Darfur threatens to expel peacekeepers

Friday 25 July 2008

Bona Malual, aide to Sudanese president Omar al-Beshir, threatened that if the latter is indicted for war crimes, "We can't be responsible for the well-being of foreign forces in Darfur."

An advisor to President Omar al-Beshir threatened Friday that peacekeepers could be expelled from Darfur if the Sudanese leader is indicted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court.
  
"We are telling the world that with the indictment of our president al-Beshir we can't be responsible for the well-being of foreign forces in Darfur," Beshir's advisor Bona Malual told reporters in Addis Ababa.
  
"After that we may ask them to withdraw from our territory," he added.
  
ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo accuses Beshir of instructing his forces to annihilate three non-Arab ethnic groups in Darfur, masterminding murder, torture, pillaging and the use of rape to commit genocide.
  
Last week, Moreno-Ocampo asked ICC judges to issue a warrant for Beshir's arrest. A decision could take several months, but if granted it would be the first issued by The Hague-based court against a sitting head of state.
  
"We reject this indictment totally," Malual said. "We will not submit our president to any kind of questioning or answering to a body Sudan is not part of."
  
A spokesman for the Sudanese foreign ministry denied that Khartoum had any intention of forcing peacekeepers to leave Darfur, suggesting that Malual could have been speaking out of turn.
  
"We are totally and strictly committed to our international obligations, particularly the UN Security Council resolution 1769. We will continue to co-operate with the African Union and the United Nations to make the hybrid operation a success," spokesman Ali al-Sadiq told AFP.
  
The arrival of a new company of Chinese engineers earlier this month brought the total number of peacekeeping soldiers in the war-torn region of western Sudan from 7,828 to 8,000.
  
Seven UNAMID peacekeepers died and 22 were wounded in an ambush by heavily armed militia on July 8, the deadliest in a series of attacks since the United Nations assumed command of peacekeeping in the region last December.
  
UN officials on Friday said that Sudan government planes had bombed Darfur this week despite a highly publicised peace pledge from Beshir during a visit to the war-torn region.
  
The officials said bombings were reported over the past four or five days across the vast region broadly the size of France, which has been gripped by five years of war between the government and ethnic minority rebels.
  
Beshir spent Wednesday and Thursday in Darfur, promising to work to bring peace to the region despite the stalled international efforts to find a solution.
  
The bombings were reported in the Tawila area, west of El Fasher where the UN-led peacekeeping mission in Darfur is based, and the Jebel Moon and Jebel Marra areas of western Darfur.
  
The two areas are strongholds respectively of rebel groups Sudan Liberation Movement-Unity and the Justice and Equality Movement that mounted an unprecedented attack on the Sudanese capital in May.
  
Observers said the government was trying to prevent a similar attack from rebels emboldened by the prospect of a possible international arrest warrant for Beshir on 10 counts of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.
  
There was no immediate information about casualties or damage during the bombings. The Sudanese military was not reachable for comment on Friday.
  
The Darfur conflict broke out in 2003 when ethnic minority rebels took up arms against the Arab-dominated regime in Khartoum and state-backed militias.
  
The United Nations has said 300,000 people have died and more than 2.2 million been displaced. Khartoum puts the number of dead at 10,000.