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src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.15.1/35029?ns=guardianpageName=World+news%3A+Man+blamed+for+Darfur+says+I+am+at+peace+with+myselfch=World+newsc3=The+Guardianc4=Sudan+%28News%29%2CHuman+rights+%28News%29%2CWar+crimes+%28News%29%2CWorld+newsc5=Not+commercially+usefulc6=Simon+Tisdallc7=2008_12_04c8=1128339c9=articlec10=GUc11=World+newsc12=Sudanc13=c14=h2=GU%2FWorld+news%2FSudan"
width="1" height="1" //divpThe man accused by the international criminal court of planning,
organising and directing an orgy of violence against civilians in Darfur that left up to 200,000
people dead and 2.5 million homeless has angrily protested his innocence, calling the allegations
part of a political plot by the western powers to recolonise Sudan./ppIn an exclusive interview
with the Guardian, Ahmad Muhammad Harun, Sudan's minister of state for humanitarian affairs, said
he defied the ICC and the international community to do their worst and vowed never to give himself
up to the tribunal./ppHarun claimed the evidence against him was concocted and unreliable. And he
described the court's chief prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, as a disgrace to the legal profession
who should be sacked. "My conscience is clear. I have no regrets," Harun said. "What I have done
was legal, it was my responsibility, it was my duty. I am content. I am at peace with
myself."/ppThe ICC has charged Harun, in his former capacity as Sudan's minister of state for the
interior, with 42 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity allegedly committed in Darfur in
the period from August 2003 to March 2004./ppThe eight-month period witnessed a peak in fighting
between rebel and pro-government forces. The large-scale civilian casualties, gross human rights
abuses and mass displacement later caused the US government to accuse Sudan's political leadership
of genocide and led to UN and EU sanctions against Sudan./ppThe Darfur carnage caused international
outrage that has yet to abate as the violence there continues, albeit at a reduced level. Numerous
efforts to forge a lasting peace agreement during the past five years have foundered while hundreds
of thousands of people remain in refugee camps. Meanwhile, human rights and advocacy groups have
added their voices to calls for Harun and other alleged war criminals on both sides to be
prosecuted./ppBut Sudan is not a party to the ICC. It has so far ignored UN security council
demands that it cooperate with the court and surrender Harun and his co-accused, Ali Muhammad Ali
Abd-al-Rahman, an alleged Janjaweed leader also known as Ali Kushayb. /ppICC judges are currently
considering a request by Moreno-Ocampo for an arrest warrant for Sudan's president, Omar al-Bashir,
on charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity also relating to events in
Darfur./ppSpeaking in his ministry's smart new offices in Khartoum, Harun said the ICC was in
effect conducting a political vendetta against Sudan that had little or nothing to do with justice.
/ppstrongRelaxed and confident/strong/ppThroughout the interview, Harun, a tall 43-year-old dressed
in a smart charcoal suit and open-necked shirt, appeared mostly relaxed and confident. Occasionally
his eyes flashed with anger as he discussed the accusations against him./pp"We believe the ICC has
digressed from its main objective and become part of the international political conflict. It is
another phase of international colonisation. It targets mainly the Africans. It reminds us of the
19th century when the white people were dominating here in Africa./pp"The main aim of the white
people in Africa at that time, the British and the Europeans, was to disseminate their culture and
their traditions. Under the flag of attractive slogans, so many things happened. Now there is a new
imperial era but this time it is led by the United States and supported by the Europeans."/ppHarun,
a trained lawyer from the Bargo tribe in western Sudan and a former judge, argued that UN security
council resolution 1593 that referred Darfur to the ICC in 2005 was discriminatory because it
exempted citizens of the US, which like Sudan is not a party to the ICC's founding treaty, from
action by the court. For this reason, the ICC prosecutor was ignoring the "first principle" of
equality before the law./pp"This is a discriminatory prosecution. It is also discriminatory because
the ICC is targeting only African countries," Harun said. "Also, any serious investigation should
begin on the ground, in theatre, in Darfur. And witnesses who are part of the problem should not be
taken into consideration. They are not reliable sources."/ppSuggesting the ICC investigation was
superfluous as well as politically motivated, Harun said a national investigation committee created
by Bashir had examined many senior officials over their roles in Darfur. "I was one of them. I gave
answers to all their questions. No action was taken. There was no evidence, so there was no reason
to take action."/ppHarun added that any future move to indict Bashir, or any backroom deal in which
he himself might be handed over to the ICC in return for Bashir being granted immunity, would only
prove his contention that the ICC proceedings were political. In such circumstances, he said, he
would never voluntarily surrender himself. And nor was he prepared to meet Moreno-Ocampo if the
latter came to Khartoum./pp"The prosecutor has brought his profession into disrespect. He is not
welcome in Sudan ... He should be replaced. This is what we are requesting. I add my voice to the
voices of the international society because he is insulting the profession of justice and insulting
African countries."/ppAsked to explain his actions in Darfur in 2003-4, Harun said he had faced an
internal, essentially local conflict between Darfurian tribes that quickly transformed into a
political conflict with encouragement from forces outside the province./ppRebel leaders Minni
Minnawi, Abd al-Wahid Muhammad Nur, and Abdallah Abbakar initially called themselves the Darfur
Liberation Movement, he said. But this later became the Sudan Liberation Movement as external
actors got involved./ppThe Darfur rebellion, also fuelled by Khalil Ibrahim's opposition-backed
Justice and Equality Movement, threatened the stability of the Sudanese state as a whole, for
example by undermining the 2005 North-South comprehensive peace agreement which was then nearing
fruition, Harun said. The government had no choice but to act./pp"The policy and tactics of the
government, like any other government when things like this are happening, is to begin by
mobilising./pp"We have a security reserve force - the Popular Defence Forces - to respond to those
attacks, a paramilitary force. Some people call the PDF by different names, some call it militia,
others are calling it Janjaweed. But it is a formal force and it works under the directions of the
army."/ppUnable to match pro-government forces militarily, the rebels changed tactics and created a
humanitarian crisis in Darfur to attract international attention and intervention, he
said./ppstrongRebels blamed/strong/pp"They started putting pressure on civilians to move out of
villages, they killed their children, women they abducted, they destroyed the infrastructure and
means of people's livelihood, and caused the mass migration of people into refugee camps."/ppIn
other words, he suggested, it was the rebel groups that were responsible for the civilian
massacres, atrocities and mass displacements in 2003-4, not himself or the government. Sudan's
government in any case disputes the UN's casualty estimates, claiming only about 10,000 people
died./ppReports that he boasted in a 2003 speech that he had "the power and the authority to kill
or forgive whoever in Darfur" were fabricated, Harun added. And he insisted his 2004 description of
the rebels as "fish" who needed the "water" of the villages to survive (thereby allegedly
justifying the destruction of villages) was a distortion of his meaning./ppPeople in Darfur knew
the truth, he said, which was why he was still welcome there. "I move freely in Darfur. I have
strong support. I am popular in Darfur because they know who protected them."/ppLeaning back in a
well-padded armchair with a broad smile on his face, Harun said he was a religious man who had done
nothing to offend against God. But he did not claim to have a close relationship with the
Almighty./pp"I am not like George Bush. I do not talk to God. In Islam, we believe Muhammad was the
last prophet. Since Muhammad, no one can talk to God."/ppAs for the future, he suggested relations
between Sudan and the international community would deteriorate further if the ICC persisted with
its present course. A total breach with the UN was not out of the question./ppHarun's openly
defiant stance underlines how difficult it may be to bring justice to Darfur while avoiding an open
confrontation with Sudan and, at one remove, its African Union and Arab League allies. If allowed
to continue unanswered, it also threatens the credibility of the ICC./pp"We don't expect anything
good from the ICC. But for every action, there will be a response," Harun said. "The ICC will do
whatever they want. We will wait and see what they do. We will defend our country as best we can to
the best of our ability, according to our opinions."/ph2Backstory/h2pThe stronginternational
criminal court/strong was established in strong2002/strong as an independent tribunal to try
individuals responsible for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. It was designed to
complement national legal systems, stepping in when a country appeared unable or unwilling to
prosecute. More than 100 countries are members./ppAtrocities committed by rebel commanders in the
strongDemocratic Republic of the Congo/strong and by the Lord's Resistance Army in
strongUganda/strong prompted the opening of the first cases in 2004. Investigations into abuses in
Sudan's strongDarfur/strong region began a year later. /ppIn February 2007, ICC prosecutor Luis
Moreno-Ocampo announced that Sudanese minister strongAhmad Harun/strong and Janjaweed militia
leader strongAli Kushayb/strong were suspected of committing crimes against humanity. The
indictment and warrant for their arrests, dated April 2007, specifically accuses Harun of targeting
the ethnic African Fur, Zaghawa and Masalit tribes by employing elements of the Sudanese armed
forces and Popular Defence Forces paramilitaries, and by "recruiting, arming and funding" irregular
Arab militias known as strongJanjaweed/strong/ppAccording to the court, pro-government forces over
which Harun exercised command launched a campaign of terror that included "murders of civilians,
rapes and outrages upon the personal dignity of women and girls ... and destruction of property and
pillaging of towns"./ppThe indictment claims that the campaign was of a "strongsystematic/strong
strongand/strong strongwidespread/strong strongnature/strong" conducted "over an extensive period
of time... in furtherance of a state or organisational policy consisting in attacking the civilian
population"./ppIt goes on: "Ahmad Harun intentionally contributed to the commission of the
above-mentioned crimes ... In his public speeches, Harun not only demonstrated he knew the
militia/Janjaweed were attacking civilians and pillaging towns and villages but also personally
encouraged the commission of such illegal acts."/pdiv style="float: left; margin-right: 10px;
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