LONDON: Sudanese President Omar Hassan Bashir has said the international arrest warrant issued against him for war crimes in Darfur is part of a plot against Sudan and denied responsibility for large-scale killings there.
Bashir told the BBC in an interview broadcast yesterday that the fighting in Sudan’s western Darfur region began as an insurrection and that he had had a responsibility to send troops to fight the rebels there. Much of the fighting was between local tribes, and allegations of large-scale killing by government forces and government-backed militias were hostile propaganda, he said. UN officials say the six-year conflict in Darfur has resulted in up to 300,000 deaths and the displacement of more than 2.7 million people.
The International Criminal Court in the Netherlands has issued a warrant against Bashir for crimes against humanity and war crimes in Darfur.
“The ICC ruling is fundamentally null and void,” said Bashir. “For us the ICC’s ruling is a political one,” he added, saying of the ICC charges against him: “This is all lies.” “We do not recognize the court,” he stated. “We refuse to negotiate with them, and we will not hand over anyone.”
The ICC has issued arrest warrants for two senior Sudanese officials who Khartoum has refused to send to The Hague to stand trial. “I challenge anybody to bring me evidence that proves the Sudanese armed forces attacked and killed citizens in Darfur,” Bashir said.
Dismissing UN estimates of the number of deaths in the Darfur conflict, Bashir said the toll “did not reach 10,000.” Playing down the scale of the insurrection in the largely desert region, Bashir said “We can say that now Darfur is 90 percent peaceful.” He said the insurgent movements represented “only two percent” of the population of Darfur, and called on them to “lay down their arms and prepare for elections” due next year.
“I assume full responsibility for what has happened to my citizens,” Bashir said. “However, what has been reported to have happened in Darfur did not actually take place. What happened in Darfur was an insurgency. The state has the responsibility to fight the rebels. Any state in the world and any responsible government would fight those who raise arms against it.”
