Sudanese president, Mr. Omar al-Bashir has cited the United States of America’s aloofness from the International Criminal Court as the major reason why he will not respect the ICCs arrest warrant on him.
Mr. Bashir says if the ICC was a court of justice, then the U.S would have been part of it and its citizens would have been liable to its jurisdiction. As an overt sign of defiance against his arrest warrant, Mr. Bashir has planned a trip to Darfur. He was also seen dancing in front of supporters from south Sudan, wearing a traditional attire on saturday night.
President al-Bashir has been accused of committing war crimes in Darfur and this will be his first visit there since an international arrest warrant was issued for him- the first of such warrant served against a serving head of state.
However, Mr Bashir who has questioned the right of the ICC to try him, has asked the ICC officials to come to Sudan to fight him. “If someone wants to fight us, then they should not come with resolutions from the United Nations Security Council or the ICC,” he said.
In another act of defiance, Mr. Bashir expelled over six agencies from Sudan. A United Nations report claims that the expulsion puts more than a million lives at risk. But Mr. Bashir has accused the agencies of stealing most of the humanitarian budget meant for Darfurians.
