The African Union (AU) on Friday refused to act on an international war crimes warrant for the Sudanese president, at a summit that also yielded a deal on the powers of a new regional authority.
The refusal to arrest Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir granted a continent-wide reprieve to a leader accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur.
While the measure was backed by Libya and other nations that sympathize with Sudan, the text also voiced Africa’s frustration at the UN Security Council’s failure to consider a request to suspend the warrant for one year, delegates said.
“They are showing to the world community that if you don’t want to listen to the continent, if you don’t want to take into account our proposals … if you don’t want to listen to the continent, as usual, we also are going to act unilaterally,” the top AU official Jean Ping said.
Thirty African nations are party to the treaty that created the International Criminal Court (ICC), but even advocates of the ICC said they sensed a bias by the tribunal’s prosecutor against Africa.
The UN says up to 300,000 people have died and 2.7 million have fled their homes since ethnic minority rebels in Darfur rose up against the Arab-dominated regime in Khartoum in February 2003.
The Sudanese government says 10,000 have been killed.
Rights activists said the AU decision ignored the plight of the victims of the violence.
“This resolution, the result of unprecedented bullying by Libya, puts the AU on the side of a dictator accused of mass murder rather than on the side of his victims,” said Reed Brody, a spokesman for Human Rights Watch.
“But it cannot erase the legal obligations undertaken by the 30 African countries which have ratified the ICC treaty,” he said.
The summit proved contentious from the start as Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi, the current AU chief hosting the summit in his hometown, extended a surprise invitation to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to address the summit’s opening Wednesday.
Tehran canceled the visit at the last minute without explanation, after it became clear not all the delegates knew about or welcomed his visit.
The 24 leaders at the summit then held marathon talks on Thursday night to reach a pre-dawn deal on the powers of a new AU Authority that will be tasked with coordinating defense, foreign relations and trade policies.
Despite relentless pressure from Qaddafi to grant the Authority broad influence over policy, the summit left the new body toothless to act without an explicit mandate from the member states.
Qaddafi had hoped the AU’s new executive authority would mark a major step toward his dreamed “United States of Africa,” but the continent’s biggest economy South Africa, as well as top oil producers Nigeria and Angola, won out with their insistence on a more gradual approach to integration.
“There are some small steps towards consultations and common African policy positions, but those who want to go slowly came out ahead,” said one minister who participated in the talks.
The 53 member states still must ratify the changes, meaning the AU still has a long wait to see the existing AU Commission transformed into the Authority.
The compromise settled the most contentious debate at the summit, which largely overshadowed talks on a raft of conflicts roiling the continent, most dramatically in Somalia, where Islamist insurgents launched an offensive against the internationally backed government nearly two months ago.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese