Human Rights Network – Uganda (HURINET – U) and Uganda Coalition on International Criminal Court (UCICC) have vowed to arrest the President of Sudan if he dares land in Uganda to attend the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region heads of States summit on 15th December.
The two CSOs say they have been dismayed by the remarks made by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Okello Oryem who publicly stated that Uganda has invited President Bashir to attend the conference and have no reason to cause an embarrassment by arresting him.

According to the CSOs Uganda is a state party to the Rome Statute of International Criminal Court and has domesticated the Rome Statute of ICC. It therefore has an obligation to arrest and surrender all persons whose warrants of arrest have been issued.

Addressing the press in Kampala, HURINET boss, Mohammed Ndifuna said inviting an international criminal suspect to Uganda not only betrays the fight against impunity which Uganda has for long championed but also betrays concerns and interests of victims of the most heinous
crimes both in Uganda and Dafur.

He calls on Uganda to revoke Bashir’s invitation or arrest and surrender him to ICC in an unfortunate event that he attends the summit.

According to Ndifuna, a number of Human Rights Organizations have already started securing a joint alternative domestic arrest warrant against Bashir incase Uganda fails to arrest him just like the Kenyan court.

President Bashir who is among the Great Lakes presidents invited to attend the summit due on 15th and 16th this month in Uganda was the first head of state to be indicted by the ICC, which accuses him of genocide and war crimes in Darfur.

Approximately 2.7 million people have fled their homes since the conflict began in Darfur in 2003, and the UN figures indicate that 300,000 people have died as a result of the unending conflict.

President Bashir says the conflict has killed about 12,000 people but that the number of the dead has been exaggerated for political reasons.