Sudan’s bid to chair AU has put African leaders in tough position
Jan 15, 2006 (NEW YORK) — Sudan’s bid to chair the African Union has put the continent’s leaders in a tough position because of the country’s poor human rights record and the conflict in Darfur where an estimated 300,000 people have died and 2.2 million have fled their homes.
By tradition, Sudan’s President Omar El-Bashir should become the next chairman of the 53-nation regional group at its upcoming summit in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, on Jan. 23-24.
But more than 40 African non-governmental organisations have launched a bid to prevent Sudan from becoming the next chairman of the African Union, claiming the move would jeopardise peacekeeping operations in the country’s troubled Darfur region.
In an appeal sent to African heads of state, the signatories say that Sudan’s chairmanship could dash hopes of resolving the crisis, in which an estimated 300,000 people have been killed and two million driven from their homes.
But Tanzania’s U.N. Ambassador Augustine Mahiga, the current Security Council president, said Friday that no decision has been made.
“Traditionally, the country that hosts the summit on an annual basis takes the chairmanship, but we broke this tradition last year when Nigeria continued the chair for two years, and in respect to the coming chairmanship consultations are still going on and we are waiting to see the outcome,” he said.
Libya hosted last year’s AU summit but because of opposition to its leader, Moammar Gadhafi, heading the organization Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo was kept in the chair.
The case of Sudan is even more difficult because a 7,000-strong African Union force is in Darfur charged with monitoring a cease-fire between El-Bashir’s government and rebels that is being regularly broken by all parties.
Asked whether Sudan should chair the AU under these circumstances, Mahiga said, “It would create difficulties, and I think the consultations will take into account those difficulties.”
Chadian President Idriss Deby has accused Sudan of backing rebels who are seeking to overthrow his government. He has called on the AU to block Sudan from taking over the AU president because of its aggressive attitude toward its people and toward Chad.
Jan Pronk, the top U.N. envoy to Sudan, said Friday that the United Nations has not taken a public position on the issue.
“I am being told that the decision is not going to be made now in this new African Union summit,” he said. “So I expect that they will find, perhaps, a temporary solution, which might consist of president Obasanjo continuing for a while in that chair.”
Pronk said the Sudanese government has sounded out governments throughout Africa on the issue over a long period and “are very well aware of the situation, and also wise.”
(ST/AP)