The Hague, 21 April 2004

African Union and OPCW Cooperate in Eliminating Chemical Weapons

The Government of Ethiopia and the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) are jointly conducting a workshop on the universality and the implementation of the Chemical Weapons Convention in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, from 20 to 22 April 2004. This workshop has been arranged in close collaboration with the Commission of the African Union (AU).

The objective of this event is to increase awareness of the Convention, the Organisation, and the benefits of membership, as well as to achieve the widest possible adherence to the chemical weapons ban in Africa. The workshop’s programme includes: achieving full and uniform compliance with the Convention’s obligations, information sessions on the Convention for States in the region that have not yet joined, cooperation with the Peace and Security Council of the African Union, and the effort to establish a chemicals weapons-free zone in Africa.

Adherence to the Convention provides concrete benefits for all OPCW Member States. The OPCW supports programmes to enhance Member States’ national capacity to implement the Convention and to protect civilian populations against chemical weapons. The Addis Ababa workshop will discuss ways to extend these benefits more widely within the African region.

The United Nations is addressing the issue of the non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and is currently preparing a resolution on non-proliferation, urging all States to take additional effective measures to prevent such proliferation, and to promote the universal adoption, full implementation and, where necessary, strengthening of multilateral treaties including the Chemical Weapons Convention.

In his opening address to the workshop, OPCW Director General, Mr Rogelio Pfirter, said, “Africa has already given ample proof of its commitment to the total elimination of chemical weapons through its adoption, at the 38th Session of the Organisation for African Unity, in Durban, South Africa, of a decision on the Implementation and Universality of the Chemical Weapons Convention. That important decision recalled the steadfast position of Africa regarding weapons of mass destruction. It encouraged a call to achieve the universality of the Chemical Weapons Convention and also recommended effective implementation of the Convention through sustained technical assistance from the Technical Secretariat of the OPCW.” Mr Pfirter further added that, “This meeting in Addis Ababa will help us advance from wide and far-reaching political commitments to the realm of their tangible manifestation. In other words, to define what we want to do together and how the OPCW Technical Secretariat could best assist the African nations in meeting their own political decision to rid this continent of this category of weapons of mass destruction.”