African Media Coverage

October 1-15, 2009

Uganda: The New Vision
Museveni Invites Bashir to AU Summit
Published: 14 October 2009

President Yoweri Museveni has invited his Sudanese counterpart Omar el-Bashir to the AU summit on refugees due next week.

Answering questions from journalists at a press conference at State House Entebbe yesterday, Museveni said Bashir had been invited in his capacity as a sitting African president.

Bashir is wanted at The Hague-based International Criminal Court over war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur. Member states are expected to arrest Bashir. African members, including Uganda, have refused to cooperate with the court, saying Bashir’s arrest would compromise peace efforts in Darfur.

Museveni said: “Our position in the African security committee was that let us not condemn or condone Bashir.”

“We said let us do our own investigations. That’s how former South African President Thabo Mbeki was invited to do further research to enable us take our own position,” he said.

Read the article here.

Uganda: New Vision
Sudan envoy condemns ICC warrant
Published: 5 October 2009

The International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrant against the Sudanese leader, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, is a big obstacle to the realisation of peace in Sudan, the country’s ambassador to Uganda, Hussein Awad Ali, has said.

He said since Bashir and the head of the Southern Sudan government, Gen. Salva Kiir, were in charge of implementing the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, which was signed in Naivasha in 2005, the warrant would jeopardise the process.

“The peace process is underway and Bashir is entirely responsible for its implementation and the security of the country. When you issue an arrest warrant, you are blocking the peace process, because his movement is limited, and he cannot do any consultation on the matter,” Ali said.

He was addressing a press conference on Wednesday at the Sudanese Embassy in Kampala.
Ali added that the warrant was politically motivated to keep Sudan in turmoil and to make it underdeveloped.

Read the article here.

Allafrica.com
Report on Sudan Oil Figures May Further Strain Fragile Peace
Published: 3 October 2009

An NGO report that shows a discrepancy between the oil revenues declared by the Khartoum government and those provided by the Chinese National Petroleum Corporation does not augur well for north-south ties.

The oil figures published by the Khartoum Government do not match those from the oil company, a report by Global Witness, an international NGO, has found. Khartoum reports up to one quarter less in certain blocks than what is stated in the annual report of the Chinese National Petroleum Corporation, the company operating in those blocks.

This is the more serious since the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), which brought to an end to the conflict between North and South Sudan, was based on an agreement to share oil revenues.

Oil comprises 98% of the income of the government of Southern Sudan. It received $2.9b in oil revenues in 2008 and $6b since the signing of the peace agreement.

Read the article here.