Sudan’s UN ambassador retired by Khartoum: report

February 28, 2010 (KHARTOUM) – The Sudanese government has ended the mandate of its United Nations Ambassador Abdel-Mahmood Abdel-Haleem as he has reached the official retirement age, a Sudanese newspaper reported.

The pro-SPLM Ajras Al-Hurriya newspaper quoted an unidentified Sudanese foreign ministry official as saying that his retirement is “normal” and in line with the law.

The controversial diplomat is believed to have well bypassed the legal retirement age but was granted an exception by Sudanese president Omer Hassan Al-Bashir.

In recent months a number of Sudanese columnists including those writing in pro-government newspapers has fiercely criticized Abdel-Haleem’s performance saying it has tainted Sudan’s image and alienated many countries at the world body.

Sources say that his peers at the Sudanese foreign minister are unhappy about his appointment and service extensions he received. He had a tense relation with his former deputy and current Sudanese charge d’affaires in Washington Akec Khoc.

Abdel-Haleem is well known for his less than diplomatic style and unconventional choice of words. He is also famous for his verbal target of the International Criminal Court (ICC) Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo who has managed to secure an arrest warrant for the Sudanese president.

“Mr. Ocampo, you are not welcome in this place. You abuse the image of the United Nations,” Abdel-Haleem told reporters in June 2009 following Ocampo’s briefing and described him as a “mercenary”.

“Your dreams of publicity and media should come to an end also,” he said.

In one instance the Sudanese ambassador called Costa Rica a “banana republic” because of its support to the ICC.

The Costa Rican envoy to the UN Jorge Urbina responded saying that his country has a far higher ranking than Sudan in the United Nations Development Programme human development index.

The UN website says that Abdel-Haleem began his career with the Sudanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1975, serving at the Sudan Embassy in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia from 1987 to 1989; Ethiopia (1990 to 1995). He also worked with the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa. During the 1990’s, he was sent as a presidential envoy to Somalia in 1994 and as a Special Envoy to Afghanistan in May 2003.

In 1995, he returned to Sudan to serve as Director of the Africa Department in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs until 1997. He was Director of Technical and Economic Cooperation from 1997 to 1999.

He was appointed to his current post in September 2006.

(ST)