Sudan will urge UN to block Darfur prosecution
By John Heilprin
July 14, 2008
The Associated Press  
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UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Sudan's ambassador said Monday his nation will try to persuade the U.N. Security Council to block a prosecutor from pursuing genocide charges against the Sudanese president.
Abdalmahmood Abdalhaleem Mohamed, in an interview with The Associated Press, said Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir was weighing all options, including an undefined military response. The envoy said Sudan would consider any attempt to arrest al-Bashir an act of war.
On Monday, the prosecutor asked the International Criminal Court for an arrest warrant for al-Bashir charging him with orchestrating the deaths of people in Sudan's Darfur region, where hundreds of thousands of people have died and systematic rapes and torture are reported.
Mohamed said Sudan's argument is that the council has an obligation to see to it that this referral does not complicate matters on the ground in Darfur.
This decision is an invitation to the rebel groups to maximize their violence and to go away from the negotiating table, he said. So the military option from this perspective is there also — augmenting the capability of our military.
Mohamed indicated he would seek backing from China, a major trading partner with Sudan that is one of the council's five permanent members with veto power, to help with pushing back against the court.
We want the Security Council to tell the prosecutor that our road map with Sudan demands that priority be given to the peace process, Mohamed said.
In March 2005, the 15-nation council voted to refer the Darfur situation to the ICC prosecutor. That referral obligated Sudan to cooperate with the court even though it is not one of the 106 nations that ratified the treaty creating the court.
Under one of the provisions of the decade-old treaty, called Article 16, the Security Council has the power to suspend an ICC investigation or prosecution for a year in the cause of maintaining international peace and security.
We are in no way going to surrender to the ICC, Mohamed said after speaking with al-Bashir. We will use all possible options that the Security Council would do to protect the priority, and the priority for the peace process. Either by using Article 16, or by using out-of-the-box formulas to deal with the situation. ... It is a test now for the Security Council.
Richard Dicker, director of New York-based Human Rights Watch's International Justice Program, urged the council not to back Sudan against the prosecutor.
It will come back to haunt them, Dicker said. It will be making itself hostage to Khartoum's threats of pitting justice against peace.
He said Sudan appears to be trying to blame the failure of peace in Darfur on the court when, in reality, the peace process for Darfur is dead, because there's a lack of commitment on all sides to continue it.
Mohamed said that al-Bashir likely will visit the U.N. General Assembly in September and that Sudan would consider any attempt to arrest him on foreign soil the gravest of matters.
This would be a declaration of war against Sudan, Mohamed said.
There have been widespread fears that al-Bashir might unleash a wave of vengeance against Darfur refugees and shut out relief agencies and possibly peacekeeping troops.
On Monday, the U.N. said that because of the recent deteriorating security situation across Darfur it was withdrawing nonessential personnel who assist the 9,000 peacekeepers in a U.N.-African Union force.
Mohamed said al-Bashir and his supporters would not convert their anger with the court into reprisals.
We are not going to attack the U.N., he said. The U.N. is our guest there. They came to assist us.