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UNITED NATIONS, Jul 21 (OneWorld) - African and Arab nations are calling for the UN Security Council not to take any action on the move to indict Sudan's president Omar Al-Bashir over Darfur war crimes.

At a meeting held in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa Monday, the African Union (AU) foreign ministers said the International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor's request to charge Al-Bashir would hinder international peace efforts.

"The AU requests the Council to defer the process initiated by the ICC, taking into account the need to ensure that the ongoing peace process is not jeopardized," said Nigerian foreign minister Ojo Maduekwe at the end of the meeting.

The AU has contributed some 9,000 troops to support international efforts to restore peace in Darfur. The armed conflict in Darfur has claimed nearly half a million lives since 2003 when the government-backed Janjaweed militia started looting and killing innocent civilians.

Diplomats say the 15-member Security Council has the power to delay ICC indictment for up to one year. The United States and its Western allies in the Council want Al-Bashir to be prosecuted, but China and Russia are opposed to his indictment.

Both Moscow and Beijing have strong economic and military ties with Khartoum, and many believe those dealings are influencing their votes on human rights issues.

ICC judges will now have to weigh the evidence provided by the prosecutor before they decide whether or not to issue an arrest warrant against Al-Bashir. Experts say the process could take several months.

Like the AU, last weekend, at a meeting in Cairo, the 21-member Arab League strongly criticized the ICC's call to indict Al-Bashir on war crimes charges. In a statement, the group's head Amar Moussa said the Court's move was "unbalanced."

In rejecting the prosecutor's request last Tuesday, the Sudanese government described the evidence against Al-Bashir as "false and politically motivated." It said the ICC had no jurisdiction in Sudan and that, therefore, it would not cooperate with the Court.

Like the United States and China, Sudan is not a signatory to the treaty that established the world court for crimes against humanity, war crimes, and genocide. Over 100 other countries have ratified the treaty, consenting to the Court's jurisdiction.

Prior to his request Monday for a warrant to arrest Al-Bashir, the ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo told the UN Security Council in June that he had solid evidence against the Khartoum regime and its plan to use military and intelligence agencies in Darfur.

In his briefing to the 15-country UN Council last December, Ocampo said the Sudanese government was persistent in its refusal to cooperate with the ICC while "massive crimes" were still being committed in Darfur. The Council declined to take any action at that time.

Several rights groups campaigning for peace in Darfur welcomed the prosecutor's request for arrest warrants of Al-Bashir amid hope that it would set an example for those who commit war crimes.

"Charging President Al-Bashir for the hideous crimes in Darfur shows that no one is above the law," said Richard Dicker, an expert on international law who works with Human Rights Watch (HRW), a group that monitors and reports on rights abuses around the world.

Dicker and other rights activists, many of whom aggressively lobbied for the establishment of the six-year-old International Criminal Court (ICC), think the prosecutor's decision to charge the Sudanese president will help bring justice and peace in Darfur.

"The people of Darfur are strongly supportive of holding those responsible for genocide and crimes against humanity accountable, and the ICC is the only mechanism capable of fulfilling that role at this time," said Gerald LeMelle, director of the Washington, DC-based lobbying group Africa Action.

Africa Action and Human Rights Watch are among the many international human rights groups that have long been calling for tough international action against the government leaders in Sudan who have allegedly backed Janjaweed militia attacks on innocent civilians in Darfur.

When asked to comment on the AU's opposition to the arrest of Al-Bashir, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's spokesperson Yves Sorokobi told OneWorld that it is "up to the member states in the Security Council" to decide what action will be taken. "However, we have taken note of this new development," he added.

The Darfur dispute comes just as news was breaking Monday that the former president of the Republic of Srpska, within Bosnia and Herzegovina, has been arrested. Radovan Karadzic was charged with genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes, including the massacre of up to 8,000 Bosnian men and boys, after the fall of the town of Srebrenica in July 1995.

"Today's arrest is a step toward redress for Bosnian victims and families who have suffered horribly," said HRW Monday.

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