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The African Union is facing a dilemma on how to act on the International Criminal Court arrest warrant against Omar al-Bashir, the Sudanese president.
The AU, which claims the warrant will disrupt peace negotiations over Sudan's western region of Darfur, has said it will send a delegation to the UN Security Council to try to halt the indictment.
The AU said after their meeting in Addis Ababa on Thursday that stopping Bashir's indictment would "give a chance for peace in Sudan".
But 30 of the AU's 53 members are signatories to the International Criminal Court (ICC), raising questions as to how they will proceed diplomatically.
'Racial undertones'
The Rome statute that set up the ICC allows the UN Security Council to pass a resolution to defer or suspend for a year the investigation or prosecution of a case.
Moses Wetangula, the Kenyan foreign minister, said the operations of the ICC have been "very suspect".
"Look at the manner in which they have handled African issues. It's not just the ICC in The Hague, the application of so called universal jurisdiction in criminal matters has been laced with some racial undertones," he said.
The Justice and Equality Movement (Jem), the most powerful rebel group in the Darfur region, said it would act on the warrant for al-Bashir.
Al-Bashir has rejected the warrant, telling thousands of his supporters in Khartoum, the capital, on Thursday that Sudan was being targeted by Western powers and that the ICC was a tool of colonialists after Sudan's oil.
PHOTO CAPTION
A crowd supporting Sudan's President Omar Hassan al-Bashir chant slogans during a protest against ICC's arrest warrant for al-Bashir in Khartoum March 5, 2009.
Agencies
