US, European and Canadian officials have walked out of Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni’s inauguration in protest after Sudan’s leader showed up despite facing arrest warrants and Museveni mocked the International Criminal Court, the US State Department says.
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Bashir is the first sitting head of state charged by the Hague based court since its inception in 2002.
At issue were his disparaging comments about an worldwide war crimes tribunal and the presence of Sudan’s leader whom the court has indicted.
However, during a presidential debate last February, the Ugandan President vowed to pull of the ICC and described it as a “partisan” court, allegedly targeting Africans.
Mosaad Mohamed Ali, Executive Director of the African Centre for Peace and Justice Studies, told Radio Tamazuj that Uganda had an obligation to arrest Bashir as a signatory to the Rome Statute.
The US does not participate in the ICC and has not signed the Rome Statute.
The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) has referred the Darfur case to the ICC under a Chapter VII resolution in 2005 since Sudan is not a state party to the court.
Bashir has defied the ICC on previous a occasion by travelling to South Africa in June a year ago amid diplomatic outcry, but was forced to flee the country after a court ruled he should be banned from leaving.
Al-Bashir arrived in Kampala this morning to attend the inauguration of President Yoweri Museveni.
Sudanese officials said President Omar Hassan al-Bashir returned on Thursday from a one-day visit to Uganda made in defiance of an worldwide warrant for his arrest on charges of genocide. However, Uganda has also at times been critical of the ICC.
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This follows a request by the global nongovermental organisation to Indonesia in March to arrest al-Bashir during his visit to the country to attend an Organisation of Islamic Cooperation summit. “Failure to do so would be a breach of its duty and would be a cruel betrayal of the hundreds of thousands of people killed and displaced during the Darfur conflict”, she added.
