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Sudan’s Bashir vows 2009 polls will be held on schedule
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Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir pledged on Sunday that landmark national elections planned for next year would go ahead on schedule while vowing never to cooperate with the International Criminal Court (ICC) which has moved to indict him for war crimes in the country’s troubled Darfur region.
Bashir was addressing African and Arab trade unionists who had gathered to express their support and to denounce a request from the prosecutor of the world court for his arrest on charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Many analysts have argued that any arrest warrant issued by the ICC could jeopardize a 2005 peace agreement between North and South Sudan calling for elections no later than 2009.
“We shall also go on with the democratic process and start the elections on its date,” said the official English translation of Bashir’s speech.
Sudan’s new electoral law for the first time grants women 25 percent of seats in the national assembly and introduces proportional representation into Africa’s largest country by setting quotas for political parties.
But massive delays have so far hindered preparations for the elections. The new electoral law was passed last month - two-and-a-half years late - and an independent electoral commission has yet to be appointed.
Bashir was first elected president in a 1996 poll widely denounced as fraudulent. He won a new five-year term during Sudan’s last national polls in December 2000 which was boycotted by the opposition.
Addressing the unionists, Bashir also criticized Western states and said the move by the international court against him was part of a neocolonialist agenda to protect the interests of developed countries.
“Our position is firm … there will be no cooperation with the so-called International Criminal Court,” he said to cheers from supporters.
The court’s chief prosecutor has said Bashir’s state apparatus was directly responsible for killing at least 35,000 people in Darfur and the deaths of at least another 100,000 through hunger and disease.
Luis Moreno-Ocampo asked the court for its first arrest warrant for a sitting head of state.
Last year, the court issued two arrest warrants for a junior Cabinet minister and an allied militia leader for war crimes. Khartoum refused to hand them over and has not tried them in national courts.
Regional powers have criticized the move to indict Bashir, saying it would threaten a fragile peace process in Sudan which has suffered civil turmoil since 1955. But rights groups have hailed it as a blow to impunity.
The Non-Aligned Movement, African Union and Arab League have all expressed support for Bashir, but neighboring Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni said on Saturday the AU should take action to resolve the Darfur problem rather than condemn the indictment.
“The correct position for the AU therefore, should be to investigate ourselves,” he told a news conference.
African Union officials have in the past expressed concern that the ICC’s first four cases have all focused on African wars.
Bashir said Washington was committing crimes every day in Iraq and Afghanistan and should be brought to account for the atom bombs dropped in Japan during World War II.
“These colonial superpowers are waging a targeted campaign against our country,” he said.
Mostly non-Arab rebels took up arms in early 2003 accusing the central government of neglecting remote Darfur. Khartoum mobilized mostly Arab militia to quell the revolt who stand accused of a widespread campaign of rape, murder and looting.
Meanwhile, a Sudanese minister dismissed the bid to put Bashir on trial for war crimes in Darfur, saying that there was “no genocide” and only “political problems.”
During a visit to Mozambique, Sudanese Tourism Minister Joseph Dong told reporters on Saturday that the crisis in Darfur required a political solution and not prosecution by the International Criminal Court.
“The president of Sudan is accused of being directly linked to genocide in Darfur,” Dong said after meeting Mozambican President Armando Guebuza.
“Sudan rejects these accusations. There is no genocide, there are just some political problems. In any case we haven’t ratified the treaty setting up this court.”
Source: AFP
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