Again, Al-Bashir plans Turkey trip despite warrant
SUDANESE President Omar Hassan al-Bashir has planned to visit Turkey next week for the first time since an international court asked for his arrest, in a test of Ankara's support for international justice.
Predominantly Moslem Turkey has not ratified the 2002 Rome Statute that established the International Criminal Court (ICC), but it is under pressure to do so to bring it closer to European Union standards.
Rights groups say Turkey, anxious to secure entry into the EU, is obliged to arrest Al-Bashir when he lands in Istanbul for a summit of Islamic nations.
One presidential source in Khartoum yesterday told Reuters: "The decision has been taken. Unless there are last minute changes, he is going."
Ankara's government, which has its roots in political Islam, has sought to deepen ties with Khartoum, putting it in an awkward position over the visit.
Asked if Turkish authorities would arrest Bashir during his visit, a Turkish Foreign Ministry official said on condition of anonymity: "No, there are no such plans."
A public outcry about Al-Bashir's visit to Turkey could still cause it to be cancelled, which would embarrass Khartoum, one Sudanese analyst said.
Activists said there was sure to be opposition from civil society to the visit, adding Turkey had obligations to arrest Al-Bashir as a UN member.
"We most certainly expect Turkey to show respect for this monumental decision by the ICC," said Ozlem Altiparmak from the Turkish Coalition for the ICC.
"Turkey could see a backlash in public opinion and from civil-society groups if it fails to act while he is here."
The UN Security Council referred Darfur's atrocities to the ICC for investigation in 2005.
Based in The Hague, the ICC is the world's first permanent court set up to try individuals for genocide, war crimes and other major human rights violations.
Al-Bashir has travelled to African countries, who reject the arrest warrant, since March when ICC judges said he was responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Sudan's Darfur region. He was last in Turkey in August 2008, before the arrest warrant was announced.
Rebels in Darfur took up arms in early 2003, accusing Khartoum of neglecting the arid region, and Sudan then mobilised militia who, alongside the army, waged a counter-insurgency campaign that drove two million people from their homes.
The fighting sparked one of the world's worst humanitarian crises, which the United Nations says has claimed 300,000 lives.
Washington described the violence as genocide, a term Khartoum rejects. Bashir puts Darfur's death toll at 10,000.
Non-Arab asylum seekers from Darfur have been allowed to stay in Britain and would not be sent back to Sudan after it was deemed too dangerous.
The refugees would be able to remain in Britain for five years, with periodic reviews to be carried out on the safety of the war-torn African country.
The guidance update was influenced by recent reports from international organisations expressing concern about treatment of Darfuris returning to Khartoum, an Interior Ministry spokeswoman said.
"All non-Arab Darfuris, regardless of their political or other affiliations, are at real risk of persecution in Darfur and internal relocation elsewhere in Sudan is not currently to be relied upon," the Interior Ministry's UK Border Agency concluded in its operational guidance note.
The human rights group Amnesty International said about 1,200 Sudanese, many from Darfur, have applied for asylum in Britain during the past three years.
Up to now, they could be deported back to the Sudanese capital.
Meanwhile, defence lawyers for a Darfur rebel leader, currently in the Hague to establish whether there is enough evidence to prosecute him for attacking peacekeepers, according to the Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR) have argued that the Sudanese government had been using an African Union, AU, base to target civilians.
Bahr Idriss Abu Garda, the commander of a splinter group of the Justice and Equality Movement, is alleged to be one of three rebel leaders behind a September 29, 2007 attack on the base in Haskanita, north Darfur, in which 12 peacekeepers were killed and eight wounded.
Garda appeared last week before the International Criminal Court, ICC, voluntarily and following his eight-day confirmation of charges hearing - which ends this week - judges will have 60 days to decide whether or not to proceed to trial.
Prosecutors have argued that the strike was unlawful because the peacekeepers and their base enjoyed the protection afforded to civilians, as they were not a party to the Darfur conflict, had no enforcement mandate, and could only use force in self-defence.
But Garda's lawyer, Karim Khan, suggested that the government of Sudan, GoS, had been using information gleaned at the base to enable airforce bombers to hit Darfur civilians and rebels.
A peacekeeping agreement had provided that representatives from the parties to the conflict - the rebel Sudan Liberation Army and the Justice and Equality Movement, as well as GoS - could be present at the base.
However, rebels were alarmed by the presence of a GoS representative, an airforce captain called Bashir, suspecting that the base was being misused. One witness statement, read out in court, insisted that between June and September 2007, the rebels prevented peacekeepers from even leaving their base.
"Rebel forces forbade us from going on patrol, and no helicopters were permitted to land in the camp to bring supplies," said another.
Prosecutors said that rebels visited the base on September 10, 2007 and complained about the presence of Captain Bashir, asked for his removal and threatened that if they were attacked again by GoS, they would in turn attack Haskanita. Captain Bashir was removed the next day, prosecutors said. However, under cross-examination, the second of two prosecution witnesses told the court that Bashir was replaced with another GoS representative named Major Abdul Malik, so that a government representative remained on the base.
Regardless of whether GoS was at the base, prosecutors were adamant that this did not remove the civilian status afforded to the peacekeepers.
On the morning of September 29, Sudanese forces bombed rebels in the village of Haskanita, some two kilometres from the base. An AU report described it as an "unrelenting offensive by the GoS forces" during which the rebels sustained huge casualties.
