Egyptian-hosted summit on Darfur postponed

CAIRO, Egypt, Apr 10, 2005 (AP) — Egypt on Sunday postponed a summit scheduled for later this month on Sudan’s Darfur conflict, saying the timing was inconvenient.

Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit said Sunday the summit will be delayed to the end of April or beginning of May because “the timing is not convenient with engagements of some leaders participating in this summit.”

He did not elaborate.

Egypt had invited the leaders of Sudan and neighbors Libya, Chad, Nigeria, and Gabon to meet in Sharm el-Sheik on April 20 as international pressure mounted on Khartoum to deal with the two-year Darfur conflict.

Sudan has angrily rejected several recent U.N. Security Council resolutions, including one that calls for Darfur war crimes suspects to be tried by the International Criminal Court in The Hague, The Netherlands.

In a summit last October, Sudan’s neighbors — minus Gabon — suggested they would oppose any U.N. or Western efforts to impose penalties on the Sudanese government for its alleged role in the Darfur conflict.

But international pressure has been increasing for Sudan to hand over suspects, most recently after a daylong attack last Thursday in which more than 350 militiamen destroyed a South Darfur village.

In a joint statement Friday, the United Nations and the African Union expressed “utter shock and disbelief” at the attack and said the names of the militia leader and his known collaborators would be turned over for possible U.N. sanctions and prosecution by the International Criminal Court.

Sudan says it can bring to justice those responsible for Darfur rights abuses, but a U.N. panel that investigated the conflict found the government itself was implicated in mass killings and that 51 Sudanese — including high-ranking government officials — should stand trial in the ICC.

The Darfur conflict began in February 2003 after a rebel uprising against what they saw as years of state neglect and discrimination against Sudanese of African origin. Sudan’s government is accused of responding with a counterinsurgency campaign in which the Janjaweed, an Arab militia, committed wide-scale abuses against the African population.

The U.N. has described Darfur as the scene of the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. An estimated 180,000 people have been killed during the conflict.