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10:43 a.m. Jul 09, 1997 Eastern
By Manoah Esipisu
NAIROBI, July 9 (Reuter) - Eritrea's President Isaias Afewerki said on Wednesday he was labelled a dictator and insulted by Sudanese President Lieutenant-General Omar Hassan al-Bashir at a Nairobi summit.
Afewerki also repeated at a news conference that Bashir's Islamic-backed military government plotted to assassinate him.
``President Bashir had a small note which said that I was a dictator, person who rose to power through elimination of opponents, has 30,000 political prisoners, dismissed my foreign minister on personal grounds,'' the president said.
He was speaking after the end on Wednesday of a two-day summit on Sudan during which he, Bashir and three other African leaders met behind closed doors at State House in Nairobi for talks on Sudan.
``Dispatching people to kill a president is not civilised. Sitting across the table from that man (Bashir) responsible for sending people to kill you is civilised. The government of Sudan tries to insult me personally, I am not bothered,'' he said.
``There was an assassination attempt. I have raised the issue with the United Nations Security Council. We have facts, evidence. Sudan cannot circumvent that,'' Afewerki added.
Bashir, at a separate news conference, rejected Afewerki's accusation of an assassination plot as a fabrication to cover up ``his sinister intentions towards Sudan and to frustrate the summit.''
Asked about Afewerki's charge that he had been insulted by the Sudanese leader, Bashir said: ``What I said was a reply to what he said.'' He declined to give more details, saying it was an exchange behind closed doors.
``Eritrea has no interest in the achievement of peace in southern Sudan,'' said Bashir, adding that Eritrea was clearly a beneficiary of 14 years of civil war in southern Sudan.
Afewerki said Bashir's insults had been brought to the attention of the summit, which had advised him to tone down.
Eritrea last month accused Khartoum of plotting to kill Afewerki in November last year through an agent infiltrated into the ranks of the exiled National Democratic Alliance (NDA) of Sudan.
Afewerki said Bashir's government wanted to export its (Moslem) ideology to its neighbours and``change the world,'' which had brought it to conflict with its neighbours.
``The (Khartoum) government totally disregarded the diversity of its people and has failed to bring its people together,'' Afewerki said. ``Khartoum promotes terror and subversion.''
The Asmara-based NDA is made up of Sudanese rebel groups in exile, the most prominent being John Garang's Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) which has fought Khartoum's forces
since 1983.
The NDA has its headquarters in Asmara and Afewerki told reporters he supported the group for the sake of justice.
Eritrea, Sudan's small but militarily powerful eastern neighbour, backs the opposition but denies its army is taking part in the fighting in Sudan.
Eritrea says Bashir and Sudan's spiritual leader Hassan al-Turabi were directly involved in the assassination plot. |
