A MILD drama unfolded at the ongoing Abuja +12 Special Follow-Up Summit on HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, Malaria and other related diseases as Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir who has two international arrest warrants against him failed to turn up to make his presentation.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) in 2009 and 2010 issued two warrants of arrest against Al-Bashir over the conflict in Sudan’s Darfur region, where government forces and local Arab militias are fighting rebels drawn mainly from black African populations.
Some civil society organisations have also called on the Nigerian authorities to arrest him if he showed up.
Al-Bashir, who arrived in Abuja on Sunday to a red-carpet welcome and a full guard of honour, has not appeared in any of the sessions of the summit.
He was expected to participate at the summit like many other Heads of State. When he was called to make a presentation, there was heavy silence. Alas, he was nowhere to be found.
Since he was indicted by the ICC in 2006 after being accused of masterminding atrocities during the Darfur conflict, which left hundreds of thousands dead, he has been refused trips to Uganda, South Africa, Malawi and Zambia. Only Chad and Djibouti have received him in the past year.
His visit to Nigeria is seen as his first to the West African region since the warrants were issued.
The African Union (AU) has repeatedly spoken of its reservation over the ICC’s warrants, stressing that it will not respect the decision of the court.
In 2010, AU called on the United Nations Security Council to delay war crimes proceedings against the Sudanese president.
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