Kenyan violence to dominate Africa summit

It is up to Africa to help Kenya resolve a dispute over elections that has sparked spiralling violence, the African Union chief said as the continent’s leaders converged in Ethiopia for a summit.

More than 40 heads of state, including Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki, are expected to attend the three-day meeting opening today in Addis Ababa.

Mr Kibaki’s political opponent Raila Odinga, who says he won Kenya’s December 27 election, was not invited, his supporters said.

The theme of this year’s summit is industrialisation, but the news from Kenya is likely to dominate the agenda.

Since the disputed vote, more than 800 people have died, and tens of thousands have fled their homes.

During preparatory meetings, African Union chairman Alpha Konare chided the 53-member union for not doing enough to address issues in Africa and around the world.

“Today it is the responsibility of the African Union to solve this problem,” he said of recent violence in Kenya.

World Bank President Robert Zoellick also plans to attend, making his second to trip to Ethiopia in less than a year.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is expected to make a repeat of last year’s summit talks with Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir about the state of a joint AU-UN peacekeeping mission in Darfur, set to become the world’s largest peacekeeping force.

The African Union and United Nations have pledged to send a 26,000-strong peacekeeping force to Darfur, replacing an undermanned, under-equipped AU force.

Deployment of the so-called hybrid force has been delayed because the Sudanese government has not agreed to accept non-African troops, and the United Nations has not been able to get governments to supply helicopters, which it says are essential for the mission to succeed.

Jendayi Frazer, the top US diplomat for Africa, said there was “significant evidence” that the Sudanese government was to blame for many of the delays.

“We hear from the UN that there have been many barriers placed on the deployment … from issuing visas, to providing land for the troops and many other types of bureaucratic, ’go-slow’ actions,” Ms Frazer told reporters in the Ethiopian capital for the summit.

She said a similar deployment in Rwanda had gone much more smoothly.

Peacekeeping operations in Somalia are also on the minds of leaders at the summit.

AU officials say getting troops to enhance the small Ugandan and Burundian contingents is a priority, as it was during last year’s summit in Accra, Ghana.

“Our intention is to take advantage of the presence of African leaders in Addis Ababa to hit quotas,” said AU Peace and Security Council Commissioner Said Djinnit. “It was last year during the (AU) summit that important pledges were made. We hope that again we can get some countries to make some pledges for support.”

The African Union was established by declaration in 1999, supplanting the Organisation of African Unity, a multistate union established in 1963 and led by post-independence African leaders including Ghanaian President Kwame Nkrumah and Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie.

Today’s African Union encompasses peacekeeping activities, social and economic affairs and considers itself the arbiter of African governance.

Also on the agenda is the election of a new chairman to replace Konare, who has served as the AU's top operational official since 2003.