Saudi columnists criticize signs of support for Sudan’s Bashir
March 7, 2009 (WASHINGTON) – A number of prominent Saudi columnists have dissented from the popular view in that part of the world viewing the charges leveled by International Criminal Court (ICC) against Sudanese president Omer Hassan Al-Bashir as part of a Western conspiracy.
“It also appears that he is the only one not to believe that there is a court and prosecution as he kept dismissing and mocking it until the court approved the charges and agreed to issue an arrest warrant” Al-Rashid said in the London based Al-Sharq Al-Awsat newspaper.
He also said that neither the Arab League nor Arab states will do anything to help Bashir in is confrontation with the ICC.
“The regime in Sudan must admit the mistakes it committed and must realize that it is ignorant when it comes to understanding international system else he would not put himself in this corner” Al-Rashid said before adding that Bashir should stand before the court to try and prove his innocence.
Similarly the editor in chief of Al-Sharq Al-Awsat newspaper Tareq Al-Hamed echoed the same call in an article published today named ‘What does Islam has to do with Bashir?”.
Al-Hamed was responding to remarks made by Iran’s Parliament speaker Ali Larijani during his meeting with Bashir in which he said that the arrest warrant issued is an insult to Sudan and the Muslim world.
“Are the people of Darfur not Muslims as well? Is it not an insult to Islamic Iran to accept this kind of injustice in Darfur” Al-Hamed wrote.
The Saudi columnists also ridiculed Hamas Palestinian organization who warned Arab countries that their leaders could face the same fate of the late Iraqi president who was overthrown following a US led invasion and later prosecuted then executed.
“What about the Iraqi victims of Saddam Hussein and what he did to Iraq all these years until he ended in his famous hole? What about his Arab victims?” he questioned.
“The truth that should be told to president Bashir is that those who came to Khartoum kissing you and announcing that they are standing by you are the same people who pushed Saddam Hussein to commit mistakes” Al-Hamed added.
Badriya Al-Bashar, a Saudi female novelist said in the daily Al-Hayat newspaper that Arabs accept international rulings from The Hague “only if it is in their favor”.
“But if the decision came opposing to what we wished for we say ‘immerse it in water and drink it’” she added.
Daoud Al-Shriyan wrote in the same newspaper that Bashir’s decision to expel 13 aid groups as “making it difficult for someone to justify it or sympathize with him”.
He also said criticized Bashir’s reception of delegations from Iran, Syria and Hamas “as if he is adopting their problems with the international community”.
“Solidarity with these groups is no less wrong than preventing the aid groups from working in Darfur” Al-Shriyan said.
Most Arab countries have criticized the ICC indictment of the Sudanese president though very few of them have gone as far as condemning it.
However Saudi Arabia has yet to formally declare its position on the matter but in the past it has endorsed the Arab League decisions supporting Bashir.
There have been reports in Khartoum that the Saudi Monarch has offered the Sudanese president a safe haven in his country in return for him stepping down and protection fron judicial prosecution.
On Wednesday the ICC judges approved a request by prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo to charge Bashir on seven counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, which include murder, rape and torture. The three-judge panel said it had insufficient grounds for genocide.
(ST)