African Union Asks United Nations to Suspend Arrest Warrants for al-Bashir

The African Union called for the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrants against Sudanese President Umar al-Bashir to be suspended while the continental body carries out a probe into alleged genocide in Darfur.

The Hague-based court earlier this month charged al-Bashir with three counts of genocide against the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa ethnic groups in the western Sudanese region of Darfur. The court had issued a warrant against al-Bashir in March for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

“We have decided to establish our own mechanism,” AU President Bingu wa Mutharika told reporters today in Kampala at the end of a three-day summit of African leaders. “We are asking the United Nations to suspend for the period of 12 months” the arrest warrants against al-Bashir, he said.

Al-Bashir has ruled Sudan since coming to power in a military coup in 1989 and won election in April in the country’s first multiparty vote in 24 years. As many as 300,000 people have died, mainly through illness and starvation, and more than 2.7 million have been displaced in Darfur since February 2003, according to the United Nations. Sudan says that the death toll is about 10,000.

Militias

The violence began when rebels seeking a larger role in Sudan’s political life and a bigger slice of the country’s expanding oil wealth attacked the government. The authorities in Khartoum, the capital, responded by deploying army units and state-backed Arab militias known as the Janjaweed.

The AU questioned whether the United Nations-backed court has the authority to prosecute al-Bashir. Sudan is not a signatory to the 1998 Rome Statute under which the court was established.

“Let us look at the position of the ICC,” Mutharika said. “Do they have a right to try Sudan which is not a member of the ICC? I think it is something we have to look at.”

Although African countries don’t “condone impunity,” they should carry out their own investigations other than relying on reports by a body which is based outside the continent, he said.

Sudan is sub-Saharan Africa’s third-largest producer of crude oil, pumping about 490,000 barrels a day, according to the BP Statistical Review of World Energy. Most of the fields are in Southern Sudan, which is scheduled to vote in January in a referendum to decide whether to become an independent nation.

To contact the reporter on this story: Fred Ojambo in Kampala at fojambo@bloomberg.net.

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