"The fight against terrorism requires coordinated efforts by the international community in the framework of the United Nations," said Chissano

NAIROBI, September 11 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Africans, and U.S. diplomats based across the continent, marked Wednesday, September 11, the anniversary of last year's attacks on the U.S., with some officials mingling their condolences with cautions and even harsh criticism for the United States.

While Gambian President Yahya Jammeh declared Wednesday a national holiday and his Liberian counterpart Charles Taylor announced a "working holiday", most commemorative services across the continent were organized by U.S. diplomatic missions, rather than governments, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.

With its wars and the devastation of AIDS and famine, compounded by the indifference of a global economic system widely seen as geared to making the rich richer, Africa shed few tears over the sudden humiliation of the United States.

A Muslim cleric in the Malian capital, Bamako, said he would mark the day by "praying for the souls" of the more than 3,000 victims who perished in the attacks on September 11, 2001.

"Islam has never ordered its followers to kill gratuitously," said Imam Haidara.

But Ivory Coast's newspaper, Le Jour, placed the attacks on a par with many other events when "inhumanity defied humanity" naming slavery, colonization, the genocide of Amazonian Indians, the two World Wars and the genocide in Rwanda.

Rwanda in 1994 saw the orchestrated slaughter of between half a million and a million Tutsis and Hutus.

If the greater estimate is accurate, more than three times the number of people who died in the U.S. attacks, 3,034, were killed every day for 100 days in Rwanda as the international community stood by inactive, AFP said.

The only commemorative event in Kenya was an invitation-only church service led by U.S. Ambassador to Kenya Johnnie Carson and attended by a couple of hundred be-suited diplomats and government officials.

At the service, Roman Catholic nun Claudette La Verdiere implored God "to free them [the U.S.] from the enslaving desire of revenge."

"The attitude of the United States of America is a threat to world peace," said Mandela

While appreciating the need to tackle terrorism head-on, an editorial in Kenya's leading paper, the Daily Nation, said "We cannot blindly support a campaign that seems to have no rhyme or reason. Such as the plans now being pursued by President George W. Bush to topple Iraqi President Saddam Hussein."

"This is a war that must not be waged. Terrorism will not be defeated through terrorism," it added.

South African President Thabo Mbeki was equally cautious, calling for "intensifying efforts for peace in all regions of the globe and joining hands in the global campaign to eradicate poverty and inequality".

Business Day newspaper said: "Far from making the world safe from terror as he undertook, Bush's conduct has brought the world to the brink of a new Gulf War."

South African former president Nelson Mandela struck a similar vein in an interview with Newsweek magazine.

"If you look at those matters [Washington's foreign policy mistakes], you will come to the conclusion that the attitude of the United States of America is a threat to world peace," he said.

President Joaquim Chissano of Mozambique urged Bush not to play the maverick warrior.

"The fight against terrorism requires coordinated efforts by the international community in the framework of the United Nations," he said.

Mbeki called for "joining hands in the global campaign to eradicate poverty and inequality"

Gambia's President Jammeh added his own plea against more conflict, AFP said.

"Mankind must stand up and act against all acts of violence, be it terror or war, as violence or war will not serve any good," he said. "We must get rid of hate in our hearts and share what we have with humanity... to come together as one family."

A broad spectrum of Senegal's press was bluntly derisive of the U.S. administration, accusing it of failing to learn anything from 9/11.

Americans "have never asked themselves why they are so hated around the world," said the Walfadjri newspaper.

"This 'global policeman' makes his own laws, imposes his own views, strikes who he wants when he wants, which incurs the antipathy of poor people... It's back to square one," the paper said.

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