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Africa/France: the big absentees of the XXVth summit

By on May 31, 2010
During the XXV The summit France-Africa in Nice, in the South of France, two seats are empty: that of the Ugandan president, Yoweri Museveni, and of the Sudanese Omar El-Bachir. The first one is retained in Kampala because he is hosting the first Conference about the revision of the “Roma Statue”, which fixes the functioning rules of the International Penal Court (IPC). The second is subject to an international warrant for arrest, since March 4th, 2009, by the IPC, to have overseen and covered alleged crimes against the populations of Darfur.

It is the case Omar El-Bachir, which is largely at the origin of this summit to be transferred to France while he would have been held in 2009 in Charm el-sheik in Egypt. Egypt is maintaining strong relations with Sudan, had announced that it would not take into account the mandate which runs on Omar El-Bachir, thus will not plan to extradite him.
This position is shared by the African Union, and the Sudanese president has gone for official visits in a large number of African and Arabic countries to strengthen his position.
France did not wish, at that time to participate in a summit where the Sudanese president would be present at the same time as Nicolas Sarkozy. However, in Nice (France), a high-level delegation has represented Sudan. It was composed by Vice-president Ali Osman Mohamed Taha, accompanied with the special councilor Ghazi Salah Eddin Attabani, in charge of the Darfur case, and General Mohamed Atta, the Head of the national security.

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