The Government of Sudan is one of the most unscrupulous governments in the world. And this is no mean ‘achievement’ given the many claimants to this dubious honour. It is so cynical that the words ‘shame’ and ‘sensitivity’ do not exist in its political dictionary and they do not have any equivalent meaning in its diplomacy either. Otherwise how can one explain its persistence in seeking the Chairmanship of the African Union despite its continuing ignoble record in the massacre and Gross Violation of the rights of its own citizens in the Darfur region, a killing field assuming the proportions of industrial mass murder. With the best of good will and efforts from the African Union through AMIS and now jointly with the United Nations through UNAMID the Khartoum government has played games with the lives of its own citizen with impunity.

It has been angling the chairmanship since 2006. However other African states have been so embarrassed by Khartoum that they were unwilling to allow it to be spokesperson of Africa’s premier diplomatic and political institution. It was largely because of Khartoum that the AU abandoned the OAU twin practice of rotation of the hosting of the Summit between the different regions and also the automatic assumption of the office of the Chair of the Union by the host country. Khartoum hosted the Summit in 2006 but did not become chair of the Union. Subsequently Gambia hosted the Summit in July 2007 but its erratic soldier-turned president and more recently mutating as HIV/Aids Doctor, Yaya Jameh, did not become the Chairperson either.

Khartoum has not given up its ambition and it is again one of the contenders for the Chairmanship at the 10th ordinary Session of the Assembly of Heads of state and Governments of the Union holding this week in Addis. The other contender is Egypt though there are also rumours that Tanzania may be a surprise contender to stop Khartoum. From all indications Tanzania may not enter the race unless really pushed. This is a shame because neither Sudan nor Egypt , for different reasons, deserves to head the Union. In Egypt’s case in spite of its status as the most significant of the North African countries in the Union it has always been a reluctant member. Like its other cousins in the Sahara except Libya, it is in Africa but its heart and soul are in the Middle East. I am not sure when the Egyptian President last attended an AU summit. It is supposed to be one of the five pillars of NEPAD but only on paper. It is more interested in the Arab League than any other multilateral body and generally prefers bilateralism with African states and special deals with extra African interests. Egyptian Chairmanship will induce more inertia in the AU for a year and probably sabotage any collective action on Sudan.

While Sudan shares some of the Egyptian Arab-centrism it is one of the most active member states in Pan African affairs however not always for the best of reasons. While its Arabised elite continue to look towards the Middle East it has to face the reality of having huge Negroid population not only in the South but across the country. The dominant elite may be Arabised and Muslim but the people are Africans. Even its name belies its racial claims. Bilad el Sudan means Land of the Blacks! The most obvious character of Sudan is the least talked about. When it serves its interest Sudan plays the Pan African and anti imperialist cards in the AU and the Arab/Islamic cards with Arabs and other Muslim countries.

It used the OAU and is now using the AU platform to fence off Western , mostly Anglo-American isolation campaign against it. Unfortunately the credibility of the west in general and successive US administrations in particular but more so Bush’s 8 years of unilateralism, have created willing ears and sympathy for Khartoum among other African states. Thus the AU has become a shield for Khartoum and it uses it very well. Its strategy is very simple but it continues to hoodwink African states most effectively. On every issue it will initially insist on no intervention at all proclaiming its sovereign rights. After so much controversies and prolonged inane negotiations it agrees to some form of African intervention especially to prevent Western or UN intervention.

But it had no intention of cooperating to end the suffering of its people. Several years down the line after so much haggling and zig zags it agreed to a hybrid of AU and UN. Thanks to the dithering of the powerful countries in the UN and the humanitarian-driven approach to Sudan with a not so hidden agenda for regime change even the hybrid force cannot take off immediately. African states have shown their readiness to deploy more troops but UN Security Council politics is delaying things all to the benefit of Khartoum and its killer allies in Darfur.

It cannot be right that a country and a government that kills its own people is allowed to be spokesperson for Africa. Khartoum should be disallowed from assuming the chair of the Union. If this means that Egypt takes the seat so be it but the best option should have been to have another state . Were Nyerere alive he would have had no hesitation in coming to the rescue. Even at this late hour one hopes that Tanzania and President Kikwete will come forward to save the Union from being chaired by an indifferent Egypt or a cynical Sudan.

*Dr Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem writes this syndicated column as a concerned Pan Africanist

*Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

As someone who believes in ‘African solution to African problems’ I should be excited as everyone seem to be about the so called break through between the African Union and the UN on the one hand and the Government of Sudan on the other, on ending the genocidal war in Darfur. But I am not excited at all. I am not excited because we have been down this road several times before.

Khartoum has been taking everyone for a ride for so long that we take every sign of compromise as a breakthrough even if it will lead to yet another road bloc.

Khartoum has perfected the art of talking while continuing to kill its own citizens either directly or indirectly through its Janjaweed militia.

The timing of this latest breakthrough is very significant. An African Union summit is only three weeks away. The UN human Rights Council is sitting in Geneva and the Bush Administration has recently announced a raft of ineffectual sanctions.

Khartoum has played the Pan Africanist card very well, insisting on an ‘African only’ troops which satisfies our Pan Africanist instincts but knowing fully well that logistical, political and other technical challenges may make it ineffectual. It believes that an African force is more amenable to its delay tactics than a force that included other armies and with a UN command. It has exploited the understandable anti–American sentiments across the world and in Africa especially to hoodwink people into believing that any UN involvement will mean a proxy American war in yet another ‘Muslim’ , ‘Arab’ or ‘poor Third world’ country. It needs the shield Africa and the AU in order for it continue to fend off a more effective international involvement. It can also count on other shields in the Arab League and Muslim countries and in diplomacy with other Third world countries.

In proclaiming African solutions Khartoum has been counting on African incapacities as evidenced from the various challenges that the AU Force has been facing since its deployment. It has a very restricted mandate that limits it to ‘protecting civilians’ many of whom it can only reach after the Janjaweed and Khartoum forces have done their worst. Even on occasions when it had had early warning about impending attacks on innocent civilians it had been slow in responding or unable to do so.

The situation has not been helped by many of the rebels who seem to be more interested in their own egos and exaggerated political importance than the suffering of their own people. Their clamor for ‘international’ force (which in their colonial mindset means US or other western intervention) has consistently played into the hands of Khartoum. It helps Khartoum’s image laundering as an African country standing up for African solutions and sovereignty portraying the rebels as ‘agents’ of extra continental powers. The rebels have not learnt from the bitter lessons of the MDC in Zimbabwe whose struggles have been made difficult among many Africans because of the West’s support for them.

Just check your diary and see how many times Khartoum has looked very reasonable before an AU summit and only to return to its belligerency soon after. I am not sure this is not yet another of such deliberate rising of false hopes of a peaceful settlement.

Khartoum has been talking to any body that cares to talk about Darfur. That is why it has been involved concurrently in half a dozen of peace initiatives!

The problem with these talks is that they do not stop Khartoum and its allied killers in Darfur from continuing their violence against the people of Darfur but they hold those involved in the talks in check. You cannot be advocating tougher measures against a government that you are negotiating with. In the face of a fractious and faction –ridden opposition and rebel movements the government become reasonable and many peace brokers become more sympathetic to it as their frustration against the rebels grow.

However there is a wider issue relating to the mandate of the peace keeping force itself on which the Khartoum government has been giving the whole world a merry-go round. AU forces on the ground are not delivering not just for technical and logistical reasons or lack of numbers alone. There is no peace to keep since neither the government Janjaweed and the rebel factions have in practice committed themselves to ceasefire for any length of time.

You can increase the numbers of troops but without enlarging the mandate the butchering of Darfurians will continue. What everyone is now calling a breakthrough has been on the cards right from the start. Even the limited AU mandate envisaged an African leadership but did not exclude collaboration with the UN and contribution of troops from outside Africa. But Khartoum bogged everyone down in logistical issues for several months. Everyone is feeling so guilty at the horrible pictures from Darfur that we become desperate for any sign, no matter how vague that Khartoum is about to relent. Hence we are now supposed to jump that the government of Omar Al Bashir has agreed to a ‘hybrid force’. What is inherently good in a hybrid force? What is so new about it anyway? Any Peace keeping force is by definition ‘hybrid’. The people of Darfur have been under the attack of a hybrid of Sudan’s regular forces and their Janjaweed killers. Africa and the UN must really stand up to Khartoum and say : enough is enough, we will do everything possible to stop you from further killing your own citizens. It is peace making, peace enforcement before talking of peace keeping.

* Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is the deputy director of the UN Millennium Campaign in Africa, based in Nairobi, Kenya. He writes this article in his personal capacity as a concerned pan-Africanist.

* Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

Sudan has begun a campaign to keep African Union troops in Darfur and prevent a UN force from taking over efforts to restore peace in the conflict-wracked region, the top UN envoy in Sudan said Tuesday. Jan Pronk said an anti-UN climate is heating up strongly in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, with threats and warnings that handing over to a UN force would put Sudan "in the same situation as Iraq a couple of years ago."

* See http://platform.blogs.com/passionofthepresent/2006/03/from_darfur_to_.html for the latest news from Sudan.