African Union President warns of power vacuum and anarchy in Sudan

July 14, 2008 (DAR ES SALAAM) –The President of the African Union on Monday warned of power vacuum and “widespread anarchy” in Sudan if the International Criminal Court indicted President Omer al-Bashir.

The ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo’s asked the pretrial Chamber for an arrest warrant against Beshir accusing for the first time in the ICC history a sitting president of masterminding genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in the war-torn Darfur.

Tanzanian Foreign Minister Bernard Membe – speaking on behalf of the A.U. chair, President Jakaya Kikwete – told AFP on Monday “If Bashir is indicted and taken, there will be a power vacuum in the Sudan and that risks military coups and widespread anarchy reminiscent of what is happening in Iraq.

“We in the African Union do not condone impunity, genocide and violence because we believe in due process of the rule of law,” he added. “But what we are calling for is a deferment in indicting Bashir because there is a risk of anarchy in a proportion we have not seen in this continent,” he added.

The prosecutor for the International Criminal Court on Monday said Bashir had “personally instructed” his forces to annihilate three ethnic groups in Darfur region: “The crime of genocide is a crime of intention. Bashir had the intention to destroy the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa ethnic groups,” engaged in a rebellion in Darfur, he said.

“His motives were largely political. His alibi was a counter-insurgency.’ His intent was genocide,” he said.

The president had ordered his forces “not to bring back any wounded or prisoners,” he added. “He wanted to commit genocide.” Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo told journalists in The Hague.

(ST)