Despite charges, Sudan leader still has allies
A day after his arrest was sought, life went on as usual at home. He showed no sign of giving in.
KHARTOUM, Sudan - Buoyed by support from the Arab and African world, Sudan's president showed no signs of giving in to pressure yesterday after an international prosecutor sought his arrest for alleged war crimes in Darfur.
Omar Hassan al-Bashir has emerged tarnished but apparently unbowed after the chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Court charged him with orchestrating a campaign that the United Nations says has killed 300,000 people and driven 2.5 million from their homes in Sudan's western region.
"This regime is not in crisis," said Mahjoub Mohammed Saleh, a respected analyst and cofounder of the independent newspaper al-Ayam.
Life flowed normally in the capital one day after prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo asked the Netherlands-based court to issue a warrant for Bashir's arrest. There were no mass protests or any hint of hasty evacuations by foreigners, U.N. officials or aid workers.
The U.N. peacekeeping force in Darfur announced it was temporarily relocating nonessential personnel to neighboring countries.
Many Sudanese and even the United Nations, analysts say, want to see the president stay in power to revive faltering peace negotiations with Darfur rebels and to make good on his promise to hold what could be Sudan's freest and fairest elections in decades next year.
Bashir, who rose to power in a 1989 military coup that toppled a democratically elected but inept government, signed a new and progressive election law Monday that many in Sudan view as a turning point in the country's march toward genuine democracy. The law sets aside 25 percent of parliament seats for women and allows foreign experts to monitor the vote, planned for the fall of 2009.
"The indictment targets the symbol of our sovereignty at a time when Sudan is enjoying unprecedented economic prosperity and political progress," said Fathi Khalil, a prominent member of Bashir's ruling National Congress Party.
Bashir's position might even have been bolstered by the genocide charges, which led some countries to criticize the international tribunal.
The Arab League offered support to Bashir, as did Egypt's government.
The league's envoy to Sudan, Salah Halima, described the indictment as a serious blow to peace efforts in Darfur and said it would further undermine stability in a region beset by internal and cross-border conflicts.
Tanzania, the current chairman of the African Union, also criticized the prosecutor's decision to seek an arrest warrant, saying the move will harm peace efforts in Darfur, which has been wracked by fighting and atrocities since an uprising early in 2003.
The most powerful support came from China, a major purchaser of Sudan's oil, which said the charges could destabilize the region.
Bashir also enjoys considerable domestic support for reviving Sudan.
A dour, balding man in his 60s, Bashir is the longest-serving head of state since Sudan's independence in 1956 and represents a kind of continuity that Sudan did not see during decades of coups and attempted coups.
He took over at a time when southern rebels were closing in on Sudan's north. Bashir ordered one military offensive after another before a 2005 peace deal ended more than two decades of fighting. Sudan struck oil, and gasoline lines became a thing of the past.
Basics such as sugar, once available only with foreign currency at duty-free shops in the 1980s, are plentiful at the grocery stores that have sprung up in recent years.