Human Rights Watch led the world to destruction, Sudan says

May 24, 2010 (KHARTOUM) – The Sudanese government today lashed out at the New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) over its call that world officials should boycott the inauguration of president Omer Hassan Al-Bashir next week.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for Bashir last year 2009 on charges that he masterminded war crimes and crimes against humanity for atrocities committed in Darfur.

Sudan dismissed the indictment and described the ICC as a Western backed plot.

“Diplomats attending al-Bashir’s inaugural would be making a mockery of their governments’ support for international justice,” said Elise Keppler, International Justice Program senior counsel at Human Rights Watch.

“Al-Bashir is a fugitive from justice who should be arrested, not feted,” Keppler added.

The Sudanese presidential adviser Mustafa Osman Ismail told reporters today that HRW is a “suspicious organization”.

“What [use] is this organization? Is it a United Nations?….like ‘Save Darfur’ this organization is suspicious and have groups that do not respect the will of the people” Ismail was quoted as saying by Sudan state media.

“In our view [HRW] is politicized and serves certain pressure groups and led the international community to destruction and ruins as evident in its silence on the invasion of Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay [detention center]” he added.

Human Rights Watch have been a vocal critic of the Bush administration and dismissed labeling the invasion of Iraq in 2003 by U.S. as a “humanitarian intervention”. The rights watchdog have also consistently slammed human rights record and violations by U.S. troops in Iraq.

In 2005 HRW said in in its annual report that the torture and degrading treatment of prisoners in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay have undermined the credibility of the US as a defender of human rights and opponent of terrorism.

“When the United States disregards human rights, it undermines that human rights culture and thus sabotages one of the most important tools for dissuading potential terrorists. Instead, US abuses have provided a new rallying cry for terrorist recruiters, and the pictures from Abu Ghraib have become the recruiting posters for Terrorism, Inc.”

They also described the military commissions at Guantanamo bay as a violation of international law and urged Obama to quickly close it down and bring those charged to trial before federal courts and send the rest of them home or resettling them in other countries.

(ST)