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Sudanese president is defiant in Darfur visit
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Jul 23, 2008 - 8:23:58 AM

Sudanese president is defiant in Darfur visit

By SARAH EL DEEB – 55 minutes ago

EL FASHER, Sudan (AP) — Sudan's president said Wednesday he would not be cowed by his indictment on genocide charges nor allow it to distract him from seeking peace in troubled Darfur.

Addressing supporters in Darfur's capital of El Fasher, a defiant Omar al-Bashir sought to cast himself as a peacemaker and discount the significance of his July 14 indictment by the International Criminal Court's prosecutor.

Al-Bashir said it was an attempt to foil his government's efforts to restore peace in Darfur. And he said Sudan would not be intimidated by the threat of sanctions either.

"We will only bow to God, who is the sole provider," he told a cheering crowd of some 3,000.

Without mentioning prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo by name, al-Bashir said: "Every time we take a step forward, make progress and signs of peace emerge, those people try to mess it up, return us to square one and distract us with marginal issues and false allegations."

Moreno-Ocampo filed 10 charges against al-Bashir for masterminding a campaign of extermination and rape specifically targeting three Darfur tribes. The United Nations says about 300,000 people have died and 2.5 million have been uprooted over the past five years.

The charges include three counts of genocide, five of crimes against humanity and two of war crimes. Moreno-Ocampo also sought an arrest warrant for al-Bashir, but it will be months before a panel of judges decides on the request.

On Wednesday, al-Bashir acknowledged "injustices" in Darfur, but did not specify them, identify those behind them nor say whether he intends to prosecute the perpetrators.

"Yes, we all know that there have been problems in Darfur and we know that there have been injustices. But we, from day one, sought to bring peace for all the people of Darfur," he said.

But, he added, "Ocampo's talk will not bother us or distract us from our work."

Al-Bashir's troubles in Darfur began in 2003 when ethnic African rebels in the remote western region took up arms against his Islamist regime because of what they view as discrimination against them, and to press for a larger share of state funds and services.

Sudan's ruler of 19 years, al-Bashir on Wednesday promised Darfur a new power station to meet its electricity needs and a new road linking it to Khartoum and the Red Sea city of Port Sudan farther to the east. He gave no timeframe for either project.

Al-Bashir's relatively restrained comments came one day after a presidential adviser warned that aid workers and peacekeepers might not be safe in Darfur if an arrest warrant is issued for al-Bashir.

Bona Malwal told reporters in Nairobi, Kenya, the government would not be able to guarantee the "well-being" of international staff helping to feed and protect millions of Sudanese, and said the government might revoke their visas.

"The first casualty of (an attempt to arrest the president) ... is the international operations in Darfur," he said. "The next casualty would be ... international peacekeepers."