SUDAN: AU Moves Summit to Ethiopia After Malawi Refuses Bashir’s Attendance
Union (AU) has decided to hold its upcoming summit in the Ethiopian capital,
Addis Ababa, after Malawi insisted that the Sudanese president, Omer al-Bashir,
who is wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC), not attend the AU
summit to be held on its soil.
Malawi
refused to host Bashir as it became a signatory to the Rome Statute in 1999,
which obliges it to refrain from “acts which would defeat the object and
purpose” of the ICC treaty.
This would
entail arresting Bashir on the warrant issued against him in 2008 for war
crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Darfur.
Malawi has
been forced to cancel hosting of an African Union (AU) summit next month after
the continental body insisted that the South African nation allows Sudan’s
President Omer Al-Bashir to attend.
Malawi,
which is a member state of the Hague-based tribunal, asked the AU in May not to
invite Al-Bashir to the summit, citing fears of economic consequences after the
country was denied $350 million in US aid money over reasons including its
decision to host the Sudanese leader at a regional summit in the capital
Lilongwe last year.
Kachali
Khumbo, Malawi’s Vice-President, said on Friday that his country had received a
letter from the AU saying that it had no right to dictate who can attend the
summit.
According to
Khumbo, the letter stated that the summit would be moved to the AU headquarters
in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa if Lilongwe insists on barring Al-Bashir.
As a result,
“the [Malawian] cabinet has decided not to host the summit” he
declared.
Khumbo
contended that “much as Malawi has obligations to the AU, it has also
other obligations.”
Sudan has
already protested Malawi’s refusal to host Al-Bashir and on Thursday demanded
that the summit be moved to Addis Ababa.
The AU has
issued several resolutions ordering its members not to cooperate with the ICC
regarding Bashir’s warrant.
Already
countries such as Malawi, Kenya, Chad and Djibouti have allowed Bashir to visit
without arresting him though the first two later refused to receive him again.
Tribune
