From: Biniam Tekle (biniamt@dehai.org)
Date: Mon Mar 16 2009 - 08:07:19 EST
Sudan wants aid groups to stop distributing relief Mon Mar 16, 2009 6:04am
EDT
* Sudan wants foreign aid groups to stop distributing relief
* Aid groups deny working with ICC
* Possible dilemma for foreign donors
By Khaled Abdelaziz and Andrew Heavens
KHARTOUM, April 16 (Reuters) - Sudan's president said on Monday he wanted
foreign aid groups to stop distributing aid in Sudan within a year, in an
escalation in the country's defiant response to an international war crimes
warrant against him.
President Omar Hassan al-Bashir expelled 13 international aid groups this
month, accusing them of helping the International Criminal Court, which
issued an arrest warrant against him, accusing him of orchestrating
atrocities in Darfur. Aid groups deny working with the court.
In an emotional speech to thousands of soldiers and police, Bashir said he
had ordered Sudanese aid groups to take over the distribution of all relief
inside the country -- a move that could freeze the work of more than 70
foreign organisations still operating in Darfur and other strife-torn areas.
If carried out, the order will also create a dilemma for international
donors, including the governments of the United States and Britain, over
whether they will be able to continue to pour millions into projects across
the underdeveloped country without full control over how their aid is
distributed.
"We have ordered the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs to completely Sudanise
the voluntary work in Sudan within one year and after that we don't want
international organisations to deal with Sudanese citizens with relief,"
Bashir told the rally.
"If they (the international organisations) want to continue providing aid,
they can just leave it at the airport and Sudanese NGOs (non governmental
organisations) can distribute the relief."
"CLEAR OUR COUNTRY OF ANY SPIES"
"We need to clear our country of any spies," he told the cheering crowd in
Khartoum's Green Square rally ground, close to the city's airport.
Bashir said Sudan's neighbours Ethiopia and Eritrea had carried out similar
programmes to distribute foreign aid through local groups.
Bashir did not specify how the order would be carried out. It was not clear
whether more than 70 foreign aid groups still working inside Sudan would
also be expelled, or how the order would affect U.N. agencies.
It was also not certain whether the order would cover aid programmes in
Sudan's semi-autonomous south. The earlier expulsion of 13 aid agencies,
including Oxfam, Save the Children and two branches of Medecins Sans
Frontieres, only affected operations in the north.
Thousands of soldiers from the regular army and the state-aligned Popular
Defence Forces militia pledged allegiance to Bashir during the rally, the
latest in a series of demonstrations against the ICC's warrant in Khartoum.
Bashir was a career army officer when he overthrew a democratically-elected
civilian government in 1989. The army remains one of his strongest power
bases.
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