SUDAN: Sudan signalled last night that it would withdraw from its attempt to take over the chairmanship of the African Union (AU) after at least five members were reported to have tried to block it because of human rights violations in Darfur.
The controversial bid split leaders from the continent's 53 countries who gathered in Sudan's capital, Khartoum, for a summit intended to mark progress towards democracy and good governance. Instead the two-day gathering by the Nile, which ends today, turned into a diplomatic battle over whether an Islamist dictatorship widely seen as having blood on its hands should be allowed to speak for Africa.
At least five members, including Nigeria, were said to have privately urged Sudan to withdraw its candidacy on the grounds that President Omar al-Bashir's elevation to the chairmanship would undermine the union's commitment to democracy and human rights.
Governments in west and central Africa were the most hostile to Mr Bashir, who seized power in a 1989 coup, according to analysts, while governments in the north and east were the most supportive. Closed-door talks were expected to yield a decision early this morning.
"We do not want to make any division in order to achieve an objective, so if that means that Sudan should withdraw, we will withdraw," Sudan's presidential adviser on foreign affairs, Mustafa Osman Ismail, told Reuters.
If Khartoum is thwarted, the AU may ask Nigeria's president, Olusegun Obasanjo, to remain as chairman. Alternatively President Denis Sassou Nguesso of the Republic of Congo may fill the post.
Sudan's Islamist rulers, who played host to Osama bin Laden in the 1990s, want to end their pariah status and become known as peacemakers and regional power brokers.
A peace deal last year ended civil war in southern Sudan. As a reward, the AU chose Khartoum to host this year's annual summit, which traditionally appoints the host as chair for the following 12 months.
Founded four years ago to replace the discredited Organisation for African Unity, which became a talking shop for tyrants, the AU was supposed to help usher in a new era of respect for human rights, democracy and good governance. But rights groups and, privately, some African governments said appointing Sudan would wreck that aspiration because of atrocities in its Darfur region.
In a separate development at the summit, the World Food Programme said 43 million Africans would need food aid this year, the result of drought, poverty, HIV/Aids and failed economic policies.