The president Omar el-Béchir in Egypt to meet with Mubarak

Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir arrived in Cairo on Wednesday to discuss the March
4 ICC arrest warrant issued on Bashir for war crimes committed in Sudan with
Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak. Egypt is not party to the ICC.

Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir arrived in Egypt on Wednesday, an airport official
said, flaunting his freedom in defiance of an international arrest warrant for
alleged war crimes in Darfur.
  
Beshir was to hold talks with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on his second visit
abroad since March 4, when the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant
for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.
  
But there was little chance of Beshir being arrested in Sudan’s northern neighbour,
with both Egypt and the Arab League rejecting the warrant and saying it threatens
peace talks in Sudan.
  
Egypt — like all Arab states except for Jordan — is not a party to the Rome treaty
that created the ICC, the world’s first permanent war crimes tribunal.
  
The ICC does not have a police force and calls on signatory states to implement
warrants. However, all United Nations member states are urged to cooperate with The
Hague-based court.
  
Even the United States, where the previous administration described the Darfur
conflict as genocidal, said on Tuesday it was under “no legal obligation” to arrest
Beshir as it was not a signatory to the Rome statute.
  
Beshir’s visit to key US ally Egypt comes just two days after he made a short trip
to diplomatically isolated Eritrea on Monday.
  
Speculation has also risen about whether Beshir will attend a March 29-30 Arab
summit in Doha, with Sudan’s highest religious authority, the Committee of Muslim
Scholars, issuing a fatwa, or edict, urging him not to go.
  
The Egypt visit comes amid a worsening humanitarian situation in Darfur after
Khartoum ordered the expulsion of 13 international aid agencies in the wake of the
arrest warrant.
  
The United Nations warned on Tuesday that it would appeal to international donors
for extra funds following the expulsion of 3,142 aid agency staff.
  
UN humanitarian affairs coordinator Ameerah Haq warned in Khartoum that the
situation in Darfur would deteriorate further over the next weeks.
  
“By the beginning of May, as the hunger gap approaches, and unless the World Food
Programme has found partners able to take on the mammoth distribution task, these
people will not receive their rations,” she said.
  
“Up to 650,000 currently do not have access to full health care,” she added.
  
Aid groups which remain are also increasingly concerned about security in Darfur,
with a Sudanese working for a Canadian group shot dead at his home on Monday.
  
The United Nations says 300,000 people have died — many from disease and hunger —
and 2.7 million been made homeless by the Darfur conflict, which erupted in February
2003.
  
Khartoum puts the death toll at 10,000.
  
Beshir, the first sitting president to be issued with a warrant by the ICC, faces
five counts of crimes against humanity and two of war crimes, accused of
orchestrating a campaign of murder, torture, rape and pillage in Darfur.
  
Many African and Arab states, along with key Khartoum ally China, have condemned the
ICC move and called for the warrant to be suspended.
  
The Arab League and African Union have vowed to lobby the UN Security Council to
suspend the court’s proceedings.