At the invitation of the Chairperson of the African Union Commission, H.E. Mr Alpha Oumar Konare, the Director General of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), Mr Rogelio Pfirter, attended the Third Ordinary Session of the Assembly of Heads of State and Government of the African Union held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia from 6 to 8 July 2004.
In July 2002, the newly formed African Union adopted a Decision on the Implementation and Universality of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) at its inaugural Summit Meeting held in Durban, South Africa. Through that Decision, the Assembly of the African Union encourages the call to achieve the universality of the CWC in Africa and welcomes the effective implementation of the Chemical Weapons Convention in Africa through sustained technical assistance from the Technical Secretariat of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).
In the following year, in July 2003, OPCW Director-General, Mr Rogelio Pfirter, attended the African Union’s Summit in Maputo, Mozambique, to encourage African States not Party to the CWC to join the global chemical weapons ban swiftly. Since July 2003, five African States have joined the OPCW: Sao Tomé and Principe, Cape Verde, Libya, Chad and Rwanda. The OPCW now includes 41 African States.
At the moment, only twelve African States have not as yet joined the Convention. To retain the momentum of accessions and ratifications achieved following the 2003 Summit in Maputo, and to offer the Organisation’s support in the preparations for joining and implementing the CWC, Mr Pfirter held meetings with senior-level officials, representing African States that are not yet party to the CWC, including: the Egyptian Vice-Minister of African Affairs, H.E. Mr Ashraf Rashed; the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Guinea-Bisssau, H.E. Mr Soares Sambu; the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Liberia, H.E. Mr Thomas Yaya Nimley; and the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Madagascar, H.E. Mr Marcel Ranjeva.
During the course of the Summit, Mr Pfirter also held substantive discussions with representatives of Member States, including the Secretary of the General People’s Committee for Foreign Liaison and International Cooperation of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, H.E. Abd al-Rahman Shalgam, and the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Cape Verde, H.E. Mr Victor Borges.
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