KHARTOUM, Sudan - The Sudanese parliament on Wednesday condemned the indictment of the country's president by an international prosecutor, arguing that it endangered vital peace negotiations, especially in the Darfur region.
The 450-seat house issued a resolution at the end of a heated session in which scores of lawmakers railed against the indictment of the Sudanese leader by the Netherlands-based International Criminal Court on genocide charges. The resolution warned that the court action would weaken President Omar al-Bashir and embolden rebels to abandon peace negotiations.
ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo sought an arrest warrant Monday for al-Bashir on charges of waging a campaign of genocide and rape in Darfur. The indictment marked the first time prosecutors at the world's first permanent war crimes tribunal have issued charges against a sitting head of state.
A three-judge panel was expected to take two to three months to decide whether to issue the warrant.
"Parliament believes that the ICC indictment will not help the Darfur situation or its people. Instead it will complicate the situation and send negative signals and abort the peace negotiations,'' said the statement, read to lawmakers by Ghazi Salah Eddin Atabani, a senior member of al-Bashir's National Congress party.
National Congress members form the majority in parliament, whose session Wednesday was attended by 315 lawmakers, according to an unofficial count.
"It will motivate the armed groups to show more boldness and insolence and raise the ceiling of demands,'' the statement said.
Fighting erupted in Darfur in 2003 when ethnic African rebels took up arms against the Arab-dominated central government, accusing it of discrimination. The UN estimates 300,000 people have died, directly from attacks or indirectly through starvation, and 2.5 million people have fled to refugee camps.
In Cairo, Arab League chief Amr Moussa said he will visit Khartoum Saturday after an emergency foreign ministers' meeting of the pan-Arab organization scheduled for that day.
Lawmakers from the former rebel south _ where a separate conflict was fought for two decades -- demanded a "road map'' to settle the Darfur conflict, ending what its lawmakers described as the region's political, economic and cultural marginalization.
One opposition lawmaker, however, directed thinly veiled criticism at the government over its handling of the conflict and Monday's indictment.
Suleiman Hamid al-Hajj of the Communist Party blamed what he called Sudan's undemocratic political system for the crisis in Darfur.
"Condemnations won't help. Slogans won't help. Only wisdom and reason (are needed) to confront the problems of our county to reach the right solution,'' he said.
