Geneva (ANTARA News/AFP) - African Union chief Teodoro Obiang Nguema condemned foreign military intervention in Ivory Coast and Libya, saying that Africa must be allowed to manage its own affairs.

"Africa does not need any external influence. Africa must manage its own affairs," Obiang Nguema, who is also president of Equatorial Guinea, told an international conference in Geneva.

The AU chairman noted that violence in Ivory Coast has led to significant human losses and that the union pressured strongman Laurent Gbagbo to step down and to recognise Alassane Ouattara as the president of the Ivory Coast.

But this should not "imply a war, an intervention of a foreign army," he said.

He also singled out the UN-sanctioned intervention in Libya.

"I believe that the problems in Libya should be resolved in an internal fashion and not through an intervention that could appear to ressemble an humanitarian intervention. We have already seen this in Iraq," said Obiang Nguema.(*)

(Uu.SYS/B002)

Editor: Ruslan Burhani
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