AFTER judges at the International Criminal Court ordered his arrest for atrocities committed in Darfur, President Omar Hassan al-Bashir of Sudan offered a fiery and defiant response yesterday, telling a crowd of thousands in his own country that “we are not succumbing, we are not bending” to outside pressure.
Jabbing the air with a walking stick and flanked by aides and bodyguards, Bashir called the court’s decision a conspiracy designed to recolonise his country.
“Sudan is raising its voice. It rejects the hegemony, the colonialists,” he declared.
Referring to the International Criminal Court and the United Nations Security Council, he said: “We are ready to face you,” according to live television broadcasts from Khartoum which showed him, clad in a light blue suit, addressing a huge crowd from a podium.
He said “the real criminals are the leaders of the Western countries in the United States of America and Europe. They lie to their people and the world and now they think that we will kneel and beg.”
His appearance at the rally in Khartoum, the capital, followed quickly after Sudanese officials retaliated against the court’s decision on Wednesday, ordering Western aid groups that provide for millions of people to shut down their operations and leave. —— New York Times.
