| Submit your comments on this article |
| Africa Horn |
| Sudan official warns against indicting president |
| 2009-02-22 |
| Sudan may revert to a hard-line regime if the International Criminal Court indicts the country's president over alleged war crimes in Darfur, said Sudan's powerful intelligence chief. The comments by Salah Abdallah published in Saturday's newspapers come as the Hague-based court is weighing whether to seek the arrest of President Omar al-Bashir. He's accused by the court's prosecutor of masterminding attempts to wipe out African tribes in Darfur with a campaign of murder, rape and deportation. "Our message to those who stand behind the ICC is that we were Islamic fundamentalists but have become moderate and civilised and this continues to be our conviction," Abdallah said. "If they press us to return to our past position, we will no doubt return. And if they want us to return into hardliners anew, that is a simple thing to do. And we are capable of doing it." According to the newspaper reports, Abdallah was speaking to a celebration on Friday night in Khartoum attended by southern Sudanese politicians and intelligence officials. The United Nations says up to 300,000 people have been killed in the six-year old Darfur conflict, which erupted when mostly ethnic African rebels took up arms against the central, mostly Arab government, complaining of discrimination and neglect. |
| Posted by:Fred |