African leaders gather on Friday for a summit to adopt a common defence policy and give the 53-nation African Union (AU) the right to intervene in armed conflicts across the continent, AU officials said.
But they said the two-day meeting in Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's hometown of Sirte would reject a Libyan proposal to disband all national armies in favour of one continental force.
With fragile peace efforts in the continent's many troublespots, there is international pressure on the AU to take an active lead in peacekeeping.
African defence ministers who met this week in Sirte to prepare for the extraordinary summit finalised a document on African Common Defence and Security policy and Non-Aggression which heads of state and prime ministers will adopt with minor changes, diplomats and AU sources said.
The document says wars and civil strifes - as currently in Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Sudan - are the main obstacles to development, damage economies, turn would-be consumers and producers into millions of uprooted refugees and scare off foreign investors, the sources said.
The draft empowers the Ethiopia-based AU to order military intervention or impose sanctions on a member state that goes against African consensus in the case of civil war or genocide.
It calls for the creation of a body modelled onto the UN Security Council to decide on military intervention.
Funding for the planned rapid reaction military force will be a test for African leaders and the international community, the sources said.
Africans want to provide men and equipment while international donors would donate cash. But donors argue that Africans cannot expect to be given a free hand and independence if the money comes from abroad.
On Libya's proposal for a single army, the sources said Gaddafi's plan appeared too ambitious.
Libya, which pledged in December to scrap plans to develop weapons of mass destruction in a bid to normalise its relations with the West, argues that the mere existence of separate armies in Africa feeds a chain of suspicions and rivalries that hinder stabilisation and development.
"The Libyan proposal derives from Gaddafi's view of a defence and security umbrella for the whole continent and a single army to get rid of the separate armies that cost Africa $13 billion each year," a senior African diplomat said.
Libyan government sources said African leaders would also discuss prospects of economic and social development in Africa, including the issues of water and agriculture.
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