Mali makes mileage of being in the middle of the continent, says Gamal Nkrumah President Hosni Mubarak met last week with the Chairman of the Committee of Wise Elders the former South African president Thabo Mbeki and other members of his team including the ex-president of Burundi Pierre Buyoya. The African Union Wise Elders' visit coincided with the three-day visit by Malian President Amadou Toumani Toure to Egypt. At last the AU appears to be starting to make up its mind on tackling serious issues concerning the continent's numerous economic, social and political predicaments. African-Arab cooperation appears to be the new buzzword. Bold stuff, indeed. This goes to the heart of the debate about the African Union's diplomacy. The AU presidency was recently handed from the nonconformist leader of a North African Arab state to that of a rather conventional southern African one. African- Arab solidarity is now receiving the much- needed boost that it had long prevaricated over. And, that leaves Malawian President Bingu wa Mutharika, who was elected as head of the AU for 2010 in Addis Ababa on 31 January, with a burden to shoulder on his own. Calm and conciliatory pragmatism is welcome after the impetuous moral certitude of the Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi who happened to be Mutharika's immediate predecessor. The Malian president is more of the Mutharika mould. The days of a faint-hearted attempt to deal with the continent's crises are over. This was the key issue of discussion between Mubarak and his Malian counterpart. The Malian experience of multi-party parliamentary democracy has been impressive and exemplary in Africa. The peaceful handing of power from one leader to another in spite of crippling economic problems and a host of ethnic, regional and religious tensions necessitated wise leadership. First, the academic intellectual former Malian president Alpha Omar Konare won the respect of Africa and the world by being the first democratically-elected Malian leader in 1992 multi- party elections. He was AU chairman for many years and is now one of the most respected leaders in Africa for purposefully relinquishing power. And, now Konare's successor Amadou Toumani Toure, who assumed office in 2002, is equally admired for his poise and delicate overtures to win over his squabbling countrymen including the secessionist Tuaregs of northern Mali. The landlocked country is always apprehensive of spillover conflicts in neighbouring countries -- Mali borders Algeria, Mauritania, Senegal, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso and Niger. Rules must be binding and violations must be severely punished. The presidents of Egypt and Mali and the Wise Elders' Committee much agree this strategy to combat the challenges facing the continent. The Malian president could lead the way towards a brave, principled way of dealing with dissidents at home and abroad. It is against this backdrop that Secretary-General of the Arab League Amr Moussa met with the Wise Elders' Committee and with the Malian president to discuss the Qatar and Joint AU- Arab League efforts to diffuse the Darfur crisis and the other political impasse confronting Sudan. "An agreement has been reached during the meeting to cement cooperation between the Arab League and the AU particularly ahead of the Sudanese legislative elections and the referendum in southern Sudan," Moussa told reporters in Cairo before embarking on a fact- finding mission to Sudan. The Malian experience of dealing with secessionist movements in the north of the country is especially helpful as far as the Sudanese quagmire is concerned. Mali is the perfect bridge between Arab North Africa and Africa south of the Sahara. Malian cities such as Timbuktu, Gao and Jenne were springboards of the trans-Saharan trade between equatorial Africa and the Arab Mediterranean. These historical cities were centres of Islamic learning in mediaeval times and today are world heritage sites. In the 14th century, the legendary Malian Emperor Mansa Moussa visited Cairo and caused a commotion. He was on his way to the Hejaz for hajj (1324-26) and his fabulous wealth and almsgiving caused such wonder that inflation in Egypt skyrocketed. According to the Arab historian Al-Maqrizi, the value of gold in Egypt at the time depreciated for 12 years. This was one of the first recorded incidents of inflation in mediaeval Egyptian history. Egyptians had no idea that an African potentate could be that wealthy, or that Muslim kingdoms in Africa south of the Sahara that opulent. The present Malian president is not as rich as his ancestor, and is not likely to cause any economic upheaval in the country. However, he is very keen on agricultural development in the continent. This is an issue that needs a certain kind of kid-glove handling. This sprawling Sahelian country has tremendous agricultural potential. Yet it is in desperate need of investors in order to fulfil its destiny as West Africa's breadbasket. Both the Senegal and the Niger Rivers run through the country and irrigate only insignificant stretches of fertile land. Yet with a concerted action focussed on large-scale irrigation scheme and Arab largesse this predominantly Muslim nation could feed the entire West Africa and North Africa and countries further afield. The Malian president's visit to Egypt is partly designed to prove the doubters wrong. Mali, he assured Egyptian businessmen, not only has great agricultural potential, but is one of Africa's gold producing countries and has vast untapped mineral reserves, including uranium. Even so, agriculture remains his government's priority. It is in this context that the Arab-African Joint Action on Food and Security for All took place in the Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh this week. The First Joint Afro-Arab Ministerial Meeting on Agricultural Development and Food Security was convened and Mali is among the African nations destined to play a decisive role in this arena.
