After Zimbabwe, Thabo Mbeki to Negotiate (Ignore Suffering) in Darfur

The African Union has appointed former South African president, Thabo Mbeki, to chair a committee to investigate human rights violations in Darfur and be a liaison between the government of Sudan and the International Criminal Court.

Interestingly, the African Union decided to appoint the same man who while the president of South Africa had a very friendly relationship with Omar al-Bashir, the president of Sudan who is indicted by the International Criminal Court for the war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur.

During Mbeki's presidency, when South Africa was a temporary member of the United Nations Security Council, the country's diplomats tried everything to suspend or delay the International Criminal Court's case against the Sudanese president for the war crimes in Darfur. They didn't mind the 200,000 dead and millions displaced in the Darfur conflict since 2003, which many analysts and aid organizations label one of the worst humanitarian disasters in the world.

Similarly, during its two years at the Security Council, South Africa has voted against imposing sanctions on Zimbabwe despite the unthinkable crisis and ruthless dictatorship of Robert Mugabe.

During the negotiations to end the crisis in Zimbabwe, many saw Mbeki as too soft on Robert Mugabe, thus prolonging the suffering of millions. While members of the opposition were being killed in Zimbabwe, Thabo Mbeki held Mugabe's hand on TV and claimed there was no crisis in Zimbabwe whatsoever.

What to expect from Thabo Mbeki's involvement in Darfur? Probably a few years of his "quiet diplomacy" during which tens of thousands will die and millions suffer unthinkable hardships and brutality.

Well, what else to expect from the African Union, an organization currently chaired by a dictator, Libya's leader Colonel Moamer Gaddafi, who himself is responsible for the current conflict and suffering in Darfur.

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Savo Heleta is the author of "Not My Turn to Die: Memoirs of a Broken Childhood in Bosnia" (March 2008, AMACOM Books, New York) and a postgraduate student in Conflict Transformation and Management at Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. Visit www.savoheleta.com for more info.