Mbeki to brief the UNSC on the AU roadmap for Darfur

December 20, 2009 (WASHINGTON) – The chairman of the African Union High Level Implementation Panel (AUHIP) on Darfur Thabo Mbeki will address the UN Security Council (UNSC) on Monday regarding the report he compiled this year containing a roadmap for resolving the crisis in Sudan’s Western region.

The former South African president has just concluded a visit to Sudan where he met with different political parties and government officials on the mechanisms to implement the recommendations of the African Union High Level Panel on Darfur (AUPD).

Last month Mbeki expressed disappointment with what he suggested to be a non-endorsement by the UNSC to the AUPD report with an implicit criticism of Western countries sitting on the council.

“They’re [UNSC] extremely upset because we didn’t deliver a report stating that a bloody war was taking place. There is still a low-intensity war going on, since there has been no peace agreement yet. People who allege otherwise, are creating their own convenient and self-justifying reality,” he said at an address at the University of Pretoria’s Faculty of Law.

He urged African countries to strengthen ties with China adding that “Western countries are becoming increasingly concerned about China’s growing presence in Africa”.

The AU Peace and Security Council (PSC) endorsed the report last October including the call for the establishment of a hybrid court that would also include foreign judges to sit alongside with their Sudanese peers to prosecute Darfur war crimes suspects.

However, Sudanese gave a cool reception to the proposal and this month the president Omer Hassan Al-Bashir said that his government rejects the idea..

“We on our end expressed reservation on this point [hybrid court] because we have an independent judiciary and the judicial institution has the say in forming any courts inside the borders to prosecute any Sudanese. Mbeki understands to our reservation” Bashir said.

“The proposed court is after achieving peace and reconciliation in accordance with the norms and customs of Darfur in resolving disputes and defusing differences and reconciliation is the master of all rulings” he added.

This week Mbeki in Khartoum denied that he is pressing Khartoum to accept the idea of creating hybrid courts for Darfur suggesting that the matter is up for negotiators to decide on it and denying that the proposal violated Sudan’s sovereignty as some officials have said.

“We should remember that these proposals, endorsed by the AU, are matters that are still going to be negotiated by the Sudanese themselves,” Xinhua news agency quoted him as telling reporters at a press conference following talks with Bashir.

The head of the AU office in Khartoum Mahmoud Kane in an email to Sudan Tribune denied any change in Mbeki’s position with regard to implementing the recommendations particularly with regards to the hybrid court and emphasized that the AUPD report makes it clear that no solution should be imposed on the Sudanese people.

The New York based Human Rights Watch (HRW) called on the UNSC to “express strong support for an African Union panel’s call for justice for victims in Darfur given the consistent failure by the Sudanese government to hold perpetrators of serious crimes accountable”.

“The panel rightly lays the near total absence of justice for horrific crimes committed in Darfur at Khartoum’s feet,” said Richard Dicker, International Justice Program director at Human Rights Watch. “We look to President Mbeki and the Security Council to strongly back the panel’s call for prosecutions of serious crimes”.

“Khartoum has been stonewalling on justice for years,” Dicker said. “The proposed hybrid court and national law reforms could potentially help, but should not derail the ICC cases for one minute.”

Some critics and rebel groups have accused the AU panel of creating the AUPD for the purpose of circumventing the International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrant for the Sudanese head of state.

Last month the former Egyptian foreign minister Ahmed Maher Al-Sayed who was a member of the panel said that the AUPD’s goal “was to find a way out [to Bashir] from the dilemma of the ICC that sparked a great deal of controversy”.

“Incriminating the president is out of question and fundamentally unacceptable” the former Egyptian foreign minister said in an interview with the Egypt based Al-Masry Al-Youm newspaper.

Mbeki was reportedly outraged over Maher’s statements and sent a “strongly worded letter” to the Egyptian foreign ministry protesting them.

The AU has issued resolutions criticizing the warrant and declaring that its ICC members will not adhere to their legal obligations in apprehending Bashir should he set foot on their territories.

William Pace, Convener of the Coalition for the ICC (CICC) said in a press release that “Justice is an indispensable component of peace and we insist that the Sudanese government demonstrates to the international community that it will hold perpetrators of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur accountable.”

“The spirit of these recommendations strengthen the role of the ICC as a central one, compatible with article 4(h) of the Constitutive Act of the AU and part of a comprehensive solution for the situation in Darfur including national and regional efforts to end impunity and achieve peace and stability,” said Stephen Lamony, Outreach Liaison for Africa and Situations Adviser at the CICC.

The UNSC may issue a presidential statement following Mbeki’s briefing and the closed meeting with council members.

An African diplomat speaking to Sudan Tribune last month said that the AU is seeking to have Mbeki take over from the joint United Nations (UN) – African Union (AU) Darfur mediator Dijibril Bassole.

The AU particularly Chairperson of African Union Commission Jean Ping as well as Mbeki view Bassole as being “closer” to the UNSC, the diplomat said while the joint mediator “is trying to be impartial in his role without favoring the Sudanese government”.

(ST)