Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir lashed out at the West on Thursday over the arrest warrant which has split the world community and sparked fears of insecurity and a humanitarian crisis in Darfur. Sudan reacted swiftly to the International Criminal Court decision to seek Beshirs arrest for war crimes and crimes against humanity by ordering the expulsion of 10 foreign relief agencies, a move that could threaten aid to several hundred thousand vulnerable people.
Sudans allies including a string of African and Arab states and China called for the suspension of the ICC warrant, warning it could undermine efforts to end the six-year conflict in Darfur. Khartoum has vowed it will not cooperate with The Hague-based court, which accuses Beshir of masterminding a campaign of extermination, rape and pillage in Darfur, one of the remotest areas on the planet.
Beshir remained defiant on Thursday as thousands of angry Sudanese staged mass demonstration in Khartoum, some setting ablaze American and Israeli flags and effigies of ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo. "The true criminals are the leaders of the United States and Europe," Beshir said, charging that bodies such as the ICC were instruments of "neo-colonialism."
The 65-year-old who seized power in Africas largest country in a coup 20 years ago became the first sitting president to be issued with an ICC arrest warrant, facing five counts of crimes against humanity and two of war crimes. The United Nations says up to 300,000 people have died since conflict broke out in Darfur in 2003, when ethnic minority rebels took up arms against the Arab-dominated regime for a greater share of resources and power.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the European Union said Beshir must face justice, but analysts say there is little prospect of him being hauled before the court with world powers deeply divided over the warrant. But calls mounted among Khartoums allies for the warrant to suspended, including energy-hungry China, which supplies military aid to Beshirs government and relies on Sudan for oil imports.
The African Union said after an emergency meeting in Addis Ababa it will send a delegation to the United Nations to try to halt the warrant "to give a chance for peace in Sudan." Many fear the warrant could plunge Sudan - which has been torn apart by war for much of its half century of independence - into further chaos, and aid agencies were warning of the potential fallout of their expulsion.
Sudan ordered out 10 organisations which deliver aid to the estimated 2.7 million homeless and others also at risk of disease and hunger. The action - which affects such major organisations as Oxfam and Medicins Sans Frontieres - drew a swift response from UN chief Ban Ki-moon and from the EU, which both calling on Khartoum to change its mind.
But Sudans humanitarian affairs chief Hassabo Mohammed Abdel Rahman warned that more could be expelled, accusing those already ordered out of collaborating with the ICC by sending "fabricated evidence... about genocide."
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