African mini-summit on Darfur to be held 17 Oct

Oct 11, 2006 (LIBREVILLE) — The presidents of Sudan, Gabon, Nigeria and Senegal will hold a summit on the Darfur crisis in Khartoum on October 17, a spokesman for Gabon’s president said on Wednesday.

Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir will host Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, Gabonese President Omar Bongo Ondimba and Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade for a “committee of the continent’s wise”.

The meeting, the brainchild of President Wade, was announced on October 7, but no date was set until Wednesday.

Obasanjo on Tuesday warned of a developing “genocide” in Sudan’s western Darfur region and urged Khartoum to accept a UN role to help overwhelmed African peacekeepers there.

The United States and some aid agencies have previously defined the Darfur crisis as a genocide, but this is believed to be the first time an African leader used the word.

Senegalese Foreign Minister Cheikh Tidiane Gadio was due to arrive in Sudan on Wednesday with his Nigerian counterpart Joy Ogwu to prepare for the meeting.

“Ways and means of dialogue must be found … to lead President al-Beshir to accept United Nations forces” in Darfur, Gadio said on Tuesday. He judged it “necessary for the continent to make its approach clear, to tell the president (al-Beshir) that the integrity of the (Sudanese) territory is not at issue.”

The UN estimates that the civil war and its humanitarian consequences in Darfur, the western region of Sudan bordering Chad, has killed at least 200,000 people since February 2003.

The UN Security Council decided on August 31 to send a force of some 17,000 soldiers and 3,000 police to relieve the African Union Mission, but the Sudanese president fiercely opposed the deployment which he equated to an attempt to recolonise Sudan.

(AFP/ST)