Africa: The AU - what’s in a name?

"Africans are angered by the continued unwillingness of African rulers to deal with human rights issues. The fact that they held the latest summit in Sudan in the first place shows their disdain for human rights", said Lovemore Madhuku, chairman of Zimbabwe's National Constitutional Assembly. "The fact that they are passing the African Union chairmanship to a coup leader in Congo makes them laughable. Where do Africans turn now?" The pessimism of dashed hopes has an especially bitter taste. In July 2002 the reinvention of the African Union (AU) amid the ashes of the discredited forty-year-old Organisation of African Unity (OAU) was hailed internationally as a triumph. It was seen as a vital leap forward into the 21st century for the "dark continent" – with its tragic millions of poverty-stricken, starving, diseased peoples, and its elite coterie of portly, bemedalled, ageing dictators.