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Luis Moreno-OcampoUNITED NATIONS - International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo on Friday pressed the Sudanese government to arrest President Omar al-Beshir who stands accused of Darfur war crimes and crimes against humanity.

"The government of Sudan has the responsibility to arrest him (Beshir)," Moreno-Ocampo told the UN Security Council, citing a legal obligation stemming from the UN Charter and UN resolutions.

The ICC issued an arrest warrant for Beshir at Moreno-Ocampo's request last March but since then the defiant Sudanese leader has made at least seven trips outside Sudan.

Moreno-Ocampo further told the council that the Sudanese government "has also the duty to arrest" Sudanese ex-minister Ahmad Harun and Janjaweed militia leader Ali Kushayb, both also accused by the ICC of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur.

He said the recent designation of Haroun as governor of the South Kordofan province "contravenes the resolutions of this council."

"We are at a crossroads," the prosecutor later told reporters. "There's a chance to stop the violence (in Darfur). Crimes have to be stopped."

But Sudan's UN Ambassador to the UN Abdalmahmood Abdalhaleem Mohamad once again made clear that "We are not going to cooperate with this politically-motivated court (the ICC)."

He lambasted Moreno-Ocampo as a "mercenary of destruction and death" and a "real threat to peace and stability in Darfur."

"The prosecutor has outlived his usefulness and has become a liability for his own promoters," the Sudanese envoy, with Moreno-Ocampo at his side, told reporters.

Critics say the ICC warrant singles out weak states like Sudan, while taking a hypocritical stance towards countries like the US and Israel by ignoring worse atrocities committed by them, and by not charging American and Israeli officials with war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Other critics say the ICC warrant could lead to more, rather than less, bloodshed in Sudan's Darfur region.

The Darfur conflict erupted in February 2003, when rebels took up arms against the government in Khartoum and its allies.

Over the last six years, the rebels have fractured into multiple movements, fraying rebel groups, banditry, flip-flopping militias and the war has widened into overlapping tribal conflicts.

The United Nations says up to 300,000 people have died from the combined effects of war, famine and disease and more than 2.7 million fled their homes.

Many of the rebels enjoy direct and indirect foreign support that helped fuel the conflict, with some critics pointing the finger at France, which has a military presence in neighbouring Chad - also accused of arming the Sudanese rebels. France had been accused of involvement in the genocide in Rwanda, but Paris denied responsibility, conceding only that ‘political' errors were made.

South Sudan urged to stop ethnic conflict

Meanwhile, the UN human rights rapporteur in Sudan said on Friday that south Sudan must take "pro-active" measures to halt ethnic violence that has killed more people in the region this year than the more high-profile conflict in Darfur.

Sima Samar also said that the international community also needed to focus more attention on south Sudan.

A series of clashes between rival ethnic groups have left more than 1,000 people dead since March in the mostly Christian or animist south.

The south has long been dogged by cattle-rustling and periodic outbreaks of violence between rival groups but the ferocity of recent attacks has shocked many.

In May fighting broke out in Upper Nile state between the Lou and Jikany branches of the Nuer. In March and April, deadly fighting in two areas of Jonglei state pitted the Lou Nuer against the Murle.

Between January and November 2008, some 187,000 people were displaced by ethnic and armed conflict in south Sudan - compared with 310,000 in the war-torn western region of Darfur.

Attacks by rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) fighters in West and Central Equatoria since December have also affected some 100,000 people, according to UN estimates.

LRA launched a series of bloody attacks after Uganda, southern Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) began a joint operation against them last December.

For two decades the Christian extremist LRA has abducted thousands of children in northern Uganda and committed hideous atrocities, slicing off victims' ears and noses and padlocking their lips together. The conflict has killed tens of thousands and uprooted 2 million people.

Many Sudanese children were abducted by the Christian group, notorious for kidnapping children to use as sex slaves and combatants.

The guerrilla group aims to establish a theocratic government in Uganda, based on the Christian Bible and the Ten Commandments.

LRA leader Joseph Kony is said to have named one of his sons "George Bush" in 2006.

Source:http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=32547