Africans cool to rights charter

Press, 23 June 1981, Page 8

Africans cool to rights charter

NZPA-Reuter Nairobi African Foreign Ministers meeting in Nairobi have failed to endorse a draft charter of human rights in Africa, a continent where human rights have been violated on a ■ grand scale by such dictators as Idi Amin or the ousted “Emperor” Jean-' Bedel Bokassa. The Foreign Ministers are meeting in Nairobi in preparation for the annual summit meeting of the 50-nation Organisation of African Unity due to open tomorrow.

Conference sources said lengthy debates on the draft charter over the week-end had underlined that many of the Ministers viewed the proposals with deep suspicion. “On the whole, I think you could describe majority attitudes towards the document as lukewarm, at best,” one delegate said. The draft charter on “Human and ' People’s Rights” in Africa was completed in Banjul, the capital of Gambia, last January, partly in response to excesses by dictatorial regimes such as those of Uganda under Amin or the

former Central African Empire of Bokassa. But many African States apparently fear the adoption of the present draft could open the way to interference in their internal affairs, the worst of sins in the catalogue of the O.A.U. The charter discussed over the week-end was described by Western legal experts as an attempt to strike a balance between demands for more individual freedom and the view of many governments that individual liberties must take second place to the interests of society as a whole.

In a recent interview, the Kenyan Foreign Minister (Mi Robert Ouko) summarize! the conflict: “One of the firs 1 functions of government is t< maintain law and order ant peace and security withii their borders.

“If in their view, there are individuals who seek to dis rupt such law and order oi the security of the State, they (the government) must act in a way they considei appropriate. In the eyes of some countries, this can be described as a violation of human rights, particularly when people are detained.”