African leaders have commemorated 50 years since the founding of the continental organization that would eventually become the modern African Union. AU Chairman and Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn honoured the bloc’s founders with a call to continue to carry out their vision with continued support from the rest of the world.
Hailemariam Desalegn said, "It is a special day both for us in the continent and for those of African descent in the Diaspora. It must also be a special day for friends of Africa and for those who stood by us through thick and thin. Indeed we need the solidarity of many outside the continent to overcome and get around so many obstacles to the realisation of our rights as a people."
At the AU headquarters in Addis Ababa, the organization’s leaders celebrated the achievements of the past and called for greater solidarity among the nations going forward. The AU has adopted the theme of Pan-Africanism and the African Renaissance for its jubilee year - a call for greater regional integration and a celebration of Africa’s re-emergence as a global power.
AU heads of state will begin an official summit Sunday. Among the items to be discussed is a call from African foreign ministers for the International Criminal Court case against Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta and his deputy to be dropped. The motion is seen as a major rebuke of the ICC, which some of the continent’s leaders say unfairly targets Africans.