OUAGADOUGOU (AFP) — West African leaders said Friday they would hold a regional conference on security problems in northern Niger and Mali, expressing alarm over a rise of criminality in the region.
The conference will take place in Bamako by the end of March, leaders from the 15-nation Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) said in a final communique, wrapping up a summit in the Burkinabe capital that also saw the country's leader, Blaise Compaore, reelected as ECOWAS head.
On Thursday, Compaore was also reelected head of the West African Economic and Monetary Union (UEMOA), established to promote economic integration among the eight West African states using the same CFA currency.
The ECOWAS talks, which also focused on the situation of divided Ivory Coast, included Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi as a "special guest."
Liberia's Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Mali's Amadou Toumani Toure, Sierra Leone's Ernest Koroma and Senegal's Abdoulaye Wade also attended.
The upcoming international conference is expected to focus on "peace, stability, security and development in the Sahel-Saharan region" in northern Niger and Mali, Burkina Faso's foreign minister Djibrill Bassole said.
Tuarag groups have staged periodic rebellions since 2007 in the region where drug and light arms trafficking are also common.
"Our concern is to ensure that the state's authority is established in these regions and there is development, that conditions for people's lives improve. If not, these zones will be at the mercy of big bandits and counterbandits and maybe also of terrorists," Bassole said.
In his opening remarks, Kadhafi warned there would be "more Darfurs" unless the continent moved towards a "united states of Africa."
"The nation state will disappear. Small entities can no longer overcome the challenges they face. If it is to continue, Africa must say goodbye to the nation state," he said in Arabic through translators.
Observers see Campaore's reelection as head of ECOWAS and the West African monetary union as an aim for stability at a time when neighbouring Ivory Coast is preparing for June presidential elections, following an attempted coup that divided the country in 2002. Campaore is mediator in the Ivorian crisis.
The ECOWAS heads urged Friday that "all concerned parties be involved in organising credible, free and transparent elections," in the cocoa-rich, former West African powerhouse.
The summit opened a day after UEMOA leaders agreed to pick Ivorian Philippe-Henri Dacoury-Tabley as new chief for their central bank.
Dacoury-Tabley currently represents Ivory Coast at the African Development Bank.
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