eliminate such factors that help these gangs survive. This is being conducted through effective regional efforts, within our capacity, to combat poverty and corruption, to restructure and to upgrade performance of governmental bodies, to improve banking and monetary systems, to tighten control of fiscal procedures, to enhance the role of regulatory and control authorities, in addition to such other procedures that minimize these phenomena.

On the other hand, we look forward to greater cooperation and coordination with France, the European Union, the Group of Eight, specialized international organizations in combating organized crime. These efforts will include the development of data and information bases and employment within a structured scientific framework, geared to cope up with successive scientific and technological developments, and to provide a comprehensive vision of the attitude and techniques of organized crimes. These also include support and extension of the scope of security cooperation operations to cover combat of both terrorism and organized crime. Included also are the activation of the provisions of the 2000 agreement of the United Nations on Combating transnational organized crime, the bolstering of its enforcement mechanisms and increase of coordination between specialized regional organizations to combat these crimes, among other procedures.

We will always be in a need for a broader and more comprehensive framework for our international relations based on interaction and integration between cultures and civilizations in order to confront both dangerous phenomena. Furthermore, these relations should rise on international community based on justice and equality. Together we can here exchange mutual interests, confront challenges and look forward to a bright future for us and our coming generations.
Thank you.

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