Africa Consents to Suspending ICC Procedures against Sudan

[sudan]

The African states have backed Sudan’s proposal to suspend the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) procedures against President Al Bashir and instead demanded the African Union Commission to submit the decision to the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), Sudanese Ambassador to South Africa Omar Sidiq has revealed.
The ambassador said in statements to Sudan News Agency the African nations have also forwarded additional suggestion to be endorsed at the summit, adding that the countries suggested formation of a 6-member committee including ministers of foreign to follow up on the issue with members of the Security Council.
The concerned countries include Sudan, Kenya, Ethiopia, Chad Namibia and Rwanda.
Al Bashir’s arrival in Johannesburg Saturday to take part in the AU summit was greeted by calls from the International Criminal Court (ICC) on South Africa to arrest him.
International Criminal Court prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said South Africa was under a legal obligation to arrest al-Bashir and surrender him to the court. Her office has been in touch with South African authorities on the Sudanese president’s reported visit, she said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press.
Brushing the ICC calls aside, the Sudanese Ambassador said that the summit will look at issues related to empowering support the role of African women.
He hoped that the African heads of state in their summit will handle major economic issues, especially agriculture in the continent in addition alarmingly growing terrorism and situations in Somalia and neighboring South Sudan and Libya.
Worth noting that IGAD committee, on the sidelines of the summit, held a separate meeting to debate the conflict in South Sudan.

 

[waltky]

The promise of So. Sudan squandered...

Once seen as White House triumph, new nation of South Sudan descends into war, misery
April 18, 2016 - Just five years ago, celebrities such as George Clooney and Don Cheadle hailed the creation of a new African nation as one of President Obama’s foreign policy success stories, but now South Sudan is looking like a failed state.

The nation, sought as a means of bringing peace to Sudan’s long-running civil war, was promoted as a potential U.S. ally and was formed following a referendum passed with 98 percent of the vote to secede from the northern part of Sudan and the Khartoum government. But hope has given way to desperation, as South Sudan has descended into bloodshed and chaos. “The euphoria has faded and South Sudan is an embarrassment for the administration, and that comes with reputational costs,” Joshua Meservey, policy analyst for Africa and the Middle East at The Heritage Foundation, told FoxNews.com. “Bringing attention to it is not in the White House’s interest.”

George Clooney walks in front of St. Teresa's Cathedral during the independence referendum in Juba, South Sudan​

Meservey said the U.S.-backed solution was based on a “very superficial” grasp of the war between Sudan and South Sudan, and the deep divisions that existed in the nascent nation. “People ignored the warning signs and it was an exciting time framed as the liberation of the region,” he said. The civil war that rocked Sudan from 1983-2005 started in what is now South Sudan, and would eventually see more than 2 million people die as a direct result of war or of famine and disease related to the conflict. Twice as many people were displaced before a peace agreement was signed in 2005 and laid the groundwork for the creation of the new nation.

With three-quarters of Sudan’s oil reserves in the newly formed country, the future looked bright for South Sudan. It was accepted as a United Nations member state, and expatriates flocked back to help build the country. But South Sudan plunged into civil war in late 2013 after President Salva Kiir accused his then-deputy, Riek Machar, of plotting a coup. Machar denied the accusation, but quickly formed a rebel army.

Helicopter of Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon seen in February above Juba, South Sudan.​

The UN stepped in in an effort to head off a deadly and embarrassing civil war. Under the threat of sanctions, a peace deal was signed by both sides last August – intended to stop the fighting and targeting of civilians and bring about the formation of a transitional government. But in just the last eight months, thousands of people have since been slaughtered and driven from their homes – with the number of displaced now well over two million – into deteriorating and dangerous camps and settlements. “These aren’t refugee camps, they are military bases where they have to be under armed protection,” Casie Copeland, an Africa-based analyst focusing on South Sudan for the International Crisis Group, said. “They are afraid to leave, and are fearful for their lives every day.”

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