Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir greeted supporters in Darfur on Wednesday, guarded by bristling security, and dismissed as lies accusations that he masterminded genocide in the region.
Travelling in convoy, accompanied by a helicopter and with soldiers, police and national security riding vehicles mounted with machine guns, Bashir was greeted at El Fasher, the old Darfur capital, by more than 4Â 000 supporters.
Civil servants, tribesmen, students, men on camels and horses greeted the head of state, pledging allegiance and slamming a bid from the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) for Bashir’s arrest over suspected war crimes.
Local government employees said in El Fasher that they had been told to attend the rally, held outside under the searing sun, where Bashir danced to nationalist music, jabbing the air with his walking stick.
ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo last week accused Bashir of instructing his forces to annihilate three non-Arab groups in Darfur, masterminding murder, torture, pillaging and using rape to commit genocide.
Members of those groups, the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa, some of whom belong to Bashir’s National Congress Party, also attended the reception rally.
The United Nations says that up to 300Â 000 people have died and more than 2,2-million have fled their homes since the conflict erupted in February 2003. Sudan says 10Â 000 have been killed.
The war began when African ethnic minority rebels took up arms against the Arab-dominated Khartoum regime and state-backed Arab militias, fighting for resources and power in one of the most remote and deprived places on earth.
Several hundred people made homeless in the five-year Darfur conflict, whom government officials said were returning to their villages on Wednesday, also shouted support and called for peace outside El Fasher airport.
”What Ocampo said about Darfur is lies … We have to find a solution to the Darfur crisis,” Bashir told them, after leaving behind a military honour guard where he laughed and shook hands with local leaders.
”I came here to Darfur to say one thing. That every IDP [internally displaced person] must return back to their village and then the government must supply social services,” he said.
Making his first visit to Darfur since July 2007, Bashir will spend the next two days visiting the three state capitals in the vast arid region, El Fasher, in the north, Nyala in the south and El Geneina in the west.
Ambassadors were invited on the trip and resident British envoy in Khartoum, Rosalind Marsden, was among those travelling on Wednesday.
”We’re not sure what Bashir will be announcing, or if he’ll be announcing anything, but if he does we should be there at the appropriate level,” the British said.
”Of course it does not signify a change in our policy with regards to the ICC,” the embassy added.
The United States charge d’affaires, Alberto Fernandez, as well as the Egyptian, Nigerian and Saudi ambassadors also accompanied the president to the war zone.
Bashir is scheduled to inaugurate development projects and hold talks with state government officials, local leaders and political party representatives.
His regime is focused on trying to persuade the UN Security Council to freeze possible legal proceedings should ICC judges actually issue an arrest warrant, on the grounds that it could jeopardise peace prospects.
The council can pass a resolution to defer for a period of 12 months, renewable, any investigation or prosecution by the ICC with a majority of nine votes, including the concurring votes of all five permanent members.
”It makes him look politically very good if the people of Darfur welcome him and observers see thousands of people rushing to welcome him. This will give him a new image in the international community,” said journalist Adil el-Baz.
The government is in full control of the three main towns of Darfur, which are heavily protected from war-torn areas in the open desert and scrub.
Bashir’s visit came as the peacekeeping mission in Darfur announced that a UN security officer was undergoing hospital treatment after being beaten up by Sudanese government soldiers who forcibly took him to a military base.
The incident happened when the officer started taking pictures of a place in El Fasher market in order to investigate a road accident involving a UN staff member, a military vehicle and a taxi, the joint African Union-UN mission said. — AFP
