I’m not guilty, pleads Bashir

LONDON, Thursday

Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir has said the international arrest warrant issued against him for war crimes in Darfur is part of a plot against Sudan.

The wanted leader denied responsibility for large-scale killings in his country.

President Bashir told the BBC in an interview broadcast today that the fighting in Sudan’s western Darfur region began as an insurrection and that he had had a responsibility to send troops to fight the rebels there.

Much of the fighting was between local tribes, and allegations of large-scale killing by government forces and government-backed militias were hostile propaganda, he said.

Issued a warrant

UN officials say the six-year conflict in Darfur has resulted in up to 300,000 deaths and the displacement of more than 2.7 million people.

The International Criminal Court in the Netherlands has issued a warrant against President Bashir for crimes against humanity and war crimes in Darfur.

“The ICC ruling is fundamentally null and void,” said President Bashir. “For us, the ICC’s ruling is a political one,” he added, saying of the ICC charges against him: “This is all lies.”

“We do not recognise the court,” he stated. “We refuse to negotiate with them, and we will not hand over anyone.” The ICC has issued arrest warrants for two senior Sudanese officials who Khartoum has refused to send to The Hague to stand trial.

“I challenge anybody to bring me evidence that proves the Sudanese armed forces attacked and killed citizens in Darfur,” President Bashir said.

Dismissing UN estimates of the number of deaths in the Darfur conflict, President Bashir said the toll “did not reach 10,000.”

Playing down the scale of the insurrection in the largely desert region, President Bashir said: “We can say that now Darfur is 90 per cent peaceful.”

He said the insurgent movements represented “only two per cent” of the population of Darfur, and called on them to “lay down their arms and prepare for elections” due next year.

Members of the joint UN/African Union peacekeeping force said on Wednesday they had seen Sudanese Government aircraft bombing suspected rebel positions in the North Darfur town of Umm Baru, but the Sudanese armed forces said no bombing had taken place.

President Bashir has already dismissed the allegations against him as a Western conspiracy to seize oil, gas and other natural resources from Sudan, Africa’s largest country.

“I assume full responsibility for what has happened to my citizens,” Bashir said. “However, what has been reported to have happened in Darfur did not actually take place. What happened in Darfur was an insurgency.

“The state has the responsibility to fight the rebels. Any state in the world and any responsible government would fight those who raise arms against it.”

Asked if he would stand for re-election next year, President Bashir said it was for the Sudanese people to decide. “If they support us, who should say that we should leave,” he added.

Mr Bashir is the first sitting president to be charged by the Hague-based court since it was set up in 2002.

He responded by ordering 10 foreign aid agencies to leave Sudan and embarked on a series of visits to countries that opposed the ICC indictment, including Qatar, Ethiopia and Egypt.

The conflict in Darfur began when mostly non-Arab rebels took up arms against the government in 2003.

Non-Arab farmers

They accused Khartoum of discriminating against non-Arab farmers in Darfur in favour of Arab tribes.

In another development, eastern Sudan’s state of Gadarif and Ethiopian region of Tigray have agreed to a regional cooperation in the areas of trade culture, controlling communicable human and animal diseases and environmental protection.

A deal between the two regions marks the implementation of the resolutions of the 11th conference of Sudan–Ethiopia border development, concluded last March in Al-Damazin, Sudan.

The president of Tigray region, Mr Tsegay Berhe and the governor of Gadarif, Mr Al-Daw Osman Hassan Al-Faki, signed a memorandum of understanding to develop bilateral relations at the end of their meeting on Tuesday.

The mayors of Gadarif and Mekelle signed a town twining agreement to foster human and cultural links between the two regional capitals.