ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA: President Yoweri Museveni has said that Africa’s need to build its capacity to defend itself is more urgent now more than ever especially when you see what is happening in Mali, Niger, Chad, Burkina Faso, Mauritania and Somalia and formerly Libya among other countries.

“The attack on Libya was against the advise of African leaders, it was a big shame. That Africa can be attacked by its former colonial masters is a big shame. We passed resolution that they should leave Libya alone. There was a committee that was constituted to look into the Libyan situation. However, the African leaders were denied permission to get into Libya. When African leaders were on the plane, they were told to go back,” he said.

The President is the only leader who turned up for the meeting on the harmonization of the African Capacity for Immediate Response to Crisis and the African Standby Force, an urgent and necessary step for Africa's self-defense system. The meeting, which was supposed to be opened by the Africa Union Commission was postponed at short notice. It was supposed to consider the adoption of the ACIRC HOSG declaration on harmonization. It was held at the sidelines of the on-going 33rd Africa Union Summit. The President said he wanted to the opportunity tobrief the congregation which had already gathered about the situation and to put on the record his views.

The African Capacity for Immediate Response to Crises (ACIRC) is a temporary multinational African interventionist standby force set up in November 2013. It is supposed to be replaced by the African Standby Force when it becomes fully operational after a harmonization meeting by members.

“We defeated the Portuguese in Mozambique because we supported freedom fighters. In Somalia we acted alone and we defeated Al-shabab but if we act together as Africa we can achieve more. Where is the African Stand-by force? We have problems in Mali, Niger, Somalia etc. Because of inadequate funding, issue of Somalia is not quite resolved. Our partners kill one al-shabab and go away ‘cowboy operation’. All this is going on but no African stand-by force. With a few President’s, we thought that those angrily enough will get together and act,” he said.

During the OAU liberation struggle, 20 African countries passed a resolution to leave S.A peacefully and if not, Africa would fight. The establishment of the Liberation Committee of the Organization of African Unity was decided on at the inaugural meeting of the OAU, held in Addis Ababa in May, 1963.

“Many didn’t do much but a few volunteered. The concept of many and few is not new, the problem is procedural, we must meet and harmonise these two,” he said.

No new date has been set for the meeting.

The President later held a series of meeting with several continent and world leaders including a closed session with South Sudan leaders President Salva Kiir and opposition leader Dr. Riek Machar. He later joined the opening ceremony of the 33rd, Africa Union Summit.

#ENDS….