Snapshots: An X-ray of Cameroon�s Democracy, Governance and Unification

61. El-Bashir’s Problematic Intransigence

249 61 El-Bashir’s Problematic Intransigence Thursday, 31 July 2008 The application by the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, ICC, for a warrant of arrest of Sudanese President Omar el-Bashir on grounds of crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing and genocide, has cast a long shadow of doubt over an internationally acceptable definition of genocide and the procedure for tackling the phenomenon. Whereas human rights organisations the world over have welcomed the prosecutor’s initiative, the UN and the African Union are not quite comfortable with the dare-devil courage and timeliness of the prosecutor’s move. While the European Union has obviously not objected to any attempts to bring El-Bashir to book, the Arab League, on the contrary, and for obvious reasons, has condemned the application for a warrant of arrest of the Sudanese leader. The ICC prosecutor’s application has sparked such a terrible controversy and discord among world political groupings that one begins to wonder whether the world can ever come to a full agreement on how to deal with political rascality and leadership impunity. Even though the ICC is operating under a UN mandate which grants it independence of action, the UN Secretary-General, Ban kiMoon , is nonetheless sceptical about the possible repercussions of any indictment proceedings against the Sudanese president that might jeopardise the lives of members of the UN peace mission in Sudan, and compromise a fragile peace process that is making no head way as a result of El-Bashir’s recalcitrant attitude. And it is precisely because of this uncompromising attitude to the peace process that the prosecutor is seeking his arrest. In as much as 250 the arrest of an incumbent president on charges of crimes against humanity is unprecedented, one must admit that the perpetual atrocities perpetrated by the Sudanese regime against the people of the Darfur region considered as second class citizens, had reached untenable proportions that warranted drastic measures. The notion of racial superiority of the Sudanese ruling class was fabricated and established by British colonialists long before Sudan attained independence in 1956. The Nilotic ethnic groups which found favour with the British have lorded it over the darker-skinned tribes of the South and Western regions, and have monopolised power and the wealth of the nation to the detriment of the peripheral groups who have been forced since independence to put up resistance against marginalisation. The 20-year civil war between the Arab-led regime in Khartoum and Southern Sudan ended with a fragile peace settlement in 2005, but the regime’s continued attempts to exterminate inhabitants of the Western region of Darfur has led to a heavy toll in human lives. International bodies put the casualties at 300,000, while the number of displaced persons is estimated at close to two million in the past five years of unrelenting turmoil. Come to think of it, Sudan, by all standards, is not a poor country with annual oil revenue estimated at US $ 7 billion. Yet, the bulk of this wealth is used mostly for the benefit of the regime and its cronies. The vast disparity and inequality between the “chosen tribes” and the rest of the country is largely responsible for the emergence of armed rebellion of the marginalised people of Darfur, who see no solution to their plight other than autonomy or outright secession. Despite efforts by the UN to put a stop to prevalent violence as a pre-condition for working out a peaceful settlement to the conflict, the Sudanese leader, with the tacit connivance of China, his main supplier of arms and importer of Sudanese oil, coupled with the nonchalance of the Arab nations, has defied all civilised attempts to call him to order. 251 Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe has obviously defied the norms of civilised governance, but his threshold of violence falls far below the Sudanese bench mark. And if Mugabe can attract so much international vehemence, then El-Bashir ought to be physically restrained before all hell breaks loose. Extremism must be matched by extremism when it comes to violence, the only exception being that, in the case of Sudan, measures taken on the ground so far to contain the situation have been grossly inadequate. Initially, the Sudanese government had been unequivocally opposed to the deployment of UN peace keeping troops, leaving the few thousands of AU troops at the mercy of government-sponsored militia or killer...