Former President Thabo Mbeki expresses excitement about the signing of the Sudan-South Sudan Co-operation Agreement, which he describes as “epoch-making in terms of the remaking of the African continent.”

The agreements define a slew of matters including economic, security, nationality and border issues all in the interest of creating and maintaining peace. “They determine that the conflict in this part of Africa has ceased to be a UN Charter Chapter VII threat to international peace and security.” These agreements “constitute the most comprehensive set of agreements determining relations between two African neighboring states...” Lastly, they are the “only” agreements in “which two independent African states enter into a binding agreement to work together for mutual benefit, to ensure each develops as a viable state.”

The “bulk” of African media “essentially ignored the signing of the Sudan-South Sudan Co-operation Agreement, treating this immensely important African development virtually as a non-event.” President Mbeki believes that is a “failure by the media to inform its readers, listeners and viewers about a matter vital to Africa’s future,” and will “inevitably feed the perception that Africa’s future” is defined by outside forces.

As Mbeki asserts, these historic agreement “sets a unique benchmark between two African sovereign states about how neighbors should construct relations, to give concrete reality to the objectives shared by the peoples of our continent of African integration, unity, solidarity and mutually beneficial co-operation.”

The implementation of this agreement could make the Sudanese people “pathfinders” or “pioneers” in achieving “the historic objective of African unity.”