USA Africa Dialogue Series - Public Spat between AU's Jean Ping and Kenyan Premier Odinga, plus How Western Foreign Ministers Infiltrated AU's Peace and Security Council

• As you might know, the AU appointed Equitorial Guinea's Teodoro Obiang who's been in power for the last 31years (he came to power in a coup of 1979) last Sunday. Obiang is described by one Western journalist as the "worst dictator" in Africa.

He will Chair the AU for the next one year at a time when there are many elections about to take place.

• Never mind the fact that the AU has appointed a fairly lightweight cast of characters to constitute the AU panel (presidents of South Africa; Chad; Mauritania; Tanzania; Burkina Faso  ) over Cote d'Ivoire, but...

...today we learn that:

"The Peace and Security Council, as the most powerful union organ by nature, has no room for outsiders yet western foreign ministers were invited to attempt to set the tone for deliberations over Cote d'Ivoire."

(from: from: http://allafrica.com/stories/201102010096.html)

• On top of all that, Ping, AU boss had to order security to stop Odinga from holding a press conference about the Cote d'ivoire crisis.

Sadly, there were no fisticuffs; would have loved to see Odinga try to pull Ping's goatie to see whether it was real.

Oh, Africa!!


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