China will call on ICC not to hear Bashir Darfur case for the time being

From Voice of America News by Alison Klayman (Beijing) 05 March 2009 - China Opposes ICC Warrant for Sudan's President - excerpt:

China is opposing the International Criminal Court's issuance of an arrest warrant for the Sudanese president and says the move will not help stabilize the situation in the war-torn African nation.

China has expressed regret that the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang told reporters, Thursday, China does not believe the indictment will contribute to peace and stability in the Darfur region.

Spokesman Qin says he hopes the United Nations will listen to the appeals of the African Union, Arab League and the Non-Aligned Movement and will call on the ICC not to hear the case, for the time being. [...]

Spokesman Qin says China has made efforts to promote stability in the region and has 315 peacekeepers in Darfur.

Qin says China believes the current strategy of negotiations, combined with the joint African Union-United Nations peacekeeping force, is already making sufficient progress towards peace in Darfur.

From the BBC In Pictures

As Bashir supporters displayed their loyalty, China urged the court to postpone the case, warning it risked destabilising Darfur.



Some Arab nations also said the ruling would hinder Darfur peace efforts but the US and EU welcomed the ICC decision.



From Telegraph UK by Mike Pflanz in Nairobi 05 Mar 2009 - Sudan President Omar al Bashir calls ICC arrest warrant a 'conspiracy' - excerpt:

A defiant Mr Bashir expelled ten of the largest international aid agencies from its war-ravaged western province on Wednesday. On Thursday hundreds of thousands of Darfuris woke facing the threat of reduced food and closing clinics. The move came less than four hours after the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Sudan's president, Omar al Bashir, for seven counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Senior managers from the ten organisations, which included Oxfam, Save The Children and Medecins Sans Frontieres, were in emergency meetings early on Thursday to plot a path forward. "We are working out how we can appeal against the decision," said Alun McDonald, Oxfam spokesman in Nairobi. "If we are forced to leave, it is going to be incredibly difficult to hand over our work to other agencies. They are already very overstretched themselves, and Oxfam is currently providing assistance to 400,000 people in Darfur. "You can't just pass that on to others."

In El Fasher, Darfur's largest town, aid workers were 'on lockdown', fearing further expulsion orders from the Humanitarian Aid Commission (HAC) authorities. "No-one's planning to do anything much today, we're not going to the camps, we're just waiting to see what HAC does next," said one staff member with a Western agency. "We kind of expected something like this, but had managed to convince ourselves that it wouldn't be too bad. It looks like we might have been wrong."

Mr Bashir told a rally in the capital's Martyrs Square: "We will not kneel. We are targeted because we refuse to submit."



The African Union is holding an emergency meeting in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa to discuss the arrest warrant.



From Telegraph UK by Mike Pflanz in Nairobi 05 Mar 2009 - Sudan President Omar al Bashir calls ICC arrest warrant a 'conspiracy' - excerpt:

Sudan's president, Omar al Bashir, has dismissed the arrest warrant against him as "a conspiracy" at a mass rally of thousands of supporters, as Darfuris confront life without aid agencies.

Mr Bashir said the ICC's case was a western ploy to target Sudan's oil and gas resources. "We have refused to kneel to colonialism, that is why Sudan has been targeted ... because we only kneel to God," he told cheering crowds in Khartoum.

Mr Bashir will continue with a planned visit to Qatar later this month.