Sudan's Bashir denies government role in Darfur

By JoAnne Allen

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Sudan's president on Monday denied his government was involved in widespread human rights abuses in Darfur, where an estimated 200,000 people have been killed in what the United States says is the first genocide of this century.

Shown a picture of a State Department map depicting burned villages in Sudan's vast western region during an NBC News interview in Khartoum, President Omar Hassan al-Bashir called it a "fabrication."

"Yes, there have been villages burned, but not to the extent you are talking about," Bashir said.

"People have been killed because there is war. It is not in the Sudanese culture or people of Darfur to rape. It doesn't exist. We don't have it."

The Sudanese leader likened the photograph to pictures shown by former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell at the U.N. Security Council before the start of the Iraq war as proof of the presence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. No such weapons have been found since the war started four years ago.

"This picture is the same fabrication and the same picture as the ones Colin Powell presented about Iraq," Bashir said, speaking through an interpreter.

Experts say some 200,000 people have been killed since rebels in Darfur rose up against the government in 2003, accusing Khartoum of discrimination against non-Arab farmers there. In addition, more than 2.5 million people have been forced from their homes.

In the interview, Bashir defended a government official against war crimes charges leveled by the International Criminal Court in The Hague in February.