.com: Arab League slams ICC prosecutor
Agencies
CAIRO: The Arab League yesterday criticized the International Criminal Court's prosecutor for seeking the arrest of Sudan's president on genocide charges, saying diplomacy should be given a priority to solve the conflict in Darfur.
Arab foreign ministers, holding an emergency meeting in Cairo, said Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa would head to Khartoum today to inform the Sudanese leadership of a plan to defuse the crisis. Moussa said he would announce the details within two days.
The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Luis Moreno-Ocampo, has asked the court for a warrant for President Omar Bashir on suspicion of masterminding crimes against humanity in his country's troubled Darfur region.
Moreno-Ocampo accused Bashir of running a campaign of genocide that killed 35,000 people outright, at least another 100,000 through a "slow death" and forced 2.5 million to flee their homes in Darfur. The final communiqué of the meeting said the ministers "called for giving priority to a political settlement... and sought an international high-profile summit to push the political process in Darfur."
The resolution criticized Moreno-Ocampo's "unbalanced stance" for asking ICC judges to issue a warrant for Bashir's arrest, which, if granted, would be the first ever issued by The Hague-based court against a sitting head of state. Earlier opening the meeting, Djibouti Foreign Minister Mahmoud Ali Youssef said the ICC had set a dangerous precedent. "The indictment sets a dangerous precedent in dealing with heads of state. It will have dangerous repercussions, not only for Sudan but also for the whole region," said Youssef, who chaired the meeting.
Hours before the meeting convened, Yemen's lower house of Parliament condemned the charges against Bashir as legally groundless.
A resolution passed by the 301-seat Yemeni Assembly of Representatives dismissed them as a "complete falsehood and an infringement on Sudan's internal affairs." It added that the charges were "part of a plot targeting Arab and Muslim nations." The perception that the charges are politically motivated has been expressed by other Arab officials.
At the Cairo meeting, Youssef criticized what he branded "the double standard" of the international community, saying that "the world has been watching for years Palestinians suffering without moving" to end it. The charges against Bashir came a year after the court indicted Sudanese Humanitarian Affairs Minister Ahmed Harun, who was formerly in charge of security in Darfur, and suspected militia leader Ali Kushayb for crimes against humanity.
Before yesterday's meeting, a source said the ministers would discuss a proposal urging Bashir to surrender Harun and Kushayb to the ICC in return for asking the UN Security Council to defer prosecution of Bashir for at least a year. Such a suspension, which is indefinitely renewable, is necessary because the penal process against Bashir "reduces the chances of peace in Darfur," a diplomat said.
