Africa seeks new focus of ties with EU

PRESIDENT Olusegun Obasanjo and United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan
were among world leaders who listened yesterday as Egypt's Hosni Mubarak
told Europe that Africa was no longer begging for money from former colonial
masters and their allies but desires greater co-operation toward mutually
beneficial trade relations.

He spoke after weekend reports that Europe was also under pressure to return
stolen African treasures.

Opening Africa's first-ever summit with the European Union (EU) in Cairo
yesterday, Mubarak remarked: "Through this historic event that Cairo hosts
today, we do look forward not to secure more aid, but rather to develop our
mutual partnership and cooperation programme."

In the speech to the 15 EU and 53 African leaders, including two kings, 35
presidents and a bevy of prime ministers, Mubarak noted that Africans have
made "sustained efforts," including greater political and economic freedom -
to improve their lot in the past decade, and they expected Europeans to lend
a strong helping hand.

The "sublime goal" is "realizing prosperity and welfare" not only for
Africa, but for Europe as well.

The ultimate goal, to the EU, is for Africa to take its rightful place in
the emerging global economy - if it can slash poverty, and its 350 billion
dollars of debt - with economic and democratic reform.

"It is our profound wish that this most meaningful occasion should represent
a moment of renewal in the relations between our two neighbouring
continents," said Prime Minister Antonio Guterres of Portugal, which holds
the EU presidency.

But in the run-up to the opening ceremony it was Libyan leader Moamer
Gaddafi who was grabbing the limelight, making the most of his first
appearance at a summit with Western leaders in eight years.

In a Bedouin tent in the Egyptian capital, Gaddafi met European Commission
President Romano Prodi and Irish Prime minister Bertie Ahern, and was due to
see Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar later in the day.

"We note that he is putting an enormous effort into peaceful matters here,"
Ahern said after his meeting with the man that the United States has long
accused of sponsoring terrorists.

No details of his talks with Prodi were released, but the two spoke at
Christmas time last year when the latter indicated he was "politically in
favour" of Gaddafi visiting Brussels if he commit Libya to democracy and a
free-market economy.

Prodi also met with Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe for what an EU
spokesman called a "frank exchange of views on various issues." No other
details were given. .

Cairo marks the first time since 1992 that Gaddafi has been able to press
the flesh of western leaders at an international event, since the suspension
last year of economic sanctions imposed after Libya's alleged involvement in
the 1988 bombing of a US airliner over Lockerbie, Scotland.

British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook, filling in for Prime Minister Tony
Blair, told the BBC he wanted to sit down with Mugabe in Cairo, after weeks
of diplomatic sparring between London and Harare.

Relations are under strain after Mugabe's threat to seize land from white
farmers, his reported vow last week to wage economic war on Britain, and
Saturday's violence in Harare involving anti-government protesters.

Former European colonial powers were under African pressure at the weekend
to return all cultural property, including the Sphinx's beard to Egypt, an
obelisk to Ethiopia and a golden throne to Ghana.

"We want to see a mechanism like the one that secured to return of Nazi gold
held in Swiss banks," said one African delegate at the first Africa-Europe
summit which starts in Cairo today.

The two sides later agreed that follow-up talks would assess the sensitive
issue - which the delegate, asking not to be named, said was part of
Europe's duty to compensate Africa for years of colonialisation and slavery.

African states had wanted to draft a text calling for return of its
treasures with no legal conditions, but an EU officials said that would be
"going beyond what the European Union is ready to concede."

"There were dozens of pieces of art removed from Africa during the colonial
period, like the golden Ashanti throne which was taken from Ghana to
London," the African delegate said.

And dozens of Egyptian artefacts including various mummies, the beard of the
Sphinx and the Rosetta stone, which allowed Egyptologists to decipher
hieroglyphics.

Gama said the EU-African decision to assess the issue at ministerial level
went far beyond current UN recommendations on the restitution of cultural
objects, giving hope that more of Africa's heritage could soon be negotiated
back home.

In December a precedent was set by the Italians when Prime Minister Massimo
D'Alema handed back to Gaddafi a second century statue of Venus given by the
Italian governor of this former colony to Nazi air force commander Hermann
Goering.

The Cairo summit looked set for success after EU and African foreign
ministers Sunday reached consensus on a final declaration and plan of
action, which calls for "a new strategic dimension to the global partnership
between Africa and Europe."

It will set a 2015 deadline for cutting poverty in Africa by half, but links
the success of debt relief initiatives to economic reforms and "good
governance" - the summit's buzzword for responsible government.

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