Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir on Thursday told visiting UN Security Council envoys that there was a “brutal campaign” against his regime and vowed that a crisis in a contested oil region would be resolved soon.
In an address to a visiting UN delegation in Khartoum, the head of state described the oil-rich Abyei area as “the topmost remaining issue” in the implementation of the 2005 peace agreement between north and south.
“It will soon be settled through dialogue between the two partners,” the president said.
Beshir also strongly defended his government after International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo on Thursday implored the UN Security Council to ask Khartoum to arrest two Darfur war crimes suspects.
“My country is the target of an unjust and deliberate campaign,” the president said. “This brutal campaign has tried to exaggerate and deform facts. It has tarnished the image, the heritage and the values of our people.”
Beshir did not elaborate nor directly name the ICC but merely said the campaign was driven by people “who want to exploit the conflict in Darfur for their own ends.”
Last May, the ICC, the world’s first permanent war crimes court, issued arrest warrants for Ahmed Haroun, Sudan’s secretary of state for humanitarian affairs, and Janjaweed militia leader Ali Kosheib.
They are charged with 51 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including acts of murder, persecution, torture, rape and forcible displacement.
ICC prosecutor Moreno-Ocampo said that at the council’s request his office would next month present new evidence exposing the facts and identifying those most responsible for the Darfur crimes.
The Darfur conflict began in 2003 when ethnic minority rebels took up arms against the Arab-dominated regime and state-backed Janjaweed militias, fighting for resources and power in one of the most remote and deprived places on earth.
Up to 300,000 people may have died from the combined effects of war, famine and disease, UN humanitarian chief John Holmes said. Sudan claims the death toll from the war does not exceed 10,000.
Leaders from north and south Sudan have been holding talks on how to find a solution to the lack of joint administration or boundary demarcation in the explosive Abyei region where fighting has sparked fears of a return to civil war.
Despite the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) after the 21-year conflict between north and south Sudan, Africa’s longest-running civil war, protocols on Abyei with its half-a-billion-dollar oil wealth, have not been implemented.
“The spirit of cooperation and partnership are the CPA’s best assets,” Beshir said in a speech to the UN Security Council mission.
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