Sudan’s Bashir criticizes foreign media and aid groups

Oct 24, 2006 (KHARTOUM) — President Omar al-Bashir lashed out Tuesday at foreign media and relief groups active in Darfur implying that aid organizations serving the some 2.5 million people forced to flee their homes could face expulsion.

The Sudanese leader’s warning follows the departure Monday by the United Nations chief envoy to Sudan, Jan Pronk, after the government gave him three days to leave the country.

Sudan’s government was working to “rid (refugee) camps of those exploiting the suffering of the people, those suspicious organizations who are part of a series of conspiracies,” the official news agency quoted al-Bashir as saying during his speech at the start of Muslims’ Eid al-Fitr vacation.

“We have promised before God not to let Darfurians’ suffering be a pretext for foreign intervention or a subject for hostile media,” al-Bashir said according to SUNA.

Pronk’s expulsion came after he wrote in his personal Web log that government troops had suffered two major defeats in Darfur and said Khartoum was mobilizing militias in violation of Security Council orders.

Sudan opposes a U.N. initiative to take over the 7,000-troop African Union peacekeeping mission in the conflict-wracked area of western Sudan and expand it to some 22,000 soldiers. Al-Bashir has branded the plan an attempt to restore colonial rule.

The president also urged all rebel groups in Darfur to join the peace accord the government signed in May with a single faction.

Fighting in Darfur, which has claimed some 200,000 lives since February 2003, has intensified since the signing of the peace agreement.

In June, the Sudanese government briefly suspended the work of most U.N. relief organizations in after claiming the world body had transported a rebel leader in violation of agreements.

(AP)