By Milton Olupot
and Agencies

THE African Union (AU) is divided on whether to arrest Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir over war crimes, according to diplomats at the AU summit in Kampala.

Bashir was indicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crimes in Darfur, Sudan last year.

The court added genocide to the charges this month, accusing Bashir of orchestrating murders, rapes and torture in Darfur.

Reuters reported that the disagreement arose out of a draft resolution on the ICC, which contained two contentious clauses.

One of the clauses advised African countries not to arrest Bashir if he visited their nations even if they had signed up to the ICC.

Africa makes up most of the ICC members, with 30 countries ratifying the Rome Statute.

The draft resolution also “rejects for the moment” a request by the ICC to open an “Africa liaison office” in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, the diplomats said.

After a stormy debate, which went on until 3:00am on Sunday, the delegates reportedly agreed to remove the part which instructs AU members not to cooperate with the ICC in apprehending Bashir.

A new resolution, however, reportedly reiterated calls freezing the arrest warrant by the UN Security Council, which had previously gone unanswered.

The new resolution deferred ICC’s request to open a liaison office in Addis Ababa.

It urged members to work on amending provisions in the Rome Statute.

A final AU resolution on the ICC is expected to be agreed upon by the heads of state today.

Sudanese officials in Kampala, backed by the AU secretariat, have been lobbying the other nations to take a stance against the ICC on the grounds that it is a European-driven court, focusing on Africa only and turning a blind eye to atrocities elsewhere.

The ICC is currently handling five cases from Uganda, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, Darfur and Kenya.

Apart from Darfur, all the other cases were referred voluntarily by their governments to the ICC for investigation.

The UN Security Council, issued resolution 1593 under chapter VII in March 2005, referring the situation in Darfur to the ICC.

At the time, Tanzania and Benin voted in support of the resolution, while Algeria abstained.