FRENCH HOPEFUL ON ALTERNATIVE TO SUDANESE AU

C O N F I D E N T I A L PARIS 008605

SIPDIS

KINSHASA/BRAZZAVILLE FOR BIEDLINGMAIER

E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/21/2015
TAGS: PREL PINR PHUM CF SU AU FR
SUBJECT: FRENCH HOPEFUL ON ALTERNATIVE TO SUDANESE AU
PRESIDENCY

REF: A. STATE 226663 B. PARIS 8376

Classified By: Acting POL Bruce Turner. Reasons 1.4b,d



1. (C) MFA Sudan Desk Officer Jeremie Robert confirmed to Africa
Watcher that France remains hopeful that a Congo-Brazzaville
candidacy may avert the fiasco of a possible Sudanese African
Union (AU) Presidency after the January 2006 summit in Khartoum.
Chirac's Africa Adviser Michel de Bonnecorse had mentioned the
prospect of an interim Congo-Brazzaville AU Presidency during
a 6 December conversation with Africa Watcher (Ref B). A week later,
Congo-Brazzaville Foreign Minister Adada visited Paris for
consultations after Congo-Brazzaville's election to the UN
Security Council. According to MFA Congo-Brazzaville/Gabon
Desk Officer Francois Gautier, FM Adada expressed confidence
that his country would emerge from the AU Summit as the 2006 AU
president and he claimed that Sudan had agreed to stand down.


2. (C) Robert commented that the compromise candidacy of
Congo-Brazzaville had added appeal because no Central African
state had ever headed the AU. Moreover, Congo-Brazzaville
President Denis Sassou-N'Guesso has taken pains to burnish his
Africanist credentials, for instance through mediation efforts
for Sao Tome on behalf of ECCAS (Economic Community of Central
Africa States),as well as through various targeted publications.
(Note: For instance, "African Geopolitics," a France-based
journal with offices in Congo-Brazzaville, dedicated a special
issue in 2005 to Sassou-N'Guesso's promulgation of a draft
"Pan-African Pact Against Aggression" at the 2003 Maputo AU
summit, apparently adopted by AU Heads of State at the 2005
Abuja AU summit. Sassou-N'Guesso, incidentally, is the honorary
president of "African Geopolitics." End Note)


3. (C) Comment: While favorably inclined toward a
Congo-Brazzaville AU presidency -- toward any alternative to
Sudan, in fact -- France is taking pains to stay on the sidelines
of this vexing African succession tale, if only because visible
French support could prove counter-productive. Robert noted also
that Sudan was not without its champions in the African Union,
notably Egypt, a fierce advocate, he claimed, of Sudanese
prerogatives as host of the 2006 AU summit. End Comment.


Please visit Paris' Classified Website at:
http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/eur/paris/index.c fm

Stapleton