African Union (AU) leaders urged member states which have pledged to contribute to the AU peacekeeping mission in Somalia to honor their promises at a special summit in Libya on Monday.
The African leader also agreed that the war plaguing the restive western Sudanese region of Darfur was over, local sources said, citing the final declaration issued at the end of the one-day summit.
The summit, the third for the AU this year, was aimed to tackle regional conflicts, especially situations in Somalia, Darfur and the Great Lakes region.
About 30 African leaders attended the special summit held in conjunction with celebrations marking the 40th anniversary of the Libyan Revolution, which brought Libyan leader Muammar Ghaddafi to power after overthrowing Western-backed King Idriss on Sept. 1, 1969.
The leaders adopted the "Tripoli Declaration" and a plan of action to find urgent solutions to crises and conflicts in Africa, but they failed to submit any substantial proposals to resolve the conflicts.
The African countries approved Libya's proposal to make resolving the conflicts of Africa one of the regular topics of the AU summits of heads of state and government.
On Somalia which is witnessing rising conflicts between Islamist rebels and incumbent President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, the African leaders reached consensus to strengthen the presence of AU peacekeeping mission in Somalia.
On Monday, AU Commission Chairman Jean Ping told reporters before the opening of the one-day summit that three African countries, namely Sierre Leone, Malawi and Nigeria, had agreed to contribute forces to reinforce the peacekeeping mission in Somalia.
The AU has planned to send 8,000 troops to support Somali government against the foreign-backed insurgency by Islamist rebels, but now only Uganda and Burundi are the only countries that have deployed 4,300 forces in the Horn of Africa country.
The African leaders also called for an international conference on the rising piracy off the Somali coast.
On the Darfur conflict, the declaration said Darfur is no longer at war, insisting that only criminal acts of some outlaws were taking place in Darfur at the present time.
In the declaration, African leaders appreciated the contribution of Rodolphe Adada, Joint Special Representative of the United Nations and the African Union, in the settlement of the Darfur conflict.
The declaration reiterated the African leaders' refusal to deal with the International Criminal Court (ICC), which issued an arrest warrant against Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir in March this year.
Al-Bashir showed up at the AU summit, on his second visit to Libya since the arrest warrant issued against him for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The declaration also stressed the importance of post-conflict reconstruction and stabilization, with specific reference to the roles that could be played by AU member states and the regional mechanisms.
Affirming the importance of rehabilitation of the conflict-hit areas in Africa, the declaration announced that the year 2010 would be dedicated to peace and security on the world's poorest continent.
Leaders of the AU states emphasized at the summit that for the continent, security and stability are the most important. They also demonstrated their determination to solve conflicts of the continent by themselves.
In his opening speech, Ghaddafi stressed the importance of solving the conflicts facing Africa as they threaten the peace and security of the whole world.
He said, "We should find solutions to conflicts among the African brothers and move forward to stop the superpowers pillaging Africa's resources," according to Libya's official Jamahiriya News Agency.
Other African leaders also expressed their hope that AU could play a bigger role in the resolution of regional conflicts, even in the world stage.
"Our continent, thanks to the immense natural resources and human energies it possesses, is capable of forging ahead with complementarity integration in order to occupy the position it deserves within major regional groupings in the world," said Tunisia President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali.
"Security and stability are indeed two formidable wagers that we must absolutely win in order to stop the bleeding of our resources and to enable our states to devote all their efforts to providing the basic factors of decent life for their peoples," he added.
The summit also took up the issue of climatic changes before the Copenhagen summit which is due to be held in December.
Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika said at the summit that Africa's carbon dioxide emission is less than 4 percent of the world's total volume, so it bears little responsibility for the deterioration of the global climate.
"Africa has made great contribution to the environment thanks to its environmental organizations and its vast forests, but unfortunately, it has been the biggest victim of the environmental deterioration," Bouteflika said.
The AU, established in 2002 to replace the Organization of African Unity that was founded in 1963, aims at preserving and promoting peace and stability in the African continent, carrying out the strategy of reform and poverty reduction and realizing the development and renewal of Africa.
(Xinhua News Agency September 1, 2009)
