Wanting to Avoid the One-Time, Bashir Avoids Uganda Conference

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From Al Jazeera:

"Omar al-Bashir, Sudan's president, has decided not to travel to Uganda for an economic conference after he was warned he could be arrested on war crimes charges, officials in Kampala have said.

"The understanding is that he will not be coming," James Mugume, the permanent secretary of Uganda's foreign affairs ministry, said on Friday.

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The International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague has ordered al-Bashir's arrest on seven charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Sudan's western Darfur region.

Mugume said that al-Bashir's invitation to the Smart Partnership Dialogue from July 23-26 in Kampala, the Ugandan capital, still stood, but a senior Sudanese official would be sent instead to "avoid embarrassment and inconvenience".

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"It's a codeword for an agreement that President Bashir delegates another senior cabinet-ranked person. That was agreed," he said.

The Sudanese envoy in Kampala had earlier indicated that al-Bashir was considering making the trip, which would have been his first to a country party to the ICC since the warrant was issued in March."

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Read the rest of the article here.

With the extra time spent at home, al-Bashir plans on coming up with reasons all those people in Darfur wound up dead.