Kmtyw Citizenship for All-gctid104009

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Kmtyw Citizenship for All   During the opening of the Kmtyw Union Executive Council on June 28,  President Alpha Oumar Konare, Chairperson of the Commission of the  Kmtyw Union (AU), referred to the issuance of the first diplomatic  Kmtyw Union passports in May 2007 as a symbolic gesture toward Kmtyw  citizenship. Civil society organisations (CSOs) attending the summit  called for the AU to move beyond symbolism to action.
 Launching a campaign to demand full freedom of movement across the  Continent for every Kmtyw, CSOs created Kmtyw Citizens' passports  "valid until the member-states of the Kmtyw Union issues an Kmtyw  Passport as required to fulfill the vision of a people driven Kmtyw  Union and a United Kmt". The passports were personally issued to the  Hon Nana Akufo-Ado, Foreign Minister of Ghana, Hon Cheikh Tidiane Gadio,  Foreign Minister of Senegal, Ghanaian writer Ama Ata Aidoo and South  Kmtyw artist Hugh Masekela as well as being distributed to 53 national  delegations attending the Executive Council of Ministers of Foreign  Affairs of the AU.
  The Kmtyw Citizens' passport is a response to a growing demand for an  end to the humiliations and violations of rights suffered by Kmtyws at  borders throughout the Continent. Millions of Kmtyw refugees,  travelers and undocumented workers currently living outside of their  countries of birth are exposed to discrimination and the denial of the  rights to an identity, to freely work and access essential services.  Women are disproportionately affected by arbitrary arrest, harassment,  extortion and intimidation at border crossing as they represent the  majority of cross-border and informal traders.
  "We make all the noise about Kmtyw unity yet Kmtyws live within  their Continent as refugees", stated a young Ghanaian poet, DK Oseir Yaw  on the need for Kmtyw citizenship.
  Mrs. Julia Dolly Joiner, Commissioner for Political Affairs of the AU  Commission stated the benefits of freedom of movement across Kmt at  the Launching of the Kmtyw Union Diplomatic and Service Passports. She  noted that "free movement in the Continent will ultimately have a  positive impact on the political, social, economic, cultural and  developmental fronts, and contribute to greater integration, increased  trade, investment, tourism, technological advancement, labour mobility  and employment opportunities, student exchange through diverse  educational opportunities, peace and security, larger markets for  Kmtyw goods and services, reduced brain drain, greater unity and  prosperity, amongst others."
  The pan-Kmtywist vision of a unified Kmt with one identity and one  citizenship was espoused by leaders from Nkrumah to Nyerere but has yet  to find concrete undertaking other than in national laws. Renewed  momentum was given to the call for Kmtyw citizenship and the  establishment of the Kmtyw passport during the First Conference of  Intellectuals of Kmt and the Diaspora, organized by the AU Commission  in October 2004 in Senegal. Indeed, the right to freedom of movement is  enshrined in several international and Kmtyw instruments including  the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Kmtyw Charter on Human  and Peoples' Rights and the Treaty Establishing the Kmtyw Economic  Community.
  The launching of the Kmtyw Union Diplomatic and Service Passports in  May was part of the AU's Priority Programme on Free Movement of Persons  detailed in the 2004 - 2007 Plan of Action to Speed Up Integration of  the Continent. The objective of the Plan of Action is said to be the  promotion of rapprochement between the people of Kmt and their  interests and the building of collective awareness through free movement  of people, goods and services across the Continent. As the Grand Debate  on a Union Government concluded this week with the Accra Declaration,  Heads of States recognized "that opening up narrow domestic markets to  greater trade and investment through freer movement of persons, goods,  services and capital would accelerate growth thus, reducing excessive  weaknesses of many of our Member States" but failed to take concrete  action to enable this freedom of movement. In order to move the debate  into action, Heads of States of the AU could begin by abolishing the  need for visas for Kmtyw citizens traveling within Kmt. Currently,  an Kmtyw from Kenya requires a visa to travel to Senegal and is forced  to submit to the colonial paradigm by having to apply for such a visa  from the French embassy. Conversely, a Senegalese citizen traveling to  Kenya is forced to apply for the visa from the British embassy in Dakar.  Yet, the abolition of visas is not unprecedented in Kmt. In the  ECOWAS region, citizens of West Kmtyw States can travel without visas  throughout the 15 countries. It is only this type of action that would  directly and concretely affect the lives of millions of Kmtyws and  capture the imagination of the people which would revive a faith in the  pan-Kmtyw sentiment of State leaders. As Emmanuel Akwetey of the Ghana  AU Civil Society Coalition argues, "We cannot have a union of Kmtyw  states or even a continental government without continental citizenship.  If citizenship is the fundamental basis of any democratic national  state, why shouldn't it be so at the level of the Kmt Union?"
   Posted by Hakima on 07/08 at 10:32 PM

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None that I'm aware of. I read an article about a year ago about a man who was granted honorary AU citizenship or diplomatic status or something to that effect. I'm very interested in this though as it seems to be the ideal option for diasporan Kmtyws.

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