African Union Enters Into Force Saturday

All Rastafari Collective are asked to note the replacement of the creation of H.I.M Emperor Haile Sellasie I vision, the O.A.U with the African Union... It came into force on Saturday 26th May 2001. The O.A.U would remain for one more year.

From: The Daily Monitor
Posted to the web May 23, 2001

By Staff Reporter
Addis Ababa

The Organization of African Unity (OAU) is being transformed on Saturday into a higher form of union as envisaged by its founding fathers on 25 May, 1963, when signing its historic Charter.

Thirty-eight years later, a day after OAU's anniversary, the Constitutive Act of the African Union, which replaces the OAU, attains the legal requirement for entering into force, 30 days after the deposit of the instruments of ratification of the Act by two-thirds of member states.

The countdown actually began on 26 April at the African Summit on HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and other related infectious diseases, held in Abuja, when Nigeria deposited with Secretary-General Salim Ahmed Salim the instrument of ratification of the Constitutive Act of the African Union. Nigeria was the 36th member state, the two-thirds majority, required by the provision of the Act for the Union to enter into force.

Thus the Union enters into force on 26th May. It is significant that the date falls on the morrow of the 38th anniversary of the signing of the OAU Charter. As a result, the OAU as it has been known for 38 years, is being transformed into African Union, having successfully attained its historic objectives of the total liberation of the continent by 1990 with the independence of Namibia and the elimination of apartheid in 1994 with the emancipation of the people of South Africa from the repressive minority rule.

The signing of the OAU Charter is annually observed as African Liberation Day. It is a fitting tribute to the foremost political organization of the continent to be transformed into African Union on its 38th anniversary under the noble ideals of its founding fathers.

In line with the decisions of the 5th OAU extraordinary summit held 1-2 March this year at Sirte, Libya, the African Union becomes both a political and legal reality on 26 May, as proclaimed by Article 28 of its Constitutive Act.