AU commissioner sends letter to Sudan president ahead of summit
October 26, 2009 (WASHINGTON) – The Chairperson of the African Union Commission, Jean Ping sent a letter to the Sudanese president Omer Hassan Al-Bashir ahead of the Peace and Security Council (PSC) due to start in Abuja this week, Sudan state media reported.
SUNA said that Ping “expressed his desire to reach ideas before the Peace and Security Council meeting in Abuja”.
The AU top official affirmed in his letter to Bashir the PSC resolve “to find African solutions to the continent’s problems to achieve peace and security and drying up tension spots”.
The PSC summit will be primarily devoted to discussing the AU panel report on Darfur submitted earlier this month which examined the crisis and came up with recommendations to speed up resolution of the conflict through political, judicial and reconciliation measures.
The report recommended hybrid courts for Darfur with participation of foreign judges, a proposal which Sudan has flatly rejected in the past.
The AU secretariat may be trying to avert a confrontation with Khartoum if the latter refuses to implement the findings of the commission led by former South African president Thabo Mbeki.
In the past, Sudan has pledged to comply by the recommendations of the panel without reservations.
The Sudanese presidential adviser Ghazi Salah Al-Deen told the Qatar based Al-Jazeera TV in an interview last July that Khartoum “trusts the intentions of the panel and its evaluation because it is African and not stemming from a colonialist mentality”.
“We are awaiting whatever the Mbeki panel….we are satisfied with what whatever results from its recommendations” he said.
However, the panel appears to have made an implicit endorsement of the International Criminal Court (ICC) suggesting that it should be allowed to prosecute individuals who bear the greatest responsibility for the crimes committed in Darfur.
“This prosecutorial policy inevitably leaves the overwhelming majority of individuals outside of the ICC system and still needing to answer for crimes they might have committed…. justice from the ICC, exclusively, would therefore leave impunity for the vast majority of offenders in Darfur, including virtually all direct perpetrators of the offences”.
Sudan has dismissed the jurisdiction of the Hague tribunal which indicted Bashir last March for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Some Sudanese officials have expressed hope that the panel would call for pulling the Darfur case away from the ICC.
Furthermore, the fact finding mission make no calls for deferring the case against Bashir under Article 16 of the Rome Statute in line with the wishes of the AU.
The pan-African body along with the Arab League has pressed the UN Security Council (UNSC) on freezing the case against Bashir with no success. As a result the AU decided last July that African countries will not cooperate with the ICC in executing the arrest warrant for Bashir.
Al-Amamra was quoted by SUNA as saying that the AU is keen on Sudan’s position on the work of the panel “and its willingness to continue to respond and cooperate to continue the important mission to tackle the problems at hand through peaceful, balanced and fair ways that guarantee peace and security”.
He also expressed gratitude to Sudan for enforcing the role of the AU and facilitating the deployment of the African Union-United Nations mission in Darfur (UNAMID).
Furthermore, Al-Amamra said that the PSC summit is an opportunity for Sudan to state opinion on the panel’s report.
The Sudanese 2nd Vice President Ali Osman Taha will lead Sudan’s delegation to the summit and respond to the recommendations which are currently being reviewed by government bureaus.
Taha will be accompanied by presidential adviser Mustafa Ismail, Justice Minister Abdel-Baset Sabdarat and governor of North Darfur Osman Mohamed Kibir.
The travel of the 2nd Vice president appeared to have been delayed from Tuesday night to Wednesday night, according to SUNA.
(ST)
Kur
AU commissioner sends letter to Sudan president ahead of summit
The AU Peace and Security Commission is nothing other than a toothless dog run by some cowards. They waste time and resources in formulating rules they will not implement. Now the Mbeki report will go into the dustbin after wasting millions of dollars on its production. This is all ridiculous.
Kur
Oracle
AU commissioner sends letter to Sudan president ahead of summit
That tyrant Bashir will not evade any of the many plans to capture him. If he thinks that this is a legitimate summit, he needs to get bolder advisers. He is at the beginning of the end of his time and all Sudan shall rejoice when he is detained. Most African leaders with the exception of Mugabe are puppets of the West and they will implement their masters’ orders of capturing Bashir, but it is good for us Southern Sudanese. We should wait carefully for what the West are planning to do when we get independence. That is the real danger to our people. Lets not get our resources looted right from under our feet.
Time1
AU commissioner sends letter to Sudan president ahead of summit
Omer Hassen Ahmed al bashir hahahaha
I suggest you stay in Sudan inside your hole like Suddam hussien, otherwise if you try to go outside Sudan you will end up with handcuffs in your blood stain hands. look how many important conferences you have missed now from UN meeting to AU meetings, why you don’t just handover the presidency to Osman Taha instead to save the SUdanese people time, you marginalized Osman Taha now when your situation is hot you come back and send him to Nigeria, what a coward leader.