Addis Ababa - The African Union has asked former South African leader Thabo Mbeki to head a peace panel which aims to reconcile the need for accountability in Darfur with opposition calls for Sudan's president to be prosecuted.
AU Commission Chairman Jean Ping made the announcement on Thursday, at a meeting of the continent's foreign ministers, ahead of the three-day AU Summit, which starts on Sunday.
"I have written to President Mbeki to ask him to chair a high level panel to submit recommendations on how best to reconcile the fight against impunity (in Darfur) while also dealing with reconciliation and forgiveness," Mr Ping said.
Mr Ping, however, did not give any further details about his plan for Mr Mbeki or the role he will play.
As Africa's largest economy and most significant military force, South Africa has an important role to play on the continent, while its transition to a democratic, all-inclusive state offers lessons for those pursuing peace and reconciliation in conflict zones everywhere.
The country has made significant progress towards most foreign policy objectives in the first decade and continued in the last few years.
This progress included participation and interventions for the promotion of African peace and development.
The conflict between rebels and the Government and allied Janjaweed militiamen in Darfur has led to an estimated 300 000 deaths since 2003 and forced 2.7 million people to flee their homes.
Renewed fighting in southern Darfur's Muhajeria area that began earlier this month has exposed about 30 000 people to previously unseen levels of violence, destroyed an aid agency's office and forced the world body to relocate its staff.
The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) has accused Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir of orchestrating genocide and crimes against humanity in Darfur.
The court's judges in the Hague are expected to rule within weeks on whether to issue an arrest warrant for President Bashir.
Tanzania's Bernard Membe, who heads the Executive Council of AU foreign ministers, said the success of the mission depended on getting maximum cooperation from President Bashir's government.
The AU has called for any indictment to be suspended.
"Most of us are members of the ICC, and most of us don't condone atrocities, the solution that we are seeking in Darfur must seek the cooperation of the government," he said.
Media reports indicate that the fighting has escalated in the country ahead of the expected decision by the ICC judges.
The United Nations and African Union mission in Darfur (UNAMID) aims to deploy 80 percent of its joint peacekeeping force to the country by March and the rest by June.
UNAMID took over from a smaller AU mission last year, but was well short of its promised strength of 26 000 troops.
"The cooperation of the government cannot come if we'll be deploying our troops at the same time as President Bashir has indicted. It will bring a contradiction and the peace process will be brought to a halt."
Meanwhile, the AU will adopt in total the recommendation of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) aimed at resolving the current political crisis in Zimbabwe, said Tanzania's Foreign Affairs minister, Bernard Membe.
Mr Membe, who chairs the executive council, said the top decision making organ of the AU that consists of foreign ministers of member-states, expressed regret that the Zimbabwean crisis had taken longer than had been anticipated and needed to be brought to a speedy conclusion.
He said that a SADC progress report on the Zimbabwe crisis was expected in the next three days for consideration and possible adoption, ahead of the Heads of State summit.
Sudan, Somalia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mauritius, Mauritania and Guinea were the other hotspots to which Mr Membe said the meeting would devote a lot of attention to.
"There is nothing like a good or bad coup d'etat. It cannot be admitted to this house. Africa has had enough of these and we are not here to entertain the old political life on the 1960s and the 1970s," Mr Membe said, referring to the two military coups in Guinea and Mauritania and the attempted one in Guinea Bissau last year.
The agenda of the executive council consists of 40 substantive items that broadly cover security, human resources development, science and technology, democracy, food, transport, infrastructure development and energy.
