Joint EU-APC parliamentary assembly to discuss Darfur and Ivory Coast

THE HAGUE, Nov 21 (AFP) — The joint parliamentary assembly of the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) group and the European Union opens its plenary session in The Hague on Monday where the focus will be on Darfur and Ivory Coast.

Sudanese woman sits next to her makeshift shelter at Abu Shouk refugee camp.

The problems in Sudan’s Darfur region “will probably be the most sensitive” of the work of the parliamentary assembly, which will continue until Thursday, said Glenys Kinnock, the co-president of the assembly.

“The Sudanese representatives who will be there for their parliament will of course want to maintain that the international community is exaggerating the situation in Darfur,” the British MEP told AFP.

Kinnock said that she was able to see the “desperate situation” in Darfur for herself and stressed that the assembly “certainly will be calling for action, including an arms embargo and so on, and calling for stronger international responses both in the EU and in the UN”.

The assembly will also discuss the United Nations Security Council resolution on Sudan, adopted Friday in Nairobi. The text promises aid from the international community as soon as a peace agreement for the south of the country is signed and calls for an “immediate” end to the violence in Darfur.

The UN considers Darfur the worst humanitarian crisis in the world today.

Tens of thousands of people have died and more than 1.6 million been displaced by the fighting which began when rebels rose up against the Khartoum government in February 2003. Pro-government Arabic militias have been accused of committing atrocities against the region’s population of African descent.

The situation in Ivory Coast is also on the agenda for the assembly but unlike Darfur a resolution will not be adopted on the subject, Kinnock said.

“It’s certainly appropriate that we have a discussion about the situation in the region because of course (the representatives) would be interested in giving their views since it’s very important for the neighbouring countries,” she said.

Marie-Helene Aubert, an MEP for the Green party, said she hoped the assembly “would not content itself to lamenting and voting on paper resolutions”.

She pleaded to “integrate development issues, economic and social issues” into the resolutions.

“The downfall of the cocoa planters in Ivory Coast is also an element in the conflict. If the economic situation had not worsened maybe the tensions between the different ethnic groups would have been less strong, nationalism would have a less fertile breeding ground,” Aubert explained.

The joint EU-APC parliamentary assembly meets twice a year alternatively in a European country or a member of the 79-nation APC group. The assembly consists of of 150 representatives, 75 European parliament members and 75 APC representatives.