AU Summit of Heads of State opens

African leaders have begun their summit in Ethiopia but violence in
Kenya is not on the formal agenda.On the eve of the summit, AU
commission chairman Alpha Oumar Konare said it is up to Africa to help
Kenya resolve its problems, after last month's elections. UN Secretary
General Ban Ki-moon is also expected to call for a peaceful resolution
to the violence that has claimed up to 900 lives.The opposition says
the government of Mwai Kibaki rigged the poll.Mr Kibaki is among more than 40 leaders present at the African Union summit in Addis Ababa.But opposition leader Raila Odinga, who says he won last month's presidential election, has not been invited.Th AU Commissioner, Alpha Konare has criticised the 53-member union for not doing enough to address issues in Africa and around the world. While the billed theme of this year's summit is industrialisation, Kenya is likely to be dominating thoughts.On Wednesday, Jendayi Frazer, the top US envoy to Africa, described the forced removal of people from Kenya's Rift Valley as ethnic cleansing.The (Kenyan) government will not be given a blank cheque at this summitAU Commission memberThe UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is expected to tell the organisation of the need for a peaceful compromise in a country whose stability is seen as key for the region. Peacekeeping in Somalia will also be on the agenda during the summit, as it was last year, with members keen to strengthen the small Ugandan and Burundian forces in the country. Our correspondent says much of the discussions this week in Ethiopia will focus on the internal workings of the AU - which has been described in its own report as dysfunctional. The report described a poorly-functioning institution where senior officials in Addis Ababa were bogged down in bureaucracy, while there was an unhealthy culture of colleagues not talking to each other. The report noted 21 countries are more than a year behind with their payments to the AU, including Libya and Egypt.At the last AU meeting six months ago, the whole three-day summit was dedicated to discussing the idea of a United States of Africa, with little time spent on sensitive issues such as peacekeeping in Darfur and Somalia and the crippling economic crisis in Zimbabwe.
The Summit is also expected to elect a new AU Chairman, to replace Ghana's John Kufuor.