Certainly, Africa accounts for only l % of world trade, and we cannot assure our development on our own.

The birth of the African Union should encourage us to reexamine relations between African States.

My actions to promote peace, the mediation missions which I carried out during many conflicts, which very often occurred between brothers of the same country, are not driven by any ulterior motives or any calculations based on personal ambitions.

In brief, Western democracy, as other political models, is not exportable to all regions of the world.

In spite of our poverty and our economic dependence, we do not have to give in, neither because we are sometimes abandoned nor because of the wish of some nations to impose their economic or political models.

From the time of independences until the end of the Cold War, in spite of the participation of a considerable number of African states in the non-aligned movement, everyone in fact chose to align with one or another of the two major blocks.

In short, we have, among African countries, a duty of solidarity.