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Chairperson,

It gives me great pleasure to welcome you to our country, South Africa.

I also regard it a singular honour to open this United Nations Economic Commission for Africa Second Regional Conference of African Ministers Responsible for the Development and utilisation of Mineral and Energy Resources.

On behalf of the people of South Africa, and on behalf of President Mandela and his government, I express appreciation to the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, to member states of the Commission and other participating organisations for affording South Africa the opportunity to host this important conference.

It is an opportunity to demonstrate our commitment to the development and utilisation of mineral and energy resources in Africa for the overall economic and social emancipation of the people of our continent.

Chairperson,

As late as 1830, even a person of no less renown than the German philosopher, Hegel, commented; "Africa is no historical part of the world" and "has no movement or development to show". So deep have been the European prejudice towards and ignorance about the realities and truths about Africa that it infected even the advanced European minds.

In many European minds, even the most well-known African civilisation like that of Egypt was seen as entirely separated and different from the lands of the black peoples. In their imagination Egypt ceased to be in the African continent and hence her achievement could not be considered as an African achievement.

Perhaps this attitude should not have surprised us. Otherwise, if Africans were thought to be fit for enslavement by Europeans because they had no reputable civilisation of their own, how could the civilisation of the Pharaohs be accepted as African?

Recent archaeology of the upper Nile, of the regions of the Nubian or Kushite Nile, indicates that recognisable kingdoms emerged in that region, a long way south of the great river, even before they took root in the region of the Delta, a long way to the north.

It is that Africa's source of energy, the Nile river, which played no small part in propelling the people of Africa towards the emergence of ancient Egypt and its civilisation.

It is the valley of the Nile which encouraged migration northwards away from the inner African antiquity in times before and during the desiccation of the wide Saharan grasslands.

As early as the 11th century, European traders who had been to Africa reported back to their rulers about the kings of ancient Ghana whose horses were covered in gold-embroidered materials, kings attended by pages who carried shields and swords decorated in gold, dogs which wore collars of gold and silver and whose sons had gold plaited in their hair.

In that context, it should come as no surprise that the old empires of West Africa were to provide the gold that was indispensable to the inter-continental trading system of the Middle Ages.

Today, to some of us, it might sound like a bemusing irony that the development of trade and capitalism of the late-medieval Europe - the platform on which the colonial expeditions into our continent were launched - partly benefited from the innocent enterprise of African miners and merchants.

Ladies and Gentlemen,
Today we are standing on the soil of the region of our country where the great Zulu kingdom of Shaka and Cetshwayo heroically halted, and several times actually drove back, the colonial expeditions we have just referred to.

The Zulu kingdom had built its regiments around a specialised shortened spear made using an iron-smelting technique developed by the South Eastern kingdoms which ruled over what is today's Zimbabwe and Mozambique. These kingdom's trade in iron was already known as far away as China, Indonesia and India as early as the eleventh century.

Somebody might ask; in what way is this history relevant to the subject matter of our gathering in this African city of Durban.

Chairperson,

We are making the statement that, firstly, unlike and certainly contrary to the comment by Hegel, which is common in writings by European scholars, long before his own time, Africa had become an historical part of the world and has her own social movement and development to show.

Secondly, we are making the statement that it is Africa's natural resources and her varied sources of energy - exactly those African endowments over which the honourable participants in this conference are responsible - which served as the main catalyst behind the integration of Africa in the history of the world as well as the main force which accelerated Africa's movement and development long before the era of the slave trade and colonialism.

The process of development within African societies was not indispensably dependent on the guidance from outside. It was first and foremost a process internal and inherent to African societies themselves and premised on the free utilisation of their natural resources.

The tragedy of the African history was certainly provided by the European scramble for African natural resources which accelerated development of Europe and ensured the propulsion of the African continent to the state of underdevelopment.

The motive behind the colonial expeditions was not so much the search for markets in order to deal with the overproduction of factory goods in Europe, as an undersupply of raw materials necessary for the further expansion of the European fortune.

The additional demand for cheap labour in the form of slaves as well as the need to secure foreign markets, made the African drama grander, the cast larger and classic in the contest of morality, principle, hubris and faltering ideals.

Chairperson,

This is the drama that has characterised the last four centuries, and as we have tried to highlight, premised on the centrality of Africa's natural resources in the expansion of the world economy.

But we are meeting here today at the time when we can safely say that the African peoples have achieved their political emancipation from colonial rule.

We meet here a mere three years before the end of the twentieth century and the beginning of another millennium.

If the past several centuries were tragic to Africa, the question that faces all of us then is what we should make of the twenty first century which is already upon us.

We meet here to discuss the development and utilisation of mineral and energy resources in the African continent - the very resources which fuelled the African drama of the past several centuries.

In our opinion our deliberations should answer the cardinal question : if Africa's mineral resources and energy have been so central in the ordering of human affairs in such a large part of the world for so long, in what way should Africa's peoples develop and utilise the very resources, now under their exclusive political control, to rid the continent of the cumulative legacy of the slave trade, colonialism and neo-colonialism.

In what way should these resources help us put the continent on the road to renewal, prosperity and peace.

That is a question which cannot be answered by any single African country, standing alone, trying to position itself in the midst of a rapidly globalising world.

What is not in doubt is that despite the many decades of exploitation of these natural resources, vast amounts still remain either unexplored, badly merchandised, unbeneficiated or their value completely lost to most of us.

For instance, it is difficult to imagine that the painful drama that has visited upon the territory which today we know as the Democratic Republic of Congo, has taken place in a territory which holds 13 per cent of the world's hydroelectric potential; 28 per cent of the world's reserve base of cobalt; 18 per cent of its industrial diamonds; 6 per cent of its copper; and one-half of Africa's tropical rain forest.

The potential which the vastness of these resources holds for employment opportunities, the economic growth and the development of the entire central African region is there for everybody to see.

Our attempt to confront the cardinal question we have posed above should surely recognise that we are seeking the social and economic emancipation of Africa in the world characterised by the universal impact of the revolution in science and technology and the globalisation of all economic activity.

This trend has been attended by the simultaneous marginalisation of much of Africa's economics to the periphery of global production.

This development again emphasises the realisation on our part that we need each other if we are to withstand the negative effects of a globalising world whilst taking advantage of its many positive ones.

This should be understood not simply in terms of our collective effort directed at the outside world, but also in terms of the need for Intra-Africa trade and business with the aim of developing our own regional and continental institutional capacity.

Informed by the reality of the globalising world, it should be logical that our struggle for the development of our economies should be located within the broader realm of the New World Order.

We of the developing world who have born the brunt of human injustices over decades and centuries issuing from other nation's desire to accumulate and aggrandise, should play a central role in defining what should constitute the New World Order.

Among the key elements which should constitute the modern world would be;

The need to restructure international relations in all sectors and all levels into a new international order underpinned by equitable relations, mutual respect, stability and peace;

That one of the main objectives of this restructuring is to affirm in favour of the developing countries such that they are empowered to catch up with the process of human progress;

That the world should realise and accept that we belong to one race, the human race, and that our quest for new international relations is not driven solely by the interests of the people we represent, but also by our conviction that the widening gap between development and underdevelopment is to the detriment of the entire human life and civilisation.

It is within this international context that the quest for the renaissance of the African continent will have to be sought.

Beyond this global context, we need to impress upon the world that the peoples of our continent are associated with a particular geography, history, polities, culture and socio-economic reality which continues to consign them to the periphery of human progress.

For this reason alone, we assert that for Africa to catch up with the rest of the world, it is not enough to look for its renewal simply within the generalised context of the New World Order.

Africa needs its specialised dose of remedies if we hope to catapult it into the forefront of human progress.

We want to believe that we are assembled here precisely because we are searching for those remedies.

It is our understanding that the need for a socio-economic approach to the struggle for the rebirth of the continent is not lost to leaders in the continent. It is the measure of this realisation that the OAU recently resolved to establish a continental economic community in order to position the OAU in line with the urgent tasks of our era.

Similarly on or part, the need to restructure the UNO and other international organisations largely motivated by the need to give the developing countries an equitable voice in the discussions and debates about global governance, global safety and global economic progress.

Next year South Africa assumes the presidency of the Non-Aligned Movement, Certainly one of the main question that will arise is; seeing that the Cold War is behind us, the main condition which necessitated its founding, what should be this organisations role in the current period.

I think we can say without fear of contradiction that the Non-Aligned Movement will have to continue to champion the course of the developing countries in their struggle to give birth to a new international order.

Clearly, there is renewed global interest in developments in the continent. It is for us to help set the agenda in the interaction with the international community and harness it to the advantage of the people we represent as well as the continent as a whole.

We must find within contemporary African reality, by our own actions and programmes, the means and methods to convince the world that more than any other continent, Africa deserves the affirmation by the world.

This point, of course, pre-supposes that we are agreed on the need for accountable government and the inviolability of democracy and human rights in the continent as a whole.

The promotion of these noble ideals is necessary if we are to regain the respect of and inspire the confidence of our people and the world.

The renewal of the continent and the total emancipation of its people does not only depend on the accumulation of material gains but also in overall development understood to also encompass popular governments which enjoy popular mandates and committed to the service of the people.

Chairperson,

I would like to conclude by congratulating the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, all countries and organisations represented here for their effort in making this engagement a success.

I hope this conference will go a long way in contributing towards strengthening co-operation among our countries and setting the agenda for Africa's renewal.

It is my pleasure to declare your conference open.

Thank you

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