AU president slams Bashir warrant

The international warrant against Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir is a threat to African security, the African Union’s current president Bingu wa Mutharika said at the opening of the AU summit, which seems set to be dominated by the fallout from this month’s attacks in Kampala and the conflict in neighbouring Sudan.

Reuters

"To subject a sovereign head of state to a warrant of arrest is undermining African solidarity and African peace and security that we fought for for so many years," said the Malawian president who is chairing the pan-African body.

The summit is to consider a proposal to ignore International Criminal Court warrants.

He urged the representatives of the AU’s 53 member-states to seek other ways to resolve the Sudan conflict, declaring the warrant a “violation of the principles of sovereignty guaranteed under the United Nations and under the African Union charter”.

Opening the summit, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni called for action to “sweep the terrorists’ out of Africa.

And he blamed foreigners for the Kampala attacks,  which the Somali-base al-Shebab group has said it carried out.
 

"Let them go back to Asia or the Middle East where I understand some come from," he said.

Museveni also said many of the organisers of the attacks in Kampala have been arrested and questioned.

"Their interrogations have yielded very good information," he added.

Mutharika declared the organisation’s solidarity with Uganda.

Report

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African Union summit opens

Billie O'Kadameri

"The African Union stands with you, my brother President Museveni, and with the people of Uganda," he said in his opening remarks.

The summit was supposed to concentrate on women, children and health but these questions have so far been overshadowed by the response to the Kampala bombings.

Museveni tried to allay fears by women and child rights activists here that the original theme of the summit was being put in the back seat as leaders grapple with Somalia, Sudan and reform of the UN Security Council," reports Billie O'Kadameri from the summit.  "The theme chosen chosen for this summit is ‘Maternal and Child Health and Infant Development in Africa' but Museveni said it was a narrow view of looking at the bigger problem. "