A year after an international outcry over the civilian death toll in Darfur forced Sudan to forego its ambitions to chair the African Union, the now four-year-old conflict threatens to dash its hopes once again.
With hard-line rebels threatening to target the 53-nation bloc’s peacekeepers in Darfur if the Khartoum government is allowed to assume its chair, there is growing pressure on African leaders to pass Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir over once again when they meet in Addis Ababa on Monday.
The National Redemption Front, which groups rebel factions that refused to sign a 2006 peace deal, has warned that it will ”suspend cooperation with the AU in Darfur if Bashir takes over the AU chair”, in a statement released from its rear-base in Eritrea earlier this month.
A hard-line faction of the rebel Sudan Liberation Movement went further in the Khartoum press on Saturday, warning: ”The AU forces will become a party in the ongoing conflict in the region.”
For Sudan, it is a matter of honour that its turn should now be had after it withdrew its candidacy a year ago to spare the blushes of African leaders in the face of a chorus of international disapproval over Darfur.
Dismissing the reports of United Nations agencies and aid groups of worsening violence, the Sudanese government insists the situation on the ground has been improving and sees no basis for African leaders not to honour their promise to give Sudan the chair this time.
”It is a decision made by the heads of state and government at the last meeting. I don’t think they will reverse the decision,” Sudanese Foreign Minister Lam Akol told the media from the Ethiopian capital.
”The Sudanese presidency will be very good for the AU,” Akol insisted. ”The situation in Darfur has no relationship with that presidency.”
But analysts say Bashir faces an uphill battle persuading his fellow heads of state.
”In reality, the situation is getting worse in Darfur, discrediting Khartoum, and I wouldn’t bet on it securing the [AU] presidency,” said Sudanese jurist Suleiman Baldo.
Already, Chad has warned it will boycott the AU if Sudan takes the helm.
”If Sudan is chosen as chair of the AU, we will suspend our participation in the AU during the term of Omar al-Bashir,” Chadian Foreign Minister Ahmat Allam-Mi told journalists in Addis Ababa.
The United States, which has spearheaded efforts at the UN Security Council against what it regards as ”genocide” against non-Arab ethnic groups in Darfur suspected of supporting the rebels, has been careful not to be seen to be meddling in the continent’s affairs.
But the United States ambassador to Ethiopia, Cindy Courville, made clear that Washington did not regard Khartoum as the sort of role model the continent should be looking to as leader.
”What we do encourage is that the choice of the leadership should reflect democracy and good governance,” she told an Addis Ababa news conference when asked about Khartoum’s candidacy.
”When we look at the situation in Sudan, we see the challenges of Darfur, the genocide.”
Aid groups and human rights watchdogs have been vociferous in campaigning against a Sudanese presidency, warning it will diminish the AU’s standing.
”Awarding Sudan the chair would not only reward the sponsors of crimes against humanity in Darfur; it would irreparably discredit the AU,” said the Africa director of New York-based Human Rights Watch, Peter Takirambudde.
The Darfur Consortium, a coalition of more than 40 NGOs operating in Africa, wrote to African leaders ahead of Monday’s summit to voice their ”deep concern with respect to plans agreed last year … to confer the AU presidency for 2007/08 on the government of Sudan”.
Such a move could ”seriously undermine the AU’s credibility and compromise the authority of its institutions”, it warned.
More than 200 000 people have died in Darfur and more than two million fled their homes since the ethnic minority rebels rose up in early 2003, drawing a scorched-earth response from the military and its Arab militia allies.
The AU has a 7 000 strong force of military observers in Darfur trying to keep the peace, but the cash-strapped force has struggled to patrol a region the size of France. — Sapa-AFP