U.S. and European media

December 15, 2022

Sudan Tribune: Egypt cancels hosting of France-Africa summit over Bashir's presence dispute.  The Egyptian government announced today that it has decided to cancel its hosting of the 25th France-Africa summit after failing to settle the dispute with Paris over the issue of inviting the Sudanese president Omer Hassan Al-Bashir who is wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for alleged war crimes committed in Darfur.  The Egyptian foreign minister Ahmed Aboul-Gheit told the London based Al-Sharq Al-Awsat newspaper in an interview that president Mohamed Hosni Mubarak and his French counterpart Nicolas Sarkozy discussed the matter in Paris during a working lunch at the Elysee.  Aboul-Gheit said that both sides agreed to move the summit venue to France which would effectively mean that Bashir will stay away for fear of being arrested on the territory of an ICC state party.  The officials speaking to the Le Monde said that "if Omar Al-Bashir is invited then Nicolas Sarkozy cannot be present. Without his presence, there is no Africa-France summit".

Xinhua: UN sends peacekeepers to protect Sudanese refugees in Central African Republic.  UN peacekeepers were sent on Monday to protect a camp of refugees from Sudan's Darfur region in the northeast of the Central African Republic (CAR) and humanitarian staff working there, UN officials said here.  The United Nations took the step after an attack, apparently by bandits, left three people dead on a nearby road in the region. "This attack apparently due to people seeking to block the road (between Sam Ouandja and Ouanda-Djale), has provoked serious tension between the UFDR, an armed Central African group, two of whose members were killed, and the Sudanese refugees of Sam Ouandja," the UN mission set up to protect civilians and facilitate humanitarian aid in Chad and CAR (MINURCAT) said in a communique.  CAR, especially its northeast, has been plagued by armed rebels and bandits for years, a situation exacerbated by the spill-over of the Darfur conflict. UN officials have repeatedly called for an end to attacks on civilians that have seen scores of thousands of people driven into the bush, with scant means of sustenance, an appeal reiterated on Monday by the mission.

AFP: Darfur kidnap victim 'happy' 100-day ordeal over.  A civilian staffer of the UN-African Union peacekeeping force in Sudan's war-torn Darfur region expressed relief on Monday after being freed along with another UNAMID employee following a kidnap ordeal.  "I am happy to be back. We spent 107 days without shelter," Patrick Wfie of Nigeria told reporters after arriving at Khartoum airport.  Wfie and another UNAMID worker, a Zimbabwean woman, were kidnapped at gunpoint in Darfur on August 29, the first abduction targeting the joint force operating in the Sudanese region for nearly two years.  "They were released after negotiations and mediation by local administrations," Uthman said, adding no force had been used to secure their freedom.  The two were seized in the West Darfur town of Zalingei only days after the commanders of the joint force made controversial remarks about the security situation in Darfur that triggered the ire of its main rebel groups.

The following op-ed by Senator Sam Brownback appeared in The Washington Examiner: Sen. Sam Brownback: Genocide has no nuance.  Answering questions before a congressional panel last week, President Obama's special envoy for Sudan, Maj. Gen. Scott Gration, conceded that the United States government's new Sudan policy included direct negotiations with Sudanese officials complicit in an ongoing genocide.  This simple, apparent, yet profound admission should alarm anyone concerned about our ability to deter future genocides. Sudan is the test case of the United States declaring genocide in progress; how we react and with whom we negotiate in Sudan will shape how -- and how effectively -- we confront the world's worst human rights abusers, for decades to come.  It is worth stressing that there is only one instance in the history of the United States when our government acknowledged and declared the existence of an ongoing genocide. That place is Sudan, and the genocide, declared in 2004, continues under our watch.

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