Bashir will not participate in UNGA meetings: report

August 6, 2015 (KHARTOUM) – The Sudanese president Omer Hassan al-Bashir will not participate in the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) meetings next month in New York, a newspaper reported.

The privately-owned al-Sayha newspaper quoted sources in the Sudanese foreign ministry as saying that Bashir’s participation is unlikely and that a ministerial delegation will probably represent Sudan in those meetings.

These sources also noted that the speakers’ list that carried Bashir’s name is a provisional one that is subject to change as the event draws closer.

This contradicted remarks made by Sudan’s Deputy UN ambassador Hassan Hamid Hassan this week in which he confirmed Bashir’s attendance.

Bashir made a similar attempt to fly to New York in September 2013 but Washington dragged its feet on granting him visa without rejecting it outright.

The US at the time decried Bashir’s visa application. Under the UN headquarters agreement, the US is obligated to promptly issue visas for officials seeking to participate in UN events except under very limited circumstances related to national security.

The US State department suggested this week that it has not received a visa application from Bashir yet.

The Sudanese leader faces war crimes and genocide charges by the International Criminal Court (ICC).

AU GUEST

In a related issue, the South African president Jacob Zuma defended his government’s decision not to apprehend Bashir during the African Union (AU) summit last June.

“Bashir’s coming to South Africa, it was on the invitation of the AU,” Zuma said in his first comments on the incident since Bashir’s departure.

“He is the guest of the AU,” Zuma told Democratic Alliance (DA) opposition MP’s who demanded an explanation in parliament.

Mmusi Maimane, head of the DA described Bashir asked Zuma why he had not kept previous promises to enforce the warrant – as all ICC members are bound to do.

“In 2010 you were in this house in this podium… [You were] asked of Al-Bashir came [would you respect the International Criminal Court order that he be arrested]. You said South Africa respects international law and certainly are signatories and will abide by the law,” Maimane said according to the Citizen newspaper.

“What has changed in 2010 recently in contravention of a high court order [to arrest Al-Bashir]… your government assisted in allowing him to leave South Africa.”

Zuma said the difference between 2010 and now was that Bashir five years ago, had requested to come to South Africa for business interests. He said that Bashir would have been detained if he had visited South Africa as an individual, rather than as a delegate to an AU summit.

The issue has triggered tensions between Zuma and the judiciary amid attacks directed by the ruling African National Congress (ANC) to judges.

The attacks came after the North Gauteng High Court ruled that government had broken the law by allowing Bashir to leave the country despite orders banning his departure pending a decision on his arrest.

The court reprimanded the government for flouting its own laws saying that they undermined the country’s constitutional democracy in allowing Bashir’s exit.

“A democratic State based on the rule of law cannot exist or function, if the government ignores its constitutional obligations and fails to abide by Court orders. A Court is the guardian of justice, the corner-stone of a democratic system based on the rule of law. If the State, an organ of State or State official does not abide by Court orders, the democratic edifice will crumble stone-by-stone until it collapses and chaos ensues,” presiding Judge Dunstan Mlambo said at the time.

Mlambo also invited the National Director of Public Prosecutions (NDPP) “to consider whether criminal proceedings are appropriate”.

Zuma is scheduled to meet with South Africa Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng at the request of the latter to discuss tensions between the executive and the judiciary.

(ST)