Darfur’s Human Shield protects Al-Bashir
Sudan’s moral, diplomatic, political and military failure in Darfur
By Julie Kuol
October 1, 2008 — Soon the mistreated people of Darfur will form a human shield to protect Sudan’s president.
Driven from their family lands, they have suffered bombings, starvation, rapes, beatings, torture and murder.
Displaced to camps, they are yet harassed by paramilitary forces. The president of Sudan has ultimate responsibility for their victimisation. And despite this the Darfuris will protect him to their last breaths.
Because they have no choice.
Soon the International Criminal Court (ICC) will issue a warrant for the arrest of Omer Hassan Ahmed al-Bashir for his criminal responsibility in relation to three counts of genocide, five of crimes against humanity and two of murder. When that happens it seems that Khartoum’s strategy will be to starve the camps. Meanwhile the Sudanese government exports food.
Where there is no honor there is no shame.
Sudan’s response to accusations of human rights violations is to further threaten civilians. Khartoum ministers make it clear that they will start a war against the humanitarian organizations working in Darfur. Al-Bashir’s spokesperson, Mahfuz Faidul, said Sudan is ready to “go further than what most imagine if the UN and the Security Council leave us facing the ICC,” he said. “It will be nothing less than ending all our agreements with the UN.”
The Sudanese Justice Minister Abdel-Baset Sabdarat warned of a political “tsunami” if the judges of the International Criminal Court (ICC) issue an arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omer Hassan al-Bashir. Things will be done differently and it won’t be business as usual like many people think” Sabdarat said. The justice minister was carrying out diplomacy in Jordan instead of investigating atrocities in Darfur.
Last month Al-Bashir threatened in an interview with pan-Arab Al-Arabiya TV to expel Darfur peacekeepers if the international court in The Hague formally seeks his arrest.
The African Union has urged suspension of the ICC warrant. Jean Ping seems more concerned to protect al-Bashir’s dignity than the human rights of the displaced Darfuris.
Khartoum plays with diplomatic tactics. “We would like to stress anew from this podium our complete commitment to achieving a peaceful and political settlement to the Darfur issue,” Sudan’s Vice President Ali Osman Taha said to the U.N. Assembly General on September 26. He did not go into detail on some of Sudan’s recent “peaceful” actions such as :
– painting attack helicopters white so that they would be confused with UN relief aircraft
– promoting Musa Hilal and Ahmed Haroun, organisers of Janjaweed militias, to government posts.
– attacking the villages of Birmaza, Tawila, Amar Jadid and Tarni with bombers and government troops in September
– the attacks on the camps of Kalma that killed over 30 people and Zamzam where 5 were shot and 2 abducted by Sudanese police.
– obstructing the deployment of the full force of UNAMID peackeepers – only 10,000 of the 26,000 have been deployed after one year.
– the September 12 attacks on the Minnawi faction, Khartoum’s only partner to the Darfur Peace Agreement of 2006
But then, Ali Osman Taha, was one who promoted the use of Janjaweed militias in Darfur in 2003. Vice President Taha instructed Musa Hilal to mobilize his tribesmen into the force that became known as the ‘Quick, Light and Horrible Forces of Misteriha
Richard Williamson, the US special envoy to Sudan, drew attention to recent attacks on Kalma refugee camp and across north Darfur. Government troops, “under the guise of a new law and order campaign to bring security to Darfur, are killing innocent civilians and creating more chaos in the region … The mayhem, murder and misery continues,” he said.
It is obvious that Sudan has no strategy for dealing with the issue of a warrant for war crimes by the ICC. There is no political strategy for bringing about meaningful peace negotiations. In fact the Minnawi SLA faction has been alienated by Khartoum’s failure to implement the 2006 DPA. There is no military strategy to bring ultimate victory over the JEM and SLA rebel factions. Sudan’s armed forces have achieved nothing decisive in 5 years and they were caught asleep by JEM’s Operation Long Arm attack on Khartoum in May. Bashir’s only remaining idea seems to be to let the militia ravage the IDP camps.
This will fail. It failed when Israel let Christian militia ravage the Palestinian IDP camps of Sabra and Shatila in the Lebanon in 1982. That atrocity was condemned as genocide by the United Nations General Assembly ; it broke the Israeli government and created a new wave of Palestinian militancy.
Bashir too will be broken if he follows Israel’s example.
The author is a Sudanese based in UK