Sudan wants guarantees from Juba that Bashir will not be arrested upon his visit

March 21, 2012 (KHARTOUM) – An official in the ruling National Congress Party (NCP) said that South Sudan must provide assurances that president Omer Hassan al-Bashir will not be handed over to the International Criminal Court (ICC) during his upcoming visit.

Qutbi al-Mahdi, a prominent NCP official, told reporters that there has been a lot of talk in Juba about the issue of the outstanding ICC arrest warrant against Bashir and whether South Sudan has an obligation to execute it.

“If we are not comfortable that there is enough trust in this regard the president will not travel to Juba,” al-Mahdi said.

South Sudan which became independent in July 2011 is not signatory to the ICC’s founding treaty and is therefore under no legal commitment to apprehend the Sudanese leader.

Bashir is slated to meet with South Sudan president Salva Kiir in Juba on April 3rd where he will sign a number of agreements related to the borders and nationality.

Observers hope that Bashir’s first trip to South Sudan after independence will help deescalate tensions between the two sides since last year.

But South Sudanese officials have given contradictory stances on the issue of the ICC arrest warrant.

Last Wednesday, South Sudan top negotiator Pagan Amum who is also the Sudan People Liberation Movement (SPLM) Secretary General said Bashir will not be arrested because “we have problems to settle first” on top of the fact that his country is not a signatory to the Rome Statute.

But Luka Biong, another senior SPLM figure, suggested that the venue of the meeting should be changed so it does not compromise South Sudan’s international values and moral obligations.

“With due respect to the position of [the SPLM’s] Secretary General, comrade Pagan Amum, I think it would be wise holding the summit elsewhere if the intention is to reach genuine agreement. The venue should actually remain Addis Ababa,” Biong told Sudan Tribune last Sunday.

Bashir is charged by the court of masterminding war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide in Sudan’s western region of Darfur. His travel has been limited since the warrant to friendly nations that can guarantee his safety from extradition to the ICC.

Last week, a coalition of major civil society organisations in South Sudan issued a statement rejecting the position of SPLM SG and called for Bashir’s arrest.

They asserted that South Sudan can arrest Bashir under Article 86 of the Rome Statute because the case against him was referred to the International Criminal Court by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). As South Sudan became the UN’s 193rd state after seceding from the north it has the right to arrest Bashir, the activists say.

(ST)