The 26th African Union summit, which ended on Sunday in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, ducked as usual the questions of bloody conflict on the continent and focused instead on withdrawing from the International Criminal Court.
The AU had put forth the idea of sending a 5,000-member peacekeeping force to Burundi, in response to the risk of civil war and genocide. Last year a coup d’etat there failed, crooked elections occurred in June and President Pierre Nkurunziza sought an unconstitutional third term.
Mr. Nkurunziza said peacekeepers would be resisted as invaders, so at the summit the AU backed down, dispatching instead a delegation to Burundi for talks.
Another subject for summit consideration was a plan that AU members withdraw from the International Criminal Court because of the court’s focus on crimes by African leaders. Its activities, according to Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta, are “off course to the detriment of our sovereignty, security and dignity as Africans.” In 2012 the ICC charged Mr. Kenyatta with crimes against humanity, then dropped them two years later.
Zimbabwe’s 91-year-old president, Robert Mugabe, was succeeded as AU chair by Chadian President Idriss Deby Itno, who has been in power in the oil-rich nation since 1990. Mr. Mugabe, in his closing remarks, suggested that President Barack Obama was a puppet of whites.
The continent’s other burning issues, in particular the out-of-control violence in Libya, Somalia and South Sudan, as well as the tragic, economically based migration from Africa to Europe, were scarcely addressed. For leaders who care about the continent, that will leave plenty to discuss at the African Union’s July meeting in Rwanda.
First Published: February 4, 2016, 5:00 a.m.
