The Accused One’s Profile
By Ahmed Elzobier
July 20, 2008 — For the last four years most media outlets around the world, when reporting on Darfur, will conclude by writing that “In Darfur more than 200,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million have been made homeless since a revolt broke out in the region in 2003”. Zbigniew Brzezinski noted in his book Second Chance that “It is now cheaper to kill a million people than to govern them”. I think by now, especially in the Islamic world, people will draw their own conclusions and that Sudan has provided, at a very high human cost, an experimental laboratory. The findings are conclusive – political Islam is inherently incapable or unfit to govern people living in the 21st century.
The case: On 14 July 2008, the International Criminal Court (ICC) officially accused the President of Sudan, Omer Al-Bashir and 11 members of his government of committing genocide and gross human rights violations in Darfur.
The accused one’s profile: “He is kind and generous, a true Sudanese coming from a poor family”, says one of his government officials. However, we also know that human nature is not innately cruel and only rare sociopaths can participate in atrocities without suffering lasting emotional harm as psychiatrist Robert Lifton noted.
The rhetoric: The media in Sudan is all about representing one opinion and one voice. A Cold War era propaganda machine, not really concerned about objectivity or neutrality, or finding the truth. It is only about serving the ruling political party’s objectives, and dissenting voices are anathema. Since the news was leaked last Thursday it has unleashed its propaganda strategy in its fullest form and everything seems to be at stake:
“We are targeted, our sovereignty has been violated. The president is a symbol of the country and this is a conspiracy against Sudan. This is similar to what happened in Iraq. Our judicial system is fair and just and this is a political and not a legal accusation. This has never happened before. This happens to us because we believe in Islam. Because they know the National Congress Party (NCP) is going to win the election. Because of our successes and economic progress.”
The blackmailing tactics: To the international community, “this will hamper our relations with the UN and all those countries that support such accusations. This will destroy peace and stability in Sudan, and even the entire region.”
To the helpless Sudanese political parties: “Let us get together to save this country, we should have a national consensus to find a Sudanese solution to the Darfur problem.”
Some Wild West suggestions: To freeze the CPA and DPA, and declare Jihad and go back to the “golden days” of Al Ingaz, or as some veteran NCP member suggested, reminding people of the “golden days” irrationality, “we should be proud of this kind of accusation”.
To the helpless regional powers: “Let us get together and condemn this accusation, maybe you will be next, nobody is safe any more, look what happened to us.”
What we could make of this:
The conspiracy theory that it is all “a plot by Western powers” is universally accepted by all commentators from Sudan. The reality is that many “politicians in the West” are scarcely competent enough to control their own countries, let alone what happens in other countries, Iraq being a shining example. If there is a conspiracy, by definition it needs a highly committed network of people secretly working together. You just can’t keep a secret like “regime change in Sudan” for very long with so many people involved.
Alex De Waal, African Union advisor on the Darfur Peace Agreement (DPA), and journalist Julie Flint, in a joint article recently expressed their fear of political collapse and the escalation of violence if Ocambo went ahead with his charges. Andrew Natsios, the former US special envoy for Sudan, expressed his belief that the charges were a disaster in the making.
According to the Guardian’s Simon Tisdall, “Even the Bush administration, famous for its black-and-white view of the world, seems to be in two minds. It supports the court’s right to bring the indictment but it does not recognise the court per se. And although it lists Sudan as a state sponsor of terrorism, Washington is encouraging democratic reform, not regime change, via national elections due next year. Little wonder the outlook is hazy”.
So the above outlines the case, the accused one’s profile (according to loyal admirers), the delusional government supporters’ rhetoric, and the blackmailing of regional and international powers. Understandably, many of the Sudanese who have appeared on local or international TV and radio stations defending the government have family and children to feed – unfortunately we mistakenly call them t Sudan’s politicians.
For the elites only know self-interest, never mind the victims, or the wretched millions of IDPs and refugees, or those hundreds of thousands killed or raped, and their entire lives meticulously destroyed. Never mind the corruption, greed, nepotism, racism, totalitarianism, class discrimination, and sheer selfishness combined with a complete disregard for human suffering that has become the norm in this country. Because, in this country, the lie has become not just a moral category but a pillar of the state, a way of life, a pastime, a kind of hobby – we lie to ourselves, to our shadows, then of course to others.
The Way Out:
It seems that suddenly in Sudan we are blessed with countless numbers of International Law experts providing the government with generous free legal advice, live on-air. Unfortunately most of it is, at best, confused and, at worst, politically blind. I think that to take them seriously would be a deadly mistake from the accused one’s point of view.
I am sure the “eighth sin” syndrome of self-righteousness, “I will never forgive you for making us kill your sons”, will not work as a way out and will be dangerous, and the comparison with Bush or Israel entails an admission of guilt.
I think the trick for the president is very simple, he should put himself in his victims’ shoes. For soul-searching reasons, the president should go and spend some time in a Darfur IDPs camp. This should be done without the protection of an armoured car, a machine gun, or bodyguards. It could be dangerous, but who knows, foolhardiness mistaken for bravery could be life saving as people respect bravery in Sudan? He could then witness first hand the devastation, cruelty and monstrous injustice for himself, listen to the peoples’ stories and plead for forgiveness on camera.
He could also parrot the former US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s rhetorical puzzle, when he said; “There are known; there are things we know. We also know there are known unknowns,” Who knows? It might work for him. I think people might even understand his predicament and he could be forgiven, and they might even sign a petition to Luis Moreno-Ocampo requesting him to stop harassing their kind and generous president.
Seriously, in a perfect world the president should resign from his position now (a constitutional amendment could be worked out). To be accused of genocide is not something you can just brush aside and pretend that nothing has happened; national, regional or international powers will not be able to repaint his tarnished image and such accusations would haunt anyone to his grave, let alone a president.
However, right now in our parallel universe in Sudan where the ruling elites have lost any sensitivity and feeling of shame, it is all about the country’s destiny that is somehow linked to its symbolic, kind and generous self-imposed president and nothing else. The people of the country, especially in Darfur, have to endure a lame-duck presidency for some time to come, unless a miracle happens in elections or otherwise.
Contrary to the prediction of some international experts, the immediate impact of the ICC decision has resulted in the leadership of the NCP giving unexpected rhetorical concessions in the last few days. At least the veneer of smugness and arrogance has suddenly vanished from their faces. The president, on the eve of the ICC decision, came up with the hastily composed “Sudan Darfur Peace Initiative”. As he read it to the bewildered Sudanese political parties’ leaders they were shocked by this sudden interest in their opinions, opinions that had been neglected for so long and always dismissed as irrelevant. The initiative and the consultation might be too late, “because the damage has already been done”, as the leader of the Communist Party, Mohamed Ibrahim Nugud sarcastically said when addressing the desperate president.
On an international level, Gareth Evans, from the International Crisis Group, reportedly said that a likely three-month delay before an arrest warrant for Al-Bashir would be issued offered an opportunity to crank up pressure on Khartoum. If it responded positively the Security Council could suspend the ICC process indefinitely.
A final note; if there’s one thing we know about humans it’s our inherent unreliability and of course that includes our human made institutions. The ICC cannot afford to be a “toothless tiger”, as Phil Clark of Oxford Transitional Justice Research has suggested. It should be empowered and allowed to exercise its mandate otherwise the whole Darfur case, and other cases, could be a disaster in the making, where the first casualty will be justice. Or as some heartless letter writer to the Guardian has said; “Africans hate one another with a tribal passion that can only be sated with one another’s blood. We should leave them to it.”
I rest my case.
The author is a Sudan Tribune journalist. He can be reached at [email protected]