Al-Bashir dismisses war-crimes charges as a 'plot'
Sudan’s president today dismissed war crimes charges laid against him as a plot to destabilise the country.
Speaking for the first time since he became wanted, Omar al-Bashir told a Cabinet meeting that the International Criminal Court, the United Nations and aid groups in Sudan were “tools of the new colonialism”.
“This is an attempt to get at Sudan,” he said.
Al-Bashir’s government retaliated immediately after the warrant was issued yesterday, ordering the expulsion of 10 leading international charities from Darfur, including Oxfam, CARE and Save the Children.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called it “a serious setback to lifesaving operations in Darfur.” Aid groups protested, saying they had no connection to the court and that their absence could lead to a crisis for more than two million war-weary Sudanese who need such basics as shelter, food and clean water.
Al-Bashir said the organisations aimed to disrupt peace efforts in Darfur and that every time his country reaches for a peace deal to end the six-year conflict it is hit with a new international decision against it.
“We in Sudan have always been a target of the UN and these organisations because we have said: ’No',” al-Bashir said. “We said the resources of Sudan should go to the people of Sudan.”
The arrest warrant by the Netherlands-based International Criminal Court is the tribunal’s first against a sitting head of state. UN officials said their staff will continue to deal with al-Bashir in Sudan because he remains the president of the country.
Up to 300,000 people have died and 2.7 million have fled their homes in the region since the war in Darfur began in 2003, when rebel ethnic African groups, complaining of discrimination and neglect, took up arms against the Arab-dominated government in Khartoum.
In a warning against anyone who tries to help the ICC arrest him, al-Bashir said his government will be firm.
“We will act as a responsible government,” he said. “But we will be responsible and firm with anyone who tries to get at the stability, security in the country or whoever uses their position and presence in Sudan to violate the law, the stability and security.”
He said his government has ordered the expulsion of 10 organisations working in Darfur because they violated the law.
The president later appeared before a public rally organised outside the Republican Palace attended by thousands of supporters. He swayed and danced with the crowd.
