Is Sudanese President ought to be taken seriously?

By Luke Kuth Dak

November 15, 2008 — Once again, President Omer Al-Bashir continues to do what he does best, to confuse the Sudanese people, virtually on all the utmost challenges facing the country, including, of course, his indictment by the International Criminal Court (ICC), for war crimes and genocide in Darfur.

The embattled Sudanese President, who seems not to resist attacking various world leaders, was among the first leaders who frantically and enthusiastically sent congratulatory and well-wishing messages to the United States’ President-elect, Barrack Obama, on his historical victory, only to turn around a couple of days later, to drop yet another bomb shell of the same old rhetoric of trying to intimidate the Western World, particularly the United States of American, the Republic of France and the Great Britain, not to mention the International Criminal Court Prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo.

Consider: Why President al-Basher, increasingly is becoming angrier and angrier? Evidently, his guts feelings are telling him something all of us have no clue of. As it appears, he has no other place to dump his anger except on the Western countries, or the Sudan People Liberation Movement(SPLM). A few days ago, while he was addressing a pre-paid audience in al-Gadarif, in Eastern Sudan, al-Basher shouted: “ I am not concern about the powers of evil ( the United States, France and Great Britain), they are all under my shoes, he told the hand-picked crowd.” This is as bizarre as it gets. How could he possibly congratulate President-elect Obama, only to insult him, before he even had a chance to go over the congratulatory message? Clearly, the President of Sudan, not only is he becoming an embarrassment and a liability to the country, but also an impediment in the implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, that brought an end to a two decades long civil war, between South and North Sudan.

In addition, one couldn’t agree more with Ustaz Abdulrahman al- Rashid in his description of President al- Basher as frighten and a fugitive! The well- respected columnist and former editor-in-chief of the London- based Arabic daily newspaper- ASharq al-Awsat, authored an article that sparked a wide range of anger among the extremists in the party of President al- Basher- the National Congress Party (NCP). He blamed President al- Basher for not giving President-elect, Obama a fair chance of framing his foreign policy, let alone assuming the office of the presidency. He went on to say: “lucky, being under someone’s shoes, might not be seen as an insult, in the Western World.” In fact, if I might add, it might even be a comfort zone, in the first place, if you consider that Westerners, in general love their shoes, and they have their women to prove it.

Further more, President al- Basher has proven, more and more, that he is, indeed, his own worst enemy. By unleashing his media to disparage the alliances that were formed to protect him from the (ICC), he will soon undoubtedly find out the difficult truth, that his back is literally against the wall, because the loyalist extremists he now surrounds himself with, will most likely face the same fade. And the(SPLM) leadership, which has taken enough punches, at the hands of the President’s uncle, the owner/ editor-in- chief of Al-Intibaha, Al-Tayeb Mustafa, may not be enthused enough to come to his rescue.

The latest victims of the regime’s vicious personal attacks, are Professor, Dr. Peter Adowk, the Federal Minister for Higher Education, for daring to criticize the failed educational system in the country. The other is Ustaz Ezekiel Lol Gatkuoth, the GOSS’ representative and it’s chief diplomat to the United States of America. In Lol’s case, his problem was that he helped engineered the (SPLM) initiative to bring the Darfur’s rebel factions, into a negotiating table, which resulted in the most recent monumental meetings between the SPLM’s delegation with Chad’s President, Idris Deby and with Dr. Ibrahim Khalil, respectively. Unfortunately, Ezekiel’s diplomatic success in strengthening South Sudan’s relations with Washington, makes him a legitimate target and a security threat to the NCP best interest.

Consequently, President al- Basher’s freakish and preposterous conduct, makes his believability around the world, all the more questionable, as al-Rashid puts it. By now, all of the Sudanese people should know who President al- Basher really is. Those who still believe that he holds the keys to a resolution to Darfur’s conflict, haven’t done their home work. They have now had to confront the reality that it’s not going to happen. As the head of the state, the military and the ruling party, President al- Basher could have solved the country’s outstanding problems in an instance. The new Arab’s initiative- headed by Qatar, is really about buying time. All along, The Arab countries have shown that they had better things to do, than to save the lives of the marginalized people of Sudan, Darfur in particular.

The Author is a former anchorman with Juba Radio. He can be reached at: [email protected]