After a rocky start marked by sharp lectures on their failings, a summit of African leaders Tuesday focused on resolving the wars and money woes plaguing their continent.
The summit of the Organization of African Unity was expected to endorse resolutions supporting sanctions, including a possible war crimes tribunal, if Liberia's faction leaders don't make peace.Leaders were also considering intervening to halt Burundi's ethnic bloodshed and a resolution calling for an end to sanctions imposed on Libya by the United Nations.
Those and other resolutions will be debated, voted on and possibly amended in closed sessions before the summit ends Wednesday.
During Monday's opening ceremonies at the hilltop government palace, African leaders defied the United States by recommending that U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali be considered for a second term.
President Benjamin Mkapa of Tanzania made a surprisingly harsh speech, accusing African leaders of sullying the continent's image with wars and economic mismanagement.
It's bad enough to be viewed as the world's poorest continent, he said, but "it's worse to be derided because we refuse to live in peace with each other and spend money for medicine and education on arms and ammunition."
Tanzania is sponsoring a resolution that would condemn Rwanda's government for the "deplorable state" of its overcrowded prisons and its failure to salvage the justice system since the 1994 Rwandan civil war.
A proposed resolution on Burundi expresses support for an African intervention force to help quell ethnic violence there. The idea was endorsed last month at a regional summit in Tanzania.
Regarding Liberia, a proposed resolution urges the country's warlords to adhere to a 1995 peace accord, which was broken in fighting that engulfed the Liberian capital in April and May and continues in the countryside.