Libyan dictator Muammar al-Gaddafi has said that Israel is to blame for the conflict in Darfur. Gaddafi, who is currently the president of the African Union, said on Tuesday that "foreign forces," including Israel, were to blame for the genocide in the Sudan region. "It will be no surprise to anyone when we say that we have found unequivocal proof that the Darfur problem was fomented by foreign forces," Gaddafi said in a speech carried by the 'Al-Libya' television channel. “We discovered that some of the main leaders of the Darfur rebels have opened offices in Tel Aviv and hold meetings with the military there to add fuel to the conflict fire," the Libyan leader said.
Gaddafi urged the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague to stop proceedings to decide whether to issue a warrant for the arrest of Sudanese president Omar Hassan al-Bashir, who is accused of masterminding the genocide. "Why do we have to hold president Bashir or the Sudanese government responsible when the Darfur problem was caused by outside parties, and Tel Aviv, for example, is behind the Darfur crisis?" he asked. The International Criminal Court announced on Monday that it would rule next week on whether to issue a warrant for the arrest of Beshir on charges of war crimes, including genocide, in Darfur.
Some 300,000 people have died and 2.7 million fled their homes since ethnic minority rebels in Darfur rose up against the Khartoum government in February 2003. Sudan puts the official death toll at 10,000.
