Sudanese president headed to Ethiopia for AU summit on ICC and Saudi Arabia for pilgrimage: report
October 7, 2013 (KHARTOUM) - The Sudanese president Omer Hassan al-Bashir will travel this week to Ethiopia and Saudi Arabia for the first time since the outbreak of some the worst protests that engulfed the country in years.
Al-Youm al-Tali newspaper said that Bashir will participate in the African Union (AU) in Addis Ababa which will start on Friday.
The two-day summit extraordinary summit pushed for by Kenya and Uganda will seek to convince other African nations to withdraw from the International Criminal Court (ICC), according to African officials.
Nairobi has lobbied African nations over the last year to have cases against president Uhuru Kenyatta and his Deputy William Ruto dropped.
Both men face charges of crimes against humanity in connection with 2007-2008 Post Elections Violence (PEV). The hearing of the case against Ruto has already begun but Kenyatta’s is scheduled for November.
The violence erupted after allegations of electoral fraud following the announcement that Mwai Kibaki won the majority of votes for the presidency against his main rival Raila Odinga.
Former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan brokered a power-sharing deal between the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) headed by Odinga and Party National Unity (PNU) led by Kibaki.
Furthermore, they agreed that perpetrators of the violence would face justice. A commission of inquiry was formed to investigate the violence and recommended those behind it should be tried in Kenya or The Hague.
The ICC intervened after the Kenyan parliament shot down several attempts to establish a local tribunal and many MP’s said they wanted the cases investigated at the Hague.
Kibaki and Odinga gave the ICC prosecutor the green light to initiate prosecutions in late 2009 without making an explicit referral.
However, once the ICC prosecutor named the suspects he wants the judges to charge, the Kenyan government announced its intention to request a deferral pursuant to Article 16 of the Rome Statute which allows the UNSC to suspend the court’s process in a specific case for 12 months that can be renewed indefinitely.
After Kenyatta and Ruto won the presidential elections, they pushed the AU to issue a resolution to drop the case or refer the case back to Kenyan courts. The ICC judges can refer the cases back only if similar cases are brought against the pair in Kenyan courts.
Last month, the Kenyan parliament voted to pull out of the ICC but legal experts say the move would not halt the ongoing cases against the two men.
African nations have persistently accused the Hague-based court of targeting Africans only for prosecutions.
The ICC has opened investigations into eight cases, all of which are in Africa including Uganda, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Central African Republic (CAR), Darfur, Kenya, Libya, Côte d’Ivoire and Mali.
Five of the eight cases were referred voluntarily by the African governments in question; two through a UNSC resolution supported by the bulk of African members in the council at the time and one was opened at the ICC prosecutor’s request.
Several major countries in African have indicated that they have no plans to withdraw from the court including South Africa, Nigeria, Botswana, Ivory Coast and Zambia.
The Tunisian President Moncef Marzouki said in statements this month that he informed AU Commission chairperson that his country will boycott the meeting and emphasized that there are a lot of dictators in Africa who are committing crimes.
Marzouki also disclosed that he has been talking to many African leaders to discourage them from withdrawing from the ICC.
TRIP TO SAUDI ARABIA
Following the Addis Ababa summit, Bashir is reported to be heading to Saudi Arabia for Hajj pilgrimage on Sunday.
Relations between the two countries have soured after Saudi Arabian civil aviation authorities blocked a plane carrying Bashir last August from passing its airspace on his way to Iran to attend presidential inauguration ceremony of Hassan Rouhani.
Riyadh emphasized that Khartoum did not obtain prior clearance for the flight but Sudanese officials insist that they have followed all required procedures.
Notably neither the Saudi Royal Court nor its foreign ministry made any comment on the issue and let Saudi Arabia’s General Authority of Civil Aviation (GACA) handle it.
The Sudanese government later sought to downplay the issue for fear of alienating a major political and financial power, analysts say.
Some observers speculated that Sudan’s growing ties with Iran could have irked the Saudis prompting them to block Bashir’s flight but Riyadh denied that this incident was politically motivated.
Another potential issue of tension was averted this month when Sudanese foreign ministry distanced itself from pro-government columnists who accused Saudi Arabia of backing the fuel subsidies protests.
Today the Sudanese foreign minister Ali Karti received the Saudi ambassador in Khartoum Faisal Bin Hamed Mualla where they discussed bilateral relations, according to state media.
Karti affirmed Sudan’s desire to strengthen ties with Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states and thanked Riyadh for its assistance during the recent floods that hit the country.
(ST)
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