Al-Bashir urged to surrender
2009-01-12 22:06
Khartoum - An influential opposition
leader on Monday called on Sudan's president to hand himself
over to the International Criminal Court, saying he should take
responsibility for war crimes in Darfur.
The call from Islamist leader Hassan al-Turabi was the first
significant show of dissent from within Sudan's political system
over possible war crimes charges against President Omar Hassan
al-Bashir.
Politicians have previously been united in opposing
them.
The global court's chief prosecutor asked judges in July to
issue an arrest warrant against Bashir, accusing him of genocide
and other war crimes.
The judges are expected to decide within
weeks whether Bashir has a case to answer.
Save Sudan from sanctions
Turabi told reporters Bashir should surrender himself to
save Sudan from sanctions and political turmoil that would
follow if the president defied the court and carried on ruling
as a wanted man.
"There is no judicial justice in this country ... As far as
we are concerned there is no access to justice except through
the international court," Turabi said in the Khartoum
headquarters of his opposition Popular Congress Party.
"It is up to the government to hand him over or for him
personally to go for the sake of his country, to protect his
country against any further sanctions against the government."
Turabi, once close to Osama bin Laden, has been a central
figure for decades and repeatedly detained and imprisoned.
He
was the spiritual mentor behind Bashir's government when it took
power in a 1989 coup, but the men later fell out.
Turabi said Sudan's many insurgent groups would step up
attacks and destabilise the country if Bashir stayed in power
without clearing his name.
Conspiracy
Bashir and leading members of his dominant National Congress
Party have repeatedly said they will not deal with the global
court, dismissing it part of a Western conspiracy.
Most Sudanese opposition parties publicly rallied round
Bashir after the ICC's chief prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo,
accused the president of orchestrating genocide and other war
crimes in Darfur.
Turabi said on Monday Bashir should take personal
responsibility for atrocities since 2003 in Sudan's west.
"In politics, whatever happens below a minister, for
example, he will have to resign for it and assume
responsibility," Turabi said.
"He should assume responsibility
for whatever is happening in Darfur - displacement, the burning
of all the villages, systematic rapes."
Janjaweed
Turabi said he did not think Khartoum deliberately set out
to launch genocide - as Washington and some activists say.
"But they recruited nomadic Arabs - the Janjaweed... and
these people behaved in that manner.
"When they burned a village
they just burned all the boys, killed all the males ... That was
systematic. It was not just one case or two."
The influential opposition leader added he did not expect
Bashir to take his advice.
International experts say 200 000 people have died and 2.5
million have been forced from their homes since mostly non-Arab
rebels took up arms against Sudan's government in 2003, accusing
Khartoum of neglect.