Page 151 - Berkshire Encyclopedia Of World History Vol I - Abraham to Coal

36 berkshire encyclopedia of world history

conquest and administration. Only terribly destructive Official_documents/Treaties_%20Conventions_%20Protocols/
conflicts in the 1990s in the Congo, Ethiopia, Somalia, OAU_Charter_1963.pdf
El-Ayouty,Y. (1994). The Organization of African Unity after thirty years.
and still later in Sierra Leone and Liberia—the last two Westport, CT: Praeger.
of which precipitated intervention by a group of West Esedebe, P. O. (1982). Pan-Africanism: The idea and movement, 1776–
1963. Washington, DC: Howard University Press.
African states—brought the OAU policies of noninter-
Krafona, K., (Ed.). (1988). Organization of African Unity: 25 years on.
ference seriously into question. London: Afroworld Publishing.
Genge, M., Francis, K., & Stephen, R. (2000). African Union and a pan-
African parliament:Working papers. Pretoria: Africa Institute of South
A New Organization Africa.
African heads of state meeting in 1999 issued a declara- Gilbert, E. & Reynolds, J.T. (2004). Africa in world history. Upper Sad-
dle River, NJ: Pearson Education.
tion calling for a reconstituted continental organization
Iliffe, J. (1995). Africans:The history of a continent. Cambridge, UK: Cam-
modeled loosely on the European Union. One of the keys bridge University Press.
to the new African Union (AU) was a new principle writ- Legum, C. (1976). Pan-Africanism. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.
Martin, T. (1983). The pan-African connection. Dover, MA: Majority
ten into its Constitutive Act, adopted in July 2000, which Press.
asserted “the right of the Union to intervene in a Member Naldi, G. J. (1999). The Organization of African Unity: An analysis of its
role (2nd ed.). New York: Mansell.
State pursuant to a decision of the Assembly in respect of
Nkrumah, K. (1961). I speak of freedom:A statement of African ideology.
grave circumstances, namely: war crimes, genocide and New York: Praeger.
crimes against humanity” while also reaffirming the “sov-
ereign equality and interdependence” of all the member
states (African Union n.d.b).The AU actually came into
existence the following year and was ceremonially African-American
launched at a summit in Durban, South Africa, in July
2002. and Caribbean
The new organization has promised to focus more on
economic matters, even moving toward an eventual com- Religions
mon currency.These efforts have been widely applauded
internationally, with significant commitments from the frican-American and Caribbean religions are the
United States and the European Union for a New Part- Aproducts of one of the greatest forced migrations in
nership for African Development created by the AU human history. Historians estimate that between 1650
member states. In addition, plans are under way for the and 1900 more than 28 million Africans were taken from
creation of an African Peacekeeping Force and perhaps Central and West Africa as slaves. At least 12 million of
even a Pan-African Parliament, in hopes of making sig- these Africans crossed the Atlantic Ocean to be sold in
nificant contributions to security and political independ- the Caribbean, South America, and North America.
ence for all of Africa’s peoples, as originally envisioned by While Africans from many parts of Africa were taken into
the first pan-African theorists. slavery,West African groups were disproportionately rep-
resented. Beginning in the early sixteenth century and
Melvin E. Page
continuing, officially, until 1845 in Brazil, 1862 in the
United States, and 1865 in Cuba, more than 11 million
Further Reading black Africans—Yoruba, Kongo, and other West Africans
—were brought to the Americas to work sugar, tobacco,
African Union. (n.d.a). Constitutive Act of the African Union. Retrieved
on August 9, 2004, from http://www.africa-union.org/About_AU/Ab coffee, rice, and cotton plantations.
Constitutive_Act.htm
African Union. (n.d.b) OAU charter, Addis Ababa, 25 May 1963. The African slave trade transformed economies around
Retrieved on August 9, 2004, from http://www.africa-union.org/ the world. In Africa, it stimulated the growth of powerful