Maravi

(ZIMPAPERS) Odinga fired

Odinga fired
Saturday, 29 January 2011 22:05 International News
From Caesar Zvayi in ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia

KENYAN Prime Minister Raila Odinga was on Friday night fired as African Union mediator to the Cote d’Ivoire crisis after his public altercation with Commission chair Dr Jean Ping ahead of the convening of the high-level Peace and Security Council summit that was meeting to discuss the political situation in the Ivory Coast.

Mr Odinga had unprocedurally called a Press conference to issue his statement on Cote d’Ivoire before briefing the heads of state and government who were meeting at presidential level to discuss the situation in Cote d’Ivoire.

There was some shouting, pushing and shoving when Dr Ping summoned AU security officials to stop Mr Odinga’s Press conference.

A source close to deliberations in the Peace and Security Council said the Kenyan premier had to sit out the entire summit as a representative of Kenya, not as AU mediator, a status he had been stripped off by the AU Commission chair.

‘‘Odinga was appointed on the basis that he had an open line to (US President Barack) Obama since they are both Luos (a Kenyan tribe), but even then President (Mwai) Kibaki did not know about it.

“President Kibaki objected very strongly to the AU Commission that ‘you do not just take my prime minister and try to raise his profile at international level.

‘‘The last straw was the altercation they (Ping and Odinga) had when he (Odinga) tried to do a Press conference ahead of the Peace and Security Council meeting, that was when he was fired such that by the time the Peace and Security Council was held, Odinga sat in as a representative of Kenya, not AU mediator, a status he had lost,’’ the source said, adding that there was recognition during the summit that both the AU and the UN could not be party to a conflict the way they had become bogged down in Cote d’Ivoire, when their reason for existence was to put out fires.

‘‘That is why that resolution, that there be a high-level group to go to Cote d’Ivoire, which was a suggestion from South Africa, was adopted.’’

The Peace and Security Council resolved to appoint a panel of heads of state and government to resolve the crisis within a period of one month under an expanded negotiating framework that will see the panel investigate and ultimately come up with a position regarding the electoral crisis in the world’s largest cocoa producer.

The panel’s recommendations will be subject to endorsement by the 15-member Peace and Security Council.

A Southern African diplomatic source said there was an attempt to include a resolution calling for sanctions against Cote d’Ivoire.

However, President Mugabe strongly objected to this proposal, saying there was no need to impose a punitive package against Cote d’Ivoire before the high-level panel had returned with a report to the Peace and Security Council.

It also emerged that the ballot boxes that are to be used in the verification process, and which were under the protection of the United Nations, had since been destroyed under suspicious circumstances, throwing the entire verification process asunder.

The summit of heads of state and government proper begins today.

Labels: IVORY COAST, RAILA ODINGA

posted by MrK @ 5:23 PM