Sudanese expatriates here hail al-Bashir's indictment

Ismail Ismail has lived in Philadelphia for more than 20 years and says he has no intention of leaving. But the Sudanese native cannot forget his homeland.

Ismail, who lives in the Northeast and counsels children who have behavioral problems, has spent several years campaigning for justice for a country he left as a college graduate.

"I want to help tell the story, to elevate the value of humans," he said.

That story includes a village in northern Darfur, where his parents lived before they moved to the Sudanese capital, Khartoum. The village was destroyed by the janjaweed, an Arabic militia accused by international observers of carrying out a government-sponsored genocide.

Ismail was one of about a dozen activists and Sudanese expatriates who came to the Tindley Temple United Methodist Church, on Broad Street below Fitzwater, South Philadelphia, yesterday to show support for the International Criminal Court (ICC).

The court in The Hague yesterday charged Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir with war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur - its first action against a sitting head of state.

Al-Bashir's government retaliated by expelling 10 humanitarian groups from Darfur and seizing their assets, threatening lifesaving operations, a U.N. spokeswoman said.

Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said the United States supported the court's action "to hold accountable those who are responsible for the heinous crimes in Darfur." Up to 300,000 people have died and 2.7 million have fled their homes in the region.

"It's not appreciated how significant this [arrest warrant] is," Philadelphia City Controller Alan Butkovitz told about 20 people at yesterday's gathering. "It's had a very sobering effect" on the Sudanese government.

Ali B. Ali-Dinar, president of the Philadelphia-based Darfur Alert Coalition - and a grandson of the last king of Sudan - said the court's warrant was crucial to stopping the bloodshed in Darfur, an arid region in western Sudan.

"They did nothing, they did zero when it came to ending the violence," Ali-Dinar, a native of northern Darfur, said of the Sudanese authorities. "I don't think the government will ever change."

Coalition Treasurer Ibrahim Hamid said the Sudanese government poses a danger to expatriates like him.

Ismail said being a Sudanese native whose ancestors came from Darfur "gives [caring] another dimension, but as a human being you care about Darfur."

In New York yesterday, a U.N. spokeswoman said U.N. officials in Sudan would continue to deal with al-Bashir because he remains president of the country.

In Khartoum, the government denounced the warrant as part of a Western conspiracy aimed at destabilizing the vast oil-rich nation south of Egypt. "There will be no recognition of or dealing with the white man's court, which has no mandate in Sudan or against any of its people," the Information Ministry said.

Several thousand people waving pictures of al-Bashir and denouncing the court turned out in a rally in Khartoum. Some waved posters of chief prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo's face with pig ears superimposed, to chants of, "Cowardly pig, you will not get to the Sudan."

Al-Bashir, who denies the accusations, drove through the capital after the warrant was announced, waving at crowds. Security was tightened at many embassies, and some diplomats and aid workers stayed home amid fears of retaliation against Westerners.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.