Africa: AU Celebrates First African Border Day

By Eunice Kilonzo

Addis Ababa---The African Union (AU) on Tuesday 7 celebrated the first “African Border Day” at the AU headquarters, in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital calling on African countries to use the continent’s borders to promote peace, stability and economic prosperity.

The day celebrated under a theme “Uniting and integrating Africa through peaceful, open and prosperous borders” is a way of popularizing the AU Border Programme (AUBP) and mobilizing the requisite support for the efforts to promote peaceful and prosperous borders in Africa.

In his opening remarks, Ambassador Ramtane Lamamra stressed the commitment of the African countries to transform their borders from barriers into bridges, as a way of addressing the legacy of conflict arising from the inherited colonial boundaries.

“African leaders were convinced that by transcending the borders as barriers and promoting them as bridges linking one State to another, Africa can boost the ongoing efforts to integrate the continent, strengthen its unity and promote peace, security and stability through the structural prevention of conflicts”, said Ambassador Lamamra.

He further stated that the decision to prioritize the delimitation and demarcation of the inherited borders was not predicated on a desire to confine each country within its own designated territory:

“On the contrary, it means that border delimitation and demarcation is a condition for successful integration. A non-defined border is susceptible to being a source of contention, and even conflict. Border delimitation and demarcation, in a way, removes its potential nuisance; it opens the door rather than closes it; it allows for a healthy process of cooperation and integration”.

African Border Day was recommended by the second meeting of the African Ministers in charge of Border Issues, held in Addis Ababa, on 25 March 2010 with a strategy to enhance African unity through political and economic integration.

The day conveyed a strong message that border issues which remain to be continent’s source of bloodshed could be resolved peacefully if borders are used to serve as bridges and not as barriers.

The celebration also included a panel discussion on border issues and related challenges in both Africa and beyond. In this respect, presentations were made by Professor Anthony Asiwaju, President, African Regional Institute, Imeko, Nigeria; Mr. Martín Guillermo Ramírez, Secretary General, Association of European Border Regions (AEBR); Mr. Jose Elias Mucombo, Director, National Institute of the Sea and Boundaries, Maputo, Mozambique; and Mr. Jean Peyrony, Director General, Mission Opérationnelle Transfrontalière (MOT), Paris – France. The celebration also included the screening of a documentary titled “African Borders; from barriers to bridges”, a choreographic performance on “dancing across borders”, and a photo exhibition on “the making of African borders.”

Africa aims to foster sustainable peace, mutual coexistence and development on the continent by managing and self-demarcating continent’s borders, which were established arbitrarily by colonial powers.

The day was marked amid border dispute between Ethiopia and Eritrea also North Sudan and South Sudan conflict in Abyei region among others remain unsettled raising fears of a return to war.