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Sudan wants foreign groups to stop distributing aid
Reuters - Tuesday, March 17
By Khaled Abdelaziz and Andrew Heavens
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KHARTOUM - Sudan's president said on Monday he wanted foreign aid groups to stop distributing aid in Sudan within a year, stepping up defiance of 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 has indicted him on suspicion 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 his Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs to hand over the distribution of all relief to Sudanese groups -- a move that could freeze the work of more than 70 foreign organizations still working in Darfur and other areas.
If carried out, the order will also force international donors, including the United States, Britain and the European Union, to decide whether they will continue to pour millions of dollars 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 'Sudanize' the voluntary work in Sudan within one year and after that we don't want international organizations to deal with Sudanese citizens on relief," Bashir said.
"If they want to continue providing aid, they can just leave it at the airport and Sudanese NGOs can distribute the relief."
"CLEAR OUT SPIES"
"We need to clear our country of any spies," Bashir, dressed in military uniform, told the cheering crowd in Khartoum's Green Square rally ground.
Aid workers were dumbfounded.
"We don't know if it is a genuine policy or whether he just wanted to say something nationalistic to rally the troops... If it does go through it will have an enormous impact," said one, on condition of anonymity.
In New York, U.N. humanitarian chief John Holmes said the world body was seeking urgent clarification of Bashir's remarks. "I think our position will clearly be that this decision is not appropriate and it's a decision which should be reversed," he told reporters.
"If all the agencies were required to leave and not be able to operate, that would, we believe, have enormous ramifications for the welfare of people in Darfur and elsewhere in Sudan," he said.
"Obviously, the idea that we would simply hand over goods at the port to be distributed or monitored without our involvement is not one that would be acceptable to us."
The United Nations last week said Sudanese aid groups would not be able to replace the work of the 13 expelled NGOs, including Oxfam, Save the Children and two branches of Medecins Sans Frontieres.
Darfur rebel leader Abdel Wahed Mohamed Ahmed al-Nur also criticized the announcement, saying: "These Sudanese NGOs are just government organizations. The people of Darfur will never accept aid from the government that has been killing them."
Bashir's announcement appeared to take officials from the Sudan government's own Humanitarian Aid Commission unaware.
At a delayed press conference in Khartoum, officials did not respond to questions on how the order would be carried out or whether foreign aid groups currently in Sudan would be expelled.
"The order from the president today is under process," said the junior minister for humanitarian affairs, Ahmed Haroun, himself wanted by the ICC on charges of war crimes in Darfur. "We will study it and prepare a plan to implement this topic."
Haroun told reporters U.N. agencies would not be expected to leave the country after the order.
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.
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