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President Bashir has launched a tour of Darfur promising peace and aid. (Reuters) |
KHARTOUM — Sudan has invited foreign experts to verify the ability of its judiciary to try Darfur war crimes suspects, in the latest diplomatic offensive to counter International Criminal Court (ICC)'s charges against Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir.
"We invited them to come and see the judicial system in Sudan themselves," Justice Minister Abdel Basit Sabderat told Reuters on Thursday, July 24.
The experts, from the United Nations, African Union and Arab League, will vet the Sudanese judiciary for Darfur war crimes trials.
The Arab League has confirmed Sudan's agreement to try those suspected of committing war crimes in the troubled western region under Arab and African observation.
Last week, ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo charged President Omar Bashir of 10 counts of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide in Sudan's western region of Darfur, gripped by more than five years of war.
Immediately, Sudan launched a diplomatic offensive with diplomats fanning out around the world to persuade allies and archrivals to pressure the UN to quash or postpone an ICC arrest warrant against Bashir.
The African Union and the Arab League have already called for putting any warrant against Bashir on hold.
The Darfur conflict broke out in 2003 when rebels took up arms against the Khartoum regime accusing it of discrimination.
The UN estimates some 300,000 people have died from the combined effects of war, famine and disease in Darfur, a region the size of France.
Khartoum puts the death toll at 10,000.
Up to 2 million have been forced out of their homes in the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.
Willing
Minister Sabderat said Sudanese law contains all the necessary provisions to try anyone for war crimes, but the ongoing conflict in Darfur made it impossible to hold trials.
"We are facing the same problems that (the ICC) itself said it faced…it is not that we are not willing to do justice but that while the war is going on we cannot execute justice," he explained.
"We have to find the victims, witnesses, bring the evidence. It's not easy."
The justice minister said Khartoum would build on three special courts formed after the UN Security Council referred Darfur to the international court in 2005.
In April last year, the ICC issued arrest warrants for State Minister for Humanitarian Affairs Ahmed Harun and militia leader Ali Kosheib on charges of committing crimes in Darfur.
Sudan, which is not a party of the ICC statute, has refused to hand them over.
"If you try Ahmed Haroun and Ali Kushayb do you think Darfur's problem will be resolved? Never!" said Sabderat.
Peace Tour
President Bashir launched Wednesday, July 23, a tour of Darfur promising peace and aid.
"We will exclude no one (from peace): tribal leaders, politicians, signatory movements and even non-signatories," he told the crowd who wilted under the sun.
Wearing a safari suit, shades and a giant ring, Bashir danced on stage and beat his silver-topped cane to nationalist music as several thousand fanned themselves in the scorching heat of the West Darfur state capital El Geneina.
Pressing a second day on a tour of the three government-controlled state capitals in the vast western region, he presented himself as a man of peace.
"We don't need lessons from anyone. We don't need to be told how to behave. Peace is the responsibility of Darfuris," he said, adding he had come to Darfur to "share the pain" of the people and listen to their requests.
Bashir has inaugurated development projects and met state and UN peacekeeping officials.
West Darfur is the poorest state in the region and parts are strongholds of the rebel Justice and Equality Movement group that attacked the capital in May.
Top Western and Arab diplomats, including US charge d'affaires Alberto Fernandez and British ambassador Rosalind Marsden, have accompanied Bashir |
