OAU Memorial Place

OAU Memorial Place, 2017

7.3619444444444 -8.7119444444444Coordinates: 7 ° 21 ′ 43 " N , 8 ° 42 ′ 43" W.

The OAU-Memorial-Place (German: OAU-Denkistorplatz ) is a memorial in downtown Sanniquellie in Nimba County in the West African Republic of Liberia . Every year on 25 May, Africa Day , political commemorative events are held at the memorial.

The memorial is located at the venue of a meeting that lasted several days in July 1959, at which Presidents Kwame Nkrumah ( Ghana ), Ahmed Sékou Touré ( Guinea ) and William S. Tubman ( Liberia ) decided to later found the OAU .

At that time, there were three traditional wooden African consulting houses around the memorial stone at the monument square , which were destroyed by fire during the Liberian Civil War.

The simple monument is about two meters high and three meters wide. It was built on a green strip. The memorial consists of a brick, plastered and colored wall block. Above that, the OAU emblem was mounted in the middle . On the front there is the inscription: SANNIQUELLIE CITY / BIRTHPLACE OF THE ORGANIZATION OF AFRICAN UNITY / 1959 FOUNDING MEMBERS: LIBERIA - GUINEA - GHANA 1958 . The corresponding flag was painted over each country name. Below that is an additional list with the dates of the governors and superintendents of Nimba County.

On the back there is the same text: SANNIQUELLIE CITY / BIRTHPLACE OF THE ORGANIZATION OF AFRICAN UNITY / 1959 FOUNDING MEMBERS: LIBERIA - GUINEA - GHANA 1958 The corresponding flag was painted over each country name. The data of the sponsors, the architect and the construction company involved were painted on two areas below.

The inscriptions and paintings are regularly renewed on behalf of the county government before Africa Day.

Individual evidence

^ J. Wesley: Sanniquellie: Birthplace of the African Union. (No longer available online.) UNMIL, October 2004, p. 4 , formerly in the original ; Retrieved on January 31, 2011 (English): "At the Sanniquellie summit, Tubman proposed a Community of Independent African States" within whose framework African countries could cooperate - socially, culturally, and economically - without any state surrendering its sovereignty to any other member of the community. " To this Nkrumah and Tours agreed in principle. In a prophetic manner, Guinea's Sekou Toure voiced in Sanniquellie that "the three representatives of the three West African states of today can die tomorrow, but their work which is started today in Sanniquellie will never die." Four years later in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, the Sanniquellie Declaration of Principles found concrete expression in the Organization of African Unity (OAU), now renamed the African Union (AU). A monument with the inscription, "Sanniquellie City - Birthplace of the Organization of African Unity" could still be found today among the town's historical artifacts. "

[Wesley-1] J. Wesley: Sanniquellie: Birthplace of the African Union. (No longer available online.) UNMIL, October 2004, p. 4 , formerly in the original ; Retrieved on January 31, 2011 (English): "At the Sanniquellie summit, Tubman proposed a Community of Independent African States" within whose framework African countries could cooperate - socially, culturally, and economically - without any state surrendering its sovereignty to any other member of the community. " To this Nkrumah and Tours agreed in principle. In a prophetic manner, Guinea's Sekou Toure voiced in Sanniquellie that "the three representatives of the three West African states of today can die tomorrow, but their work which is started today in Sanniquellie will never die." Four years later in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, the Sanniquellie Declaration of Principles found concrete expression in the Organization of African Unity (OAU), now renamed the African Union (AU). A monument with the inscription, "Sanniquellie City - Birthplace of the Organization of African Unity" could still be found today among the town's historical artifacts. "