07.19
African Union conference in Kampala starts despite terrorist attacks.
Kampala, July 19 .- The African Union (AU) conference beginning today in preparation for the Summit of Heads of State and Government to begin the 25th in Kampala, although the Somali Islamist group Al-Shabab has promised to repeat the attacks bomb last week killed 76 people.
The bombs, which were tied to the breast suspected of suicide bombers, exploded, tera gold, in a rugby club and an Ethiopian restaurant in the Ugandan capital, where the congregation saw the final match of the 2010 World Cup big screen tv.
A spokesman for the Ugandan Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Patrick Muganda Guma, said the ministerial delegations from the 49 AU member countries with voting rights are already in Kampala.
Niger, Madagascar and Guinea, suspended, sto credits, by the AU for having made unconstitutional changes of government, which violates the charter of the continental organization, are not present, such as Morocco, which withdrew in 1984 after many African countries recognize the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic, the former Western Sahara annexed by Rabat in 1975.
The permanent representatives of member states to the AU met today and the respective, tera gold, ambassadors held its meeting tomorrow, Tuesday.
"We are moving smoothly, all the delegations that are here just begun and are safe because, of course, we made a strong deployment of security," said Muganda by telephone from the town of Munyonyo, on the outskirts of Kampala , where the conference takes place.
Kampala and its suburbs are under tight security from the day of the attacks.
While the Conference and the Summit held under the theme "Maternal and child health and development in Africa", the attacks of the past day 11 appear to be the focus of discussions.
A review of the security situation in Somalia, a country immersed in civil strife for over twenty years, and other regions of Africa, which had initially been planned as only one of the topics to be discussed, has emerged as the top concern between some of the delegates.
Al-Shabab, an Islamist group linked to al-Qaeda, claimed responsibility for the attacks in Kampala, the first that takes place outside Somalia, and threatened to spread to Burundi, Kenya, Ethiopia and other countries that support the Federal Government Transition (TFG) Somalia, which seeks to overthrow.
Uganda and Burundi contribute, respectively, 3,400 and 1,600 troops to the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), which remains in power the TFG, which supports the international community.
AMISOM has a mandate only allows their effective self-dnse, but now calls for Uganda that the quota be increased to 20,000, with international participation, and a mandate to authorize it to pursue Islamic militant groups.