Days after heart op, Blair to tour Sudan, Ethiopia

By Opheera McDoom and Andrew Cawthorne

KHARTOUM/LONDON, Oct 5 (Reuters) – Four days after a heart operation that sparked debate over his future, Britain’s Tony Blair flies to Africa on Tuesday to keep international pressure on Sudan over Darfur and attend a regional summit in Ethiopia.

Sudanese officials said Blair would be in Khartoum on Wednesday — making him the most senior Western government official to visit since conflict erupted in Darfur last year.

He will meet Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir and Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail, the Khartoum officials said. Blair’s Downing Street office would not confirm that part of the trip.

Sudan stands accused of allowing Arab militia to attack non-Arab farmers in its western region, and is under threat of sanctions by the United Nations unless violence there ends.

Blair follows U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and various European ministers who have been to Sudan recently to urge action from Khartoum to protect refugees and rein in the Janjaweed Arab militia.

Washington calls the killing there “genocide”. Khartoum denies links to the Janjaweed and calls them outlaws.

Darfuri members of Sudan’s parliament said Britain, Sudan’s former colonial power, should provide more aid for Darfur and put pressure on Khartoum to implement democratic reform.

Britain is one of the largest aid donors in the Darfur crisis, which the United Nations has called the world’s worst humanitarian disaster.

On Thursday and Friday, Blair will attend the British- sponsored Commission for Africa meeting in Ethiopia to map out policy on trade, aid and debt for Britain to press when it heads the G8 industrial bloc and the European Union in 2005.

Some view the commission with scepticism as yet another talking-shop on Africa. But Britain insists it is acting from a moral imperative to help a continent Blair referred to as a “scar on the conscience of the world”.

“What the prime minister wants is a report which reflects the reality of what works and what doesn’t work in Africa,” Blair’s spokesman said. The aim is to focus minds in Africa and the rich world on “turning Africa around”, he said.

BLAIR “FRESH AND ALERT”

For some, however, the main significance of Blair’s trip will be to see how he stands up to three nights on the road so soon after Friday’s successful treatment for heart palpitations.

Aides say Blair, 51, is “fresh and alert” after a weekend recuperating at his Chequers country residence.

Just as much as Africa issues, journalists with Blair are sure to pepper him with questions about the succession debate he opened up last week with a surprise announcement he wanted to serve a third term — but not a fourth — as Britain’s leader.

Blair is favourite to win an election expected in 2005.

But many had expected him to hand over soon after that to his powerful finance minister and de facto No. 2, Gordon Brown.

Faced with his heart treatment and the leaked news of his purchase of a retirement home in central London, Blair sought to squash such speculation by saying last Thursday night he had decided to serve a full third term if he wins the next election.

That sent British political circles into a spin.

Brown was rumoured to be furious and many analysts predicted Blair’s announcement that he would not go on beyond a third term would spark a protracted leadership struggle.

Although a member of the Commission for Africa, Brown will not be attending the Ethiopia meeting, sending instead his deputy, Chief Secretary to the Treasury Paul Boateng.

Frustrated by all the speculation around him, Blair is sure to seek to turn the focus squarely on Africa.

Aid agencies say the continent needs more aid from the West, along with debt relief and fairer trade rules.

“It’s time for Blair to put his words into action,” said Helen Palmer, of British-based aid agency Oxfam, which plans to lobby around the meeting in Ethiopia.