Sudanese President Omar al- Bashir vowed here Tuesday that any decision to be issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) will not affect his country.
"Any decision to be issued about Sudan will not affect the country," Bashir said, while inaugurating the Merowe Dam in the country's Northern province, some 450 km north of the capital city Khartoum.
"The Sudanese people do not care the decision," he said, hinting at the ICC's maneuver against him since last July.
"We did not mind the Resolution 1706 passed by the UN and it ended up with nothing," he said, adding that "any decision in the future will not hinder Sudan's efforts on peace and development."
The harsh remarks came only one day before the Hague-based ICC makes its final decision on whether to issue the arrest warrant against the incumbent leader.
Meanwhile, supporters of President Bashir on the scene set fire to a dummy of ICC's chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo and tramped the debris into ashes.
In July, the ICC prosecutor filed 10 charges against al-Bashir, including three counts of genocide, five of crimes against humanity and two of murder, and called for an arrest warrant.
The Sudanese government rebuffed the accusation and kept questioning the universal jurisdiction of the court since it is not a member.
It also reacts by collecting international support from the Cairo-based Arab League(AL) and the African Union (AU), two political blocs that groups major regional allies.
The AU said at a summit early in February that it will ask the UN Security Council for a one-year suspension of the case, while AL Secretary General Amr Moussa said last week that some Security Council permanent members have "opposed" a similar initiative suggested by an AL delegation.
The ICC said on its website on Feb. 23 that a pre-trial chamber of judges would made the final decision about the prosecution application. The Sudanese government reiterated later in the day its "total rejection" to deal with the ICC.
(Xinhua News Agency March 3, 2009)