ADDIS ABABA (Reuters)
African ministers urged the U.N. Security Council on Monday to seek the suspension of the International Criminal Court indictment of Sudan's President Omar Hassan al-Bashir over Darfur war crimes.
The African Union's Peace and Security Council, meeting in Ethiopia, called for the creation of a panel of distinguished Africans to come up with recommendations on how to address issues of accountability and reconciliation raised by the conflict.
"The African Union requests the U.N. Security Council ... to defer the process initiated by the ICC, taking into account the need to ensure that the ongoing peace efforts are not jeopardized, as well as the fact that in the current circumstances a prosecution may not be in the interests of victims and justice," the AU council said in a statement.
The African Union's role is key because the U.N. resolution which referred Darfur to the international court in 2005 emphasized the need for cooperation with the bloc. It also suggested that regional courts could try those suspected of atrocities in Darfur.
The international court's prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, has asked for a warrant for Bashir on suspicion of masterminding crimes against humanity in Darfur.
The African Union meeting was called by Sudan, which has been courting allies to find a way to resolve a crisis some analysts fear could derail the fragile peace process in Africa's biggest country.
The Arab League has already criticized the court and its head, Amr Moussa, is in Khartoum for talks on a plan to resolve the crisis. He told Reuters he expected a deal on the plan to be reached later on Monday.
"I am going to meet the president one more time before I leave," he said. Moussa will unveil details of the deal after this meeting.
Moreno-Ocampo accuses Bashir of orchestrating genocide that has killed 35,000 people outright, at least another 100,000 through "slow death" and forced 2.5 million from their homes. |
