IGAD summit on Sudan postponed

October 29, 2010 (KHARTOUM) – The meeting of the Inter-Governmental Authority for Development (IGAD) on Sudan that was scheduled to start this weekend in Addis Ababa has been postponed indefinitely amid conflicting reports on the causes of the change.

“It has been postponed, it is now scheduled tentatively for the 6th and 7th (of November) in Addis,” an official at the Kenyan foreign ministry told Agence France Presse (AFP).

“An issue came up and it has been postponed. The date was not convenient for many, it came too soon,” the official added without elaborating.

An IGAD official confirmed the meeting’s postponement and said it was too early to confirm a new date.

This week it was announced that the summit was moved from Nairobi to Addis, notably over unease at Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir’s possible attendance, earlier this week.

The Sudanese leader faces two arrest warrants against him from the International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crimes and genocide he allegedly committed in Darfur.

Last August, Kenya came under intense criticism from Western countries and suffered rifts within its coalition government when it received Al-Bashir at the promulgation of the country’s new constitution despite being an ICC state member with obligation to arrest him. It was Bashir’s second visit to a state party after Chad since the warrants.

On Monday, the court’s judges have asked Kenya “to take any necessary measure to ensure” Bashir is arrested and turned over for trial or explain “any problem which would impede or prevent” his arrest.

The then Kenyan Foreign Minister Moses Wetangula said on Wednesday it was logical for the meeting to take place at the African Union’s (AU) headquarters in Addis Ababa and denied that the change of venues was because of ICC pressure.

“We are trying to see if we can have it in Addis, which is the seat of the AU (African Union), so that the twin bodies of IGAD and the AU itself can deal with the issues, in preparation for the January 9 referendum,” Wetangula told Reuters by phone.

“We have not and we will not divert any meetings out of Nairobi because of ICC. ICC does not have a hold on Kenya, we are a signatory to a treaty establishing it so we cannot live under fear over a treaty that we are just a party to,” he said.

However, the Daily Nation newspaper of Kenya on Saturday quoted unidentified sources as saying that transferring the summit location was because the judges’ orders that the Kenyan government ensure the arrest for Bashir should he attend the IGAD summit.

While Kenya is a signatory of the ICC’s founding treaty and therefore theoretically under obligation to arrest Bashir if he enters the country, Ethiopia is not.

(ST)