Sudan leader defies arrest order on war crimes charges

Sounds like the start of something in the Sudan , Now that they have Issued an arrest warrant for Bashir , ( Because of his Human Rights Violations) He shows how in control he is by kicking out Humanitarian Groups !
Many thousands of people will die due to this , the humanitarian aid is all that keeps these people Alive !

int, Herald Tribune
PARIS: One day 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 on Thursday, 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 recolonize 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.

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.

After months of deliberation, the judges charged Bashir with war crimes and crimes against humanity for playing an "essential role" in the murder, rape, torture, pillage and displacement of large numbers of civilians in Darfur. But the judges did not charge him with genocide, as the prosecutor had requested.

....

The Sudanese government has long vowed to resist the court, and it summoned several humanitarian organizations to a meeting almost immediately after the warrant was announced, according to aid officials. As many as 10 groups received letters ordering them to leave or curb their work, according to people briefed on the meeting.

The British charity Oxfam said that the government had revoked its license to operate, a decision the group said could affect more than 600,000 people. The Dutch section of Doctors Without Borders, which provides health care in one of the world's biggest camps for displaced people, in South Darfur, was ordered to leave the country.

"It happened right after the announcement," said one aid official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of negotiations to persuade the government to back down. "The connection was clear."
The warrant is the first in which the court, which opened in 2002 in The Hague, has sought the arrest of a sitting head of state. Other war-crimes courts have issued warrants for sitting presidents, including Slobodan Milosevic of Yugoslavia and Charles Taylor of Liberia.