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Sudan President
Charged with Genocide
in Darfur
 (AP) - The prosecutor for the
International Criminal Court sought an arrest warrant Monday for
Sudan's president on charges of waging a campaign of genocide and rape
in Darfur, a high-risk strategy that could backfire against the people
in the war-torn desert region. The indictment marked the first time
prosecutors at the world's first permanent war crimes tribunal have
issued charges against a sitting head of state, though President Omar
al-Bashir was unlikely to face trial any time soon.
Sudan denounced the indictment as a political stunt, saying it would
ignore any arrest order and was considering all options, including an
unspecified military response. One Sudanese lawmaker said his
government could no longer guarantee the safety of U.N. staff in the
troubled region.
Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo filed 10 charges against al-Bashir
related to a campaign of extermination of three Darfur tribes that the
U.N. says claimed 300,000 lives and driven 2.5 million people from
their homes. A three-judge panel was expected to take two to three
months to decide whether to issue an arrest warrant.
Human rights groups welcomed the prosecutor's move, but cautioned it
could provoke a violent backlash from Sudan, while offering little
prospect that al-Bashir will be arrested and sent for trial to The
Hague. The court, which began work in 2002, has no enforcement arm and
relies on governments to act as its police force.
"The prosecutor's legal strategy also poses major risks for the fragile
peace and security environment in Sudan, with a real chance of greatly
increasing the suffering of very large numbers of its people," the
Brussels-based International Crisis Group said in a statement.
In an interview with The Associated Press, Sudan's ambassador to the
United Nations, Abdalmahmood Abdalhaleem Mohamed, said al-Bashir was
weighing all options, including a military response.
Al-Bashir likely will attend the U.N. General Assembly in New York in
September, and Sudan would consider any attempt to arrest him a
declaration of war, Mohamed said.
In Khartoum, the deputy parliament speaker, Mohammed al-Hassan
al-Ameen, warned Sudan was unable to guarantee "the safety of any
individual."
"The U.N. asks us to keep its people safe, but how can we guarantee
their safety when they want to seize our head of state?" al-Ameen said
on state TV.
Sudan's anger could undermine talks to resolve the decades-old enmity
between north and south Sudan, and endanger efforts by relief workers
and an ill-equipped U.N.-African Union peacekeeping force to protect
2.5 million people living in refugee camps, the Crisis Group said.
"These are significant risks, particularly given that the likelihood of
actually executing any warrant issued against al-Bashir is remote, at
least in the short term," it added.
Al-Bashir, who has ruled Sudan for 19 years, appears invulnerable in
his capital, though an international warrant would leave him open to
arrest outside the country's borders, restricting his travel and
putting him in a category akin to Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe,
who faces a U.N. travel ban.
Still, African nations have rarely taken action against one of their
leaders, and al-Bashir is likely to feel few constraints on his own
continent.
On Monday, the Sudanese leader appeared at an elaborate law-signing
ceremony in Khartoum, where dozens of lawmakers, diplomats and military
leaders paraded past him cheering. Al-Bashir waved a wooden cane and
smiled as advisers danced and a brass band played nationalist songs.
Moreno-Ocampo acknowledged the risks posed by an indictment, but said he had an obligation to pursue the president.
"I am a prosecutor doing a judicial case," he said. "In the camps,
al-Bashir's forces kill the men and rape the women. He wants to end the
history of the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa people. I don't have the luxury
to look away. I have evidence."
The 10 charges filed against al-Bashir include three counts of genocide, five of crimes against humanity and two of war crimes.
The Sudanese Liberation Movement-Unity, a Darfur rebel group, welcomed
the move and offered to help arrest and extradite any war criminals
from Sudan - though it is unlikely the rebels would stand any chance of
arresting al-Bashir.
If Sudan refuses to turn over al-Bashir, it will be up to the U.N.
Security Council to press Khartoum to cooperate, something it has so
far failed to do.
"Prosecutor Moreno-Ocampo's charges against al-Bashir underscore the
need for the U.N. Security Council to finally act decisively with a
comprehensive strategy for Sudan," said Jerry Fowler, president of the
Save Darfur Coalition.
Achieving unanimous backing in the Security Council for any action
against Sudan will be fraught with problems since two of its permanent
members, China and Russia, are Sudan's allies.
Both are accused of arming Sudan, but both also approved the council's
2005 resolution ordering Moreno-Ocampo to investigate crimes in Darfur.
In a statement, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon said he "expects
that the government of Sudan will continue to cooperate fully with the
United Nations in Sudan, while fulfilling its obligation to ensure the
safety and security of all United Nations personnel and property."
The war in Darfur began in 2003 as a crackdown on anti-government
rebels who complained their arid region was neglected by Khartoum. The
U.N. estimates 300,000 people have died, directly from attacks or
indirectly through starvation.
Moreno-Ocampo said Sudan's forces and their janjaweed militia proxies
now deliberately target civilians in villages and camps rather than the
rebels, sometimes even bypassing nearby rebel encampments.
They destroy villages, rape women and girls and leave the homeless to
starve in the desert or suffer malnutrition in camps, he alleged.
"These 2.5 million people are in camps. They (al-Bashir's forces) don't
need gas chambers because the desert will kill them," Moreno-Ocampo
told a news conference, drawing comparison's with the Nazi Holocaust.
One witness cited by prosecutors said rape was woven into the fabric of life in Darfur.
"Maybe around 20 men rape one woman. These things are normal for us
here in Darfur," said the statement from the unidentified witness cited
by Moreno-Ocampo.
The prosecutor said mass rape was producing a generation of so-called
"janjaweed babies" and "an explosion of infanticide" by victims.
Moreno-Ocampo said an arrest warrant for al-Bashir would present the world a chance to stop the killings.
"We are dealing with a genocide. Is it easy to stop? No. Do we need to
stop? Yes," he told the AP in an interview Monday before publicly
unveiling his indictment.
"The international community failed in the past, failed to stop Rwanda
genocide, failed to stop Balkans crimes," he added. "So this time, the
new thing is there is a court, an independent court ... which is
saying, 'This is a genocide.'"
Other U.N.-created international tribunals have charged Serbian
President Slobodan Milosevic and Liberian President Charles Taylor with
war crimes while they were still in office. Milosevic died in his cell
in March 2006. Taylor is currently on trial in The Hague for crimes
against humanity in Sierra Leone.
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