Arab League summit expected to support Sudan

Mar 24, 2006 (KHARTOUM) — Sudan, which has spared no expense to prepare its capital to host Arab leaders at a summit next week, is expected to be rewarded with the presidency of the Arab League and support on issues such as Darfur.

The atmosphere will be at sharp odds with a summit in Khartoum in January when African presidents spent most of their time arguing over how to prevent Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir from taking over the head of the African Union.

“Of course the host of the summit will be the president and in our opinion (the host) should have been the president of the African Union too,” Amr Moussa, head of the Arab League, told reporters in Khartoum this week as he prepared for the summit.

Moussa said the Arab League did not share its African brothers’ reservations about having Sudan, accused of widespread atrocities in its western Darfur region, at the head of the pan-Arab body.

Sudan spent tens of millions revamping Khartoum ahead of the African summit, paving roads, planting gardens and building a palatial presidential complex of villas next to the Nile.

But their efforts were in vain as African leaders decided not to elect Sudan — the only nominated candidate — as head of the 53-member body because of the conflict in Darfur.

Tens of thousands have been killed and more than 2 million driven from their homes in three years of fighting in the region. Washington calls the violence genocide, a charge Khartoum rejects. But the International Criminal Court is investigating allegations of war crimes there.

Sudan is under international pressure to accept U.N. troops to take over from African Union forces currently deployed to monitor a widely ignored ceasefire in Darfur, which they reject.

The Arab League has taken a supportive stance of Sudan on the issue, saying U.N. troops can only be deployed with the consent of the government.

Sudanese opposition politician Mubarak al-Fadil said Arab leaders were not likely to push on the Darfur affair as they traditionally have sat on the fence on divisive issues.

“They wouldn’t like to entangle themselves in it,” he said. “You are in someone’s home — you say these things behind his back but you don’t say it to his face.”

Sudan — Africa’s largest country — is where Arabic-speaking north Africa meets sub-Saharan Africa. It has been embroiled in a bitter north-south civil war for all but 11 years since independence in 1956.

But a peace deal last year paved the way for Sudan to begin rebuilding with a new vision of government. Yet the deal did not cover Darfur or a simmering rebellion in the east.

(Reuters)