Sudan’s Kiir receives message from Bashir on NCP-SPLM ties
April 20, 2009 (JUBA) — The Sudanese First Vice President Salva Kiir and the president of semi-autonomous South Sudan received today presidential adviser Mustafa Ismail who paid a brief visit to Juba.
The Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) signed between the North and South in 2005 made the NCP the dominant power in the north and SPLM the ruling power in South with both comprising the main partners in the government of national unity.
Ismail told Sudan TV that he delivered a verbal message from Bashir to Kiir on latest developments in the country and relations between the NCP and SPLM.
The Sudanese official said that Bashir is waiting for Kiir to return to Khartoum to discuss these issues. The SPLM chairman has remained away from the Sudanese capital ever since the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for Bashir in connection with war crimes committed in Darfur.
The SPLM has called on the NCP to cooperate with the ICC and handle the issue legally to avoid confrontation with the international community. However Kiir also sought to warn the international community of dangers posed by the arrest warrant on the CPA.
Ismail said he also briefed the First Vice President on the conference he participated that was held in Kampala under the theme “Is international jurisdiction in emergent democracies possible or desirable?”
The Sudanese official addressing the conference said that Darfur is simply a dispute over water, land and other resources but was inflated by Western media.
“The ICC’s decisions are influenced by propaganda and negative reactions. There has never been genocide in Darfur” Ismail said.
“It is not true that Arabs are trying to eliminate Africans,” he added, to which most Sudanese audience responded with jeers, Ugandan New Vision website reported.
The pro-government Sudanese Media Center (SMC) also quoted Ismail as saying that his government wants the support of African countries “to drop the issue of the International Criminal Court (ICC) once and for all”.
On March 4th the ICC judges officially charged Bashir for seven counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity allegedly committed in Darfur making him the first sitting head of state to be indicted by The Hague based court.
The prosecutors at the ICC accused Bashir of masterminding a campaign to wipe out the three major African tribes in Darfur including Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa.
(ST)