INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT IS MANIPULATED BY CERTAIN POWERS, SAYS SUDAN

By R. Ravichandran

KUALA LUMPUR, July 31 (Bernama) -- Sudan believes that the International
Criminal Court (ICC) is manipulated by certain powers when it decided to add the
charge of genocide against the country's president.

Sudanese Ambassador to Malaysia Nadir Yousif Eltayeb said the findings and
reports of the African Union (AU), the Arab League and United Nations (UN)
missions which visited Darfur many times had refuted the claims of genocide in
Darfur.

"But, the ICC which has never sent a single mission to Darfur, has come up
with this false and unsubstantiated accusation. The decisions of the ICC have
always been intended to hamper any efforts exerted by the government to settle
the Darfur issue.

"They merely obtained information from secondary sources," he told Bernama
in a recent interview here.

On July 12, the ICC added three counts of genocide to existing charges
issued last year against President Omar Hassan Al-Bashir of war crimes and
crimes against humanity in Darfur.


Nadir said the irony was that the United States did not recognise the ICC,
yet advised Khartoum to cooperate with the ICC.

"This is very funny...totally contradicting, unjustifiable and
unacceptable," he said.

He also stressed that the people of Sudan were solidly behind the president,
as proven in the March presidential election, where Bashir received about 70 per
cent of the total votes cast in the Darfur region, one of the highest from all
the states.

Nadir said Sudan, the government and its people would not bow to any
pressure from the ICC which was trying to implement the agenda of certain
powers, which he pointed out as only targeting African leaders so far, and
practising double standards.

"Why no action against Israel's atrocities in Gaza where the evidence is
well-known, or some other countries in several parts of the world," he asked,
adding that the AU had even rejected ICC's request to open an office in Addis
Ababa, Ethiopia, for the African continent.

He said the president also recently participated in the Summit of the Sahal
and Sahara Community in neighbouring Chad where Chad, which is a signatory to
the ICC, had rejected the ICC request to arrest Bashir.

"This showed the strong solidarity of African countries with Sudan...the
president will continue to visit friendly countries. The government is
categorically giving no heed to the ICC and will respond to that by more
achievements for Sudan," he said.

-- BERNAMA



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