ICC: Sudanese government clarifies position on Omar el-Bashir

Text by: RFI Follow

The Minister of Information and spokesman for the Sudanese government clarified on Wednesday February 12 the position of the Khartoum government on the appearance of Omar el-Bashir before the International Criminal Court.

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On Tuesday, a Sudanese high representative announced that former Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir may, in the future, be transferred to the International Criminal Court . A decision that created surprise, because the Sovereign Council had so far opposed it.

" This decision has the full support of the High Peace Council which includes all the members of the Sovereign Council, " said Sudanese Minister of Information Faisal Mohammed Saleh . This therefore includes the soldiers of this Sovereign Council. Two of them are already participating in these peace negotiations in Juba. We agreed on the principle of the appearance before the ICC of those who are the subject of an arrest warrant. There are four of them. One of them is Omar el-Béchir. There are Ahmed Haroun, Abdelrahim Mohammad Hussein and Ali Kosheib. We will discuss the details later. We will discuss this with ICC representatives and with Darfur movements during the ongoing negotiations in Juba. "

Because if the International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants and demands the transfer of the former president to The Hague, it is for the acts committed in Darfur. Omar el-Béchir is accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including genocide. Facts that date back to the early 2000s when this province experienced clashes between rebels and forces of the Omar el-Bashir regime. The United Nations has recorded no less than 300,000 dead and some 2.5 million displaced.

But he is not the only personality that the International Criminal Court would like to try. Three other officials of the regime are also the subject of international arrest warrants, cited by the Sudanese Minister of Information. There is Ahmed Haroun, who once occupied the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and who is suspected of having recruited and armed the dreaded Janjaweed militias; Ali Kosheib, a former commander of the Janjaweed; and Abdelrahim Moahamad Hussein, then Minister of Internal Affairs and special representative of the regime for Darfur.

On the side of the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), lawyer Patrick Baudouin believes that the ICC is legitimate to try the former Sudanese president. And when voices have long demanded that the latter be tried on the continent, the FIDH honorary president rejects the idea of ​​a special tribunal in Khartoum.

The security, material, judicial and political conditions are not met. In reality, those who shout out loud because there may be this surge of el-Bashir and other officials at the ICC, it is most often leaders or officials from other countries who themselves create a kind of chain of solidarity between those responsible for serious human rights violations.

Patrick Baudouin

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• Omar el-Béchir
• International justice
• Sudan

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