Africa’s panel will draw up proposals to end Darfur conflict – Mbeki
April 4, 2009 (KHARTOUM) — The African panel will examine the six years conflict in Darfur and submit it recommendations to achieve peace and justice in the war torn region, said the Chairperson of the African Union High Level Panel on Darfur (AUPD), former South African President, Thabo Mbeki.
Formed after the ICC arrest warrant for President Omer Al-Bashir, the mission of the panel and its role remained unclear. The eight-member committee includes three former African heads of state. South Africa’s Thabo Mbeki is joined by Burundi’s Pierre Buyoya and Nigeria’s General Abusalam Abubakar.
In a press conference held in Khartoum today, Mbeki emphasized that the panel would look into the conflict and write its recommendations for the AU Peace and Security Council in the areas of peace, reconciliation and justice. He added that they are not mediators.
The former South Africa president further said Darfur conflict has “lasted too long,” and its consequences were very heavy in all sort of ways. He further outlined “something must be done in order to end it as soon as possible.”
The AU panel concluded today its first visit to Sudan where it held meetings with Sudanese Sudanese government officials, UNAMID officials, Darfur tribal leaders, and IDPs delegates.
Today morning the panel travelled to the South Darfur Capital of Nyala and met with the state governor Ali Mahmoud and visited the Draij IDPs Camp.
Also, the formers three head of states also met with president Al-Bashir who directed to “all ministers and departments and so on to fully cooperate with the panel,” as it was said by Mbaki this evening.
Asked about their role towards the International Criminal Court (ICC), the head of the panel said it is up to the African Union to deal with the world crimes court. Adding they will study all the reports related to this issue and draw up their recommendations.
South Africa’s foreign minister, Nkozasana Dlamini-Zuma, was quoted recently as saying Mbeki’s role on the panel would be to intercede between Sudan and The Hague based court.
The ICC Pre-trial Chamber 1 issued on March 4 an arrest warrant against President Al-Bashir on seven counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Sudan rejected any cooperation with the court while the African Union failed to convince the UN Security Council to suspend the jurisdiction of the tribunal for one year.
During an AU peace and security commission meeting held last month on Al-Bashir’s case in Addis Ababa, Mbeki told the gathering, which included representatives of the five permanent Security Council members, that the AU Charter claims primary authority over African peace and security issues.
“The African Union has taken the clear and unequivocal decision the continent must act not only to end war and violent conflict in Africa, but also to ensure that where war does anyway break out, all belligerents must know that war crimes, crimes against humanity and other abuses will be punished resolutely, and that a culture of impunity will not be permitted to take root and entrench itself,” Mbeki said.
(ST)