VZCZCXRO1616
OO RUEHGI RUEHMA RUEHROV RUEHTRO
DE RUEHKH #0301/01 0630908
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
O 040908Z MAR 09 ZDK CTG NUMEROUS REQUESTS
FM AMEMBASSY KHARTOUM
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 3153
INFO RUCNFUR/DARFUR COLLECTIVE
RUCNIAD/IGAD COLLECTIVE
RUEHGG/UN SECURITY COUNCIL COLLECTIVE
RHMFISS/CJTF HOA

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 KHARTOUM 000301 
 
DEPT FOR AF A A/S CARTER, AF/SPG, AF/E, AF/C 
NSC FOR MGAVIN AND CHUDSON 
ADDIS ABABA FOR USAU 
DEPT PLS PASS USAID FOR AFR/SUDAN 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: ASEC PGOV PREL KPKO SOCI AU UNSC SU
SUBJECT: AU STILL LABORING OVER DARFUR JUSTICE, BUT EXPERTS 
SKEPTICAL 
 
KHARTOUM 00000301  001.2 OF 002 
 
 
¶1. (SBU) Summary: The African Union is capable of investigating 
crimes in Darfur, but by supporting the ICC, the international 
community is endangering the pursuit of peace and justice in the 
troubled Sudanese region, according to the acting director of the AU 
Darfur portfolio and senior JMST advisor, Nakaha Stanislas.  In this 
regard, however, the AU has yet to release the names that will 
comprise its high-level panel on Darfur.  The latter has been 
chaired by Thabo Mbeki since July 2008.  Its purpose is to assist 
the GOS with investigating crimes in Darfur.  It could be that such 
a GOS investigation would result in  Darfuris being forced to accept 
reconciliation at the expense of justice, as has happened elsewhere 
in Africa.  However, an independent analyst predicted further 
turmoil in Sudan following an International Criminal Court (ICC) 
indictment, with Omar Al-Bashir following the lead of Joseph Kony. 
End summary. 
 
¶2. (SBU) Speaking with Emb Khartoum poloff and US/AU DCM in Addis 
Ababa on February 27, Ambassador Nakaha Stanislas expressed 
disappointment that the ICC is proceeding with its issuance of an 
arrest warrant against Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir, a move the 
AU believes is neither in the interests of justice nor peace.  "This 
is an African problem," the Burundian official lamented, "and the AU 
has proposed an African solution, but it was dismissed.  The AU had 
a plan to take care of both impunity and reconciliation, but it has 
not received full support from the U.S."  According to Stanislas and 
AU political officer Kassa Meron, the AU's attempt to persuade the 
UN Security Council to support an Article 16 deferral of the arrest 
warrant would have given the AU time to organize its high-level 
panel to address impunity for crimes in Darfur, while at the same 
time not compromising the Joint Mediator's fledgling peace process. 
In July 2008, following ICC Prosecutor Moreno-0campo's request to 
the court for an indictment of and arrest warrant against Bashir, 
the AU's Peace and Security Council appointed South African 
President Thabo Mbeki to chair the Darfur panel.  However, in the 
succeeding seven months, the AU has still not released the names of 
panel members.  The panel intends to meet at some point in March, 
well after the March 4 ICC announcement, in order to examine its 
mandate.  Stanislas predicts that the names of the panel will be 
made public at that time. 
 
¶3. (SBU) According to the AU officials, their organization  remains 
opposed to impunity for crimes committed in Darfur, but Meron said 
the AU must be impartial.  He added that at this time it must also 
be sensitive to the needs of the Government of Sudan (GOS.  To 
further this aim, the AU and the Arab League have offered to provide 
the GOS with a number of lawyers to assist with investigations into 
crimes in Darfur.  They've also offered to help Sudan's 
underdeveloped legal system assert jurisdiction for such crimes 
under the "complimentarity" statute provided in Article 19 of the 
Rome Statute of the ICC.  Stanislas acknowledged that Sudan had 
engaged in stalling tactics, and in his words, "counted that the AU 
would forget about Darfur."  Meron, however, was insistent that the 
international community's timetable was short-sighted and could 
further endanger Darfur. "In the balance of peace and justice, we 
may lose both," she warned. 
 
¶4. (SBU) Asked to compare the case against Bashir with other ICC 
cases in Africa, Stanislas hesitated: "You cannot look at other 
African precedents because this is a sitting head of state."  In the 
case of war crimes, Stanislas was quick to point out that truth and 
reconciliation often take precedence over larger, less tangible 
priorities.  "In Africa, reconciliation has been achieved at the 
expense of justice.  The reality is that reconciliation is always 
first.  You can't forget about the victims, but you also have to 
remember about the living."  His personal opinion was that the ICC 
had done a good job investigating crimes in Darfur and had reminded 
African leaders that they cannot violate human rights on a 
widespread scale.  Nevertheless,  the ICC may go too far on March 4, 
causing other African nations to pull out of the treaty as a means 
of weakening the ICC's ability to prosecute other African leaders. 
Optimistic about the future in Africa, Stanislas sees institutions 
such as the African Court of Justice as making significant headway 
in the consciousness of rulers across the continent.  "There is no 
way that Africa will stay out of the mainstream on human rights, 
development and justice, but we must prepare our communities 
properly for a certain evolution.  The rest of the world should 
encourage Africa to go in a western direction, but should not shout, 
'You are too slow!'" 
 
¶5. (SBU) Muna Abdullah, a senior analyst with the Addis Ababa-based 
think-tank, Institute for Security Studies, told poloff on February 
26 that in her analysis, the model Bashir will most likely emulate 
following the issuance of an arrest warrant against him will be that 
 
KHARTOUM 00000301  002.2 OF 002 
 
 
of Joseph Kony of the Lord's Resistance Army.  She noted that Kony 
is a leader who has survived an ICC arrest warrant through  becoming 
more wily and elusive than before.  Possibilities such as an attack 
on Chad through proxy forces and increased suffering in Darfur 
remain on the table, with  Bashir using as many cards as possible to 
threaten the international community and pressuring it to rescind 
its support for the ICC.  Predicting that the recent Doha 
negotiations will backfire on JEM, she said rebel movements will 
cease engaging in negotiations with Joint Mediator Bassole, seeing 
them only as a further step in the NCP's "rule to divide" strategy. 
Abdullah condemned the AU as a "sellout" to Bashir, but said it was 
to be expected, given that the AU is an organization set up to 
preserve African sovereignty.  One of the few paths to peace 
available in Darfur is the reconstruction of traditional 
conflict-resolution mechanisms, a development she predicts could 
flourish if the international community pressed the NCP to allow 
Darfuris to reconcile on their own, without meddling from Khartoum. 
 
¶6. (SBU) Dr. El Tigani Sesei, one of Darfur's premier intellectuals 
(to be reported septel) and now deputy director of the UN Economic 
Commission for Africa (ECA) in Addis Ababa, criticized the AU for 
the role it has played in Sudan and Africa as well.  "The AU has no 
solutions and no capacity. They messed up Darfur and Somalia." 
Having recently returned from the ECA conference in Libya in which 
Libyan President Moamar Qaddafi claimed that Israel was to blame for 
suffering in Darfur, Sesei said the NCP has spent handsomely to 
persuade  AU states to side with the Bashir regime  on Darfur, 
preserving Sudanese sovereignty in Darfur while simultaneously 
undermining the rights of indigenous Africans in Darfur.  "If the AU 
succeeds in deferring the ICC arrest warrant, it will show they can 
do what they want because of who they are," he warned. 
 
¶7. (SBU) Comment: By now the AU appears well-aware that it can no 
longer defer the ICC arrest warrant, but its steadfast and vocal 
support for Sudan will most likely continue as it seeks to preserve 
African sovereignty in the face of worldwide calls for 
transformative justice.  The AU showed its hand when Stanislas 
expressed astonishment that Darfuris may actually celebrate the 
ICC's announcement on March 4, responding, "While it may be in their 
short-term interests, the AU does not believe the ICC to be in the 
long-term interests of Darfur."  If the international community is 
able to engage with the regime in spite of the impending ICC warrant 
and secure actual improvement on the ground and changes in policies, 
then the warrant may well serve as a method of keeping the pressure 
on the GoS to resolve the crisis in Darfur.  In this best-case 
scenario, the ICC will have served both the short and long-term 
interests of the people of Darfur.  If, however, the international 
community refuses to engage, and the ICC serves to destabilize Sudan 
and unravel existing peace agreements while failing to provide 
relief for Darfur, these cynical AU officials may well be right. 
 
FERNANDEZ