BREAKING NEWS: ICC says no decision has yet been taken for Sudanese president

BREAKING NEWS: ICC says no decision has yet been taken for Sudanese president

Today, Mixed news of Albasheir Arrest Warrant but Tomorrow will be Real.What will there on the Streets of Khartoum?

BREAKING NEWS: ICC says no decision has yet been taken for Sudanese president
Dr. Martin Luther King Junior once said “Justice denied anywhere is justice denied everywhere.” In the light of the arrest warrant on Omar El Beshir, president of the Sudan who once ruthlessly roamed the lions’ territory is finally being caped upon by the lions. For the first time in history, and especially as Omar believed he was untouchable, the case of the International Community, the Sudanese people and the people of Darfur in particular against a sitting president is going to be established as a legal precedent in the International Law. Ladies and gentlemen, the indictment has worked and an arrest warrant is due against el Beshir and France is first to issue an arrest warrant against Bashir.

Bickering between African Heads of State masquerading in the image of AU solidarity, the so called Pan-Arabism and the Rule of Law is finally bringing change to the international system and how states should operate.
According to one SPLA major from Darfur, the SPLA under the leadership of Garang was recruiting people from Darfur in the late 90s. However, Dr. Khalid Ibrahim Mohamed conspired against Garang and formed what is known as the Justice and Equality Movement that was masively recruiting people from Darfur some of who joined the SPLA. The rebel JEM started its military operations that caused Beshir to use the Janjaweed as its paramilitary force, a militia that would later be effective as other militias operating in South Sudan against the SPLA. In 2001 the group splintered into two camps making Sudan Liberation Movement as the second rebel movement in Darfur.

Because of the Janjaweed’s destruction of villages in Darfur, JEM and SLA decided to jointly fight the Sudanese armed forces in the out skirts of Darfur in 2003. By April of 2004 the Sudanese government entered into peace talks with both factions of the rebels. The Sudanese armed forces continued massive compaigns against civilians, bombing indiscrminately villages belonging to the people of Darfur so that within a short period of time, sources working in the area suspect the Sudanese government to have killed over 250,000 civilians besides those caught in the cross fire.

In 2005, the Security Council found that Darfur was a threat to international peace and security and hence conferred jurisdiction over Darfur to the ICC which then assigned Luis Moreno-Ocampo to investigate the case. I was in Khartoum and did witnessed Omar el Beshir shouting on the loud speaker he was not going to bow to the ICC. Indeed by March 2007, Luis Moreno-Ocampo issued arrest warrants against Sudan ’s interior minister, Ahmed Haroun which Omar refused to order. In July of 2008, after substantial collection of evidence and witnesses, Luis Moreno-Ocampo finally appealed for an arrest warrant against Sudan’s President Omar El Bashir. This came about after so many obstractions against the investigation by the Beshir government. The reasons he listed include genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.

Reflections:

This case marks the first time the Security Council referred a situation of this nature to the ICC. From there on, El Bashir, his presidential clique and some African heads of States have questioned the legimacy of the ICC because Omer is a sitting president. Sudan suggested that this case could jeopardize the peace process in Sudan. Some have provided flawed arguments against the indictment fearing repercussions stemming from Omer el Beshir seizing the moment to reinstate a state of emergency, invoke all powers, dismiss parliament and dissolve the constitution and abrogate the CAP, a land-mark peace accord with the SPLA.M. The group further fears Omer will intensify the incursions against Darfur and the civilians will face more grave consequences and that he will expel all relief agencies in Sudan. They also indicate that the lives of all foreign workers in Sudan would be in danger as Omer will target them.

Along this line Bill Andress, an advocate for Sudanese people, posed a perplexing question as to whether justice and peace were interchangeable given the situation in Sudan. I gauged from his question that priority ought to be given to peace and I believe there are some out there who express the same empathy towards the civilians in Darfur and the Sudanese people in general. Nonetheless, this is a conundrum that we should not place upon ourselves since the stakes are much higher than just peace. We have to understand that justice and peace are intricately inseparable, complementary and utterly indispensable. They are compatible partners that one cannot go without the other. Surprisingly, why do we put an extraordinary trust in the constant manipulative desperado element of the Sudanese regime?

Although peace is the absence of hostility and the presence of harmony it is still necessary for justice to coexist so that it attenuates all the circumstances of the human person in the pursuit of life, liberty and happiness. The UN article on Charter of Rights says perfectly that, “in accordance with the principles proclaimed in the Charter of the United Nations, recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world.” Later on John Garang eloquently described the blueprint of the relationship between the ruling elite and the Sudanese people as that which is relatively peaceful at times but without justice at all times. He posed an example to further enunciate the point by asking that if some one sits on you and you do not complain, then the relationship between you and the one who sits on you is relatively peaceful because you have not made a complaint. However, if you were to complain about the incident and the one who sits on you shockingly asks why you are complaining, then he does not reckon the injustice and how excruciating you feel about the entire posture. Those in the nadir of virtually anything are the vast majority of Sudanese people living under the clout of the clique and it must stop by the removal of their protector, Omar El Bashir.

Legitimate though others feel disconcerted because the case is first of its kind, to me it underscores the question of precedents in law. Laws evolved from precedents. As such, the timing could not have been better if Omar El Bashir did not play a significant role in it. Ocampo provided the courts with significant body of evidence and witnesses that play key role on this case. In his application for an arrest warrant, Luis Moreno accused Omar al-Bashir of mobilizing the whole state apparatus, including the army and the Janjaweed militia, to methodically commit genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in Darfur since 2002. He convinced the court that Bashir ordered attacks on villages and camps, targeting groups on account of their ethnicity, while using rape, hunger and fear to create conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction. Furthermore, Bashir is accused of concealing the crimes committed in Darfur under the guise of lawless actions committed by autonomous militias, and provided impunity to his subordinates in order to secure their willingness to commit genocide pursuant to Articles, 1,2,3,4 and 6 of the International Law.

Sudan’s inherent ambivalent political history together with the quest for peace remains the greatest challenge and unless real structural transformation in the Sudanese politics and the institution is boldly taken. This ubiquitous phenomenon has been observed by Pagan Amum. Pagan believes that the Sudan was a failed State because it remains as a classic example of a predatory state rule by despots. During the civil war, Pagan was a member of so many Sudanese people fought against this sustained system that dominates the Sudan to the present has come to arrive at this conclusion despite the peace agreement between the SPLA/M and the Sudan government under Beshir. In his opinion, the control of the State apparatus remains vested in a small group of people who are awfully connected to each other either by kinship or some sort of personal ties. At the helm of power, of course is the presidential clique, those of Nefi, Taha and some odd fellows like Bona Malwal as the president’s most trusted individuals. These deeply impregnated individuals are a formidable element of the despondency in the Sudanese political sphere.

Of course, Omar will orchestrate a huge rally in Khartoum, commandeering all public transportation and the reluctant commuters will obsequiously chant with him anti western slogans, invoking the Quran shamelessly. It will be an indelibly huge mistake however for Omar to try to accentuate his military campaign against the rebels in Darfur because it will force the refugees to migrate to another country and Omar will then be faced with no choice when he gets defeats after defeats. But what is very important in this case is that the vast majority of the Sudanese are fed-up with Omar El Beshir. The army is fatigued of fighting; the war has caused deep-seated hatred as division has rooted deeply in society; families are torn apart as children who are caught in the middle of the war are either dead or end in the enemies hands; the where about of some falsely accused is not known; the incinerators in Kobar, Khartoum, the one in Nazareth, Wau and the white house in Juba all remain as the stigma of agony for all those who have been through it and the families that lost their loved ones in them. The women and young girls who were the target of this regime’s brutal rape and do still suffer in silence have received their answer to their prayer.

Written by: Charles J. Anteros
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