Sudan president tells African leaders ICC will be used against them
August 19, 2008 (ISTANBUL) — Sudanese president has urged African leaders to support his steadfast stand against the international criminal court describing it as a tool used by colonial powers to re-colonize the black continent.
Al-Bashir warned on Tuesday African leaders that they should support him against the ICC charges because this plot orchestrated by colonial powers will “hit undoubtedly the African and other third world countries only,” He said.
Sudan rejects any recognition of or dealings with the ICC, and has launched a diplomatic campaign to freeze any proceedings against president al-Bshir.
Also African and Arab states have also requested the UN Security Council to suspend the ICC indictment, saying that ICC’s drive to prosecute war crimes could harm efforts to bring peace to the troubled region of Darfur.
Since July 14 date where Luis Moreno Ocampo announced his request for an arrest warrant for the Sudanese president, Bashir tries to draw support form African countries for his cause citing “anti-colonialism” motives.
However, the Turkish president in a meeting with his Sudanese counterpart called for a quick end for the ongoing suffering.
Following the meeting Turkish President Abdullah Gul said he had told the Sudanese president “Human suffering agitates all, no matter which religion, ethnicity or language those who suffer belong to.” He further added “I told the president (al-Bashir) that the Sudanese government should work hard” to end the violence, Gul said after the talks.
Bashir responded that his government was not the sole party responsible for the conflict, a Turkish diplomat told AFP.
Despite statement by Turkish president the summit issued a joint declaration Tuesday saying one of the principles to guide relations between Turkey and African countries would be “avoidance of the abuse of the principle of universal jurisdiction.”
This principle was adopted last July by the African Union Summit in Charm Al-sheikh, Egypt and Sudan used to draw the African Union support.
The UN says up to 300,000 people have died and more than 2.2 million have fled their homes since the Darfur conflict erupted in February 2003. Sudan says 10,000 have been killed.
Bashir’s presence has cast a shadow on the Istanbul gathering, attended by some 50 African leaders, which Ankara hopes will foster closer economic and political ties with the continent.
The joint declaration stressed mutual determination to boost ties, while a framework document listed priority areas of cooperation, including peace and security, trade and investment, agriculture and water, health, infrastructure, energy, transport, culture, tourism and education.
Ankara sees the summit also as an opportunity to drum up support for its bid for a non-permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council.
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Grader
Sudan president tells African leaders ICC will be used against you
He could be right based on his perspective of the World but is Bashir accepting now he’s an African leader and not an Arab as they like to call themselves in Sudan?
Thanks to the ICC threat. Finally Bashir has realised that he’s an African on the black continent and not what he assumed himself to be …
Eventually he’s gonna come back home just reminiscent to when Gaddafi made a U turn from pan Arabism to Africanism!
Bol Madut
Sudan president tells African leaders ICC will be used against them
How coincident it is that I just finished watching the documentary about the Chilean former dictator Augusto Pinochet and then stumbled upon this naive appealed from another dictator?
Your message to the other African dictator leaders should be to put their acts (as far as respecting human rights) together in order to avoid being indicted for the crimes the like ones you committed.
Your indictment should be a testimony that there’s no one in the world that’s above the law… even the law of gravity has it that “One consequence of all this is that everything attracts everything else with gravitational forces. The earth attracts the apple and the apple attracts the earth with the same force”.
You do the crime you do the time.
YihHon Alewei
Sudan president tells African leaders ICC will be used against them
I don’t think so!
I don’t think so, whether all African leaders are going to support bashir on thsi issue of Darfur! We already heard from one of the West African head of State, Wade of Senegal, he has said in his interview that no sanctuary for bashir when his arrest warrant is handed down by the ICC.
There is no what bashir claimed as re-colonization of the continent! If you rule your country with iron fist and no respect of humanity and human rights than, you can be subjected by the international community like what you facing now!
Why not other African dictators are indicted by the ICC! It is because they (Other African Leaders) dictate their people but have at least a respect of humanity and right rights.
Relief will come from bashir himself, he has to bring peace to Darfur and end the bloodshed. Second to that is to hand over the mastermind of the atrocities which are committed in Darfur.
That is the only option for bashir, no support from somewhere else except that one of Russia and China in the UN but that veto wouldn’t stop charges broght by the ICC against bashir.
Henry Makuei
Sudan president tells African leaders ICC will be used against them
Good gospels mr president, tell to others that you will be the next victims but not on neocolonialism line. good to hear from you as an African leader that means Sudan was colonised by Arab and now you gain unceleberated independent of Sudan from Arab please come back to your people black African in Darfur, south Sudan and eastern Sudan and give them what they need to prove you as a good leader.
Freedom Fighter
Sudan president tells African leaders ICC will be used against them
If ICC is going to be used against African leaders, it will come down as mercy for African masses whom their existence is being threaten by ruthless and blood thirsty leaders. Where in the world today where people are being killed in millions and thousands. Where in the world today where citizens are being driven out of their jobs and homes by their own government. Where in the world today where females citizens are being raped on the streets. Its all happen in the Sudan under current Islamic regime of Al-bashir.
Thyinka
NCP want to use African the way they have been using Islam to achieve their political objectives.
When did Sudan suddenly become an African state when Khartoum has been clamoring all this time for an Arab Islamic identity? In fact, they wanted to make Sudan an extension of Middle East culturally and politically. Should African identity be used for defensive purposes the way NCP want us to believe?
lojur lokiden
Sudan president tells African leaders ICC will be used against them
HOW CNFUSED IS BASHIR!
The foolish African leaders will cite with Bashir but the real black patriotic African leaders won`t buy Al Bashir`s stupidity unless they`ve forgotten the Arab colonisation of the black continent which is one of the reasons why Black Africa is not developed. They put sudan and the other African nations into the list of Arab World countries in order to Arabise and Islamise the continent in which some African leaders embrace without knowing the effects.
Bashir and the Arabs in Sudan has nowhere to go if the Africans chase them out of sudan. Africa should one day borrow my decision of chasing the Arabs out of Africa!
BASHIR MUST BE TRIED AND BE TAKEN TO THE HAGUE
Any African leader that is citing with Bashir and is trying to block his indictment is a traitor to Africa and the soil of Africa will be the witness! Emmanuel.
lojur