Today the International Criminal Court (ICC), indicted several high ranking Sudanese officials including Omar El Bashir, our esteemed President, for genocide and crimes against humanity. It is the first time in history that an arrest warrant is issued by the ICC for a sitting president. Some in Sudan view this as an insult, but I believe most think it is an answer to their prayers. Prayers from a people that have been starved, demoralized, killed, raped and forced into displacement.
The government reacted angrily and defiantly. But I am told that there is a real air of desperation in Sudan. The coup of more than a month ago has shaken the government. I just recently found out that my maternal great uncle and several members from my grandmother's town were involved in the coup. He is the nephew of our country's first Attorney General. They are from a non-Darfuri ethnic group, what the media would consider "Arab" ethnic group. In fact their ethnic group is the shared with many in the ruling class including vice President Taha. I was told the inclusion of many non-Darfuri ethnic groups, including so-called Arab ones has shaken many in the government. These members of the coup have been kept out of jail but are under surveillance. These members have been kept out of the media because right now Bashir and others are selling the coup, and indeed the whole conflict in Darfur as an ethnocentric conspiracy against their kind in Khartoum. For if the public knew that there are deep sympathies among the so-called elite Arab ethnic groups, than once again it ceases to be a conspiracy or mere insurgency from the lowly and primitive westerners, but rather a credible threat to their dictatorial rule.
The government has called in all their friends, including Russia and China, hoping that any resolution brought forth to the security council will be vetoed. They have called an emergency meeting of Arab foreign ministers. I believe that in a show of support they will arrange a meeting of esteemed members of the Arab League in Khartoum as a show of force. Let us not forget the African Union (AU), they too have expressed dismay and perhaps anger at the ICC's indictments. For to them it seems that only African leaders are indicted for war crimes, it cannot be that only Africans commit crimes against humanity. I agree with them, but as the former President of Nigeria Obasanjo once said, "if Africans do not clean their house, than others can come in and take over."
Some Sudanese in the DC area have started to protest every couple of weeks in front of the Sudanese Embassy. It is a little strange because the same people that we boo, and who eventually call the police on us, are the same people we see in social events and we are forced to pretend politeness to each other.
At the press conference today, Vice President Taha said that this indictment made it very difficult for the Sudanese government to guarantee the safety of UN forces and humanitarian missions. He also reasserted the government's claims that the Darfur conflict is a struggle over resources that is happening all over the Saharan belt, where desert meets savannah. That it is not a genocide. Basically he tried to remove every last drop of politics from the conflict.
In the short term things may get pretty bad on the ground, I just hope this will be a stick to prod Khartoum into the British peace proposal for Darfur. Many think that democratic transition in Sudan is only a matter of time. I hope that it will be sooner than later, and that Sudanese saying about corrupt leaders has no grain of truth in it, they say that one should "be afraid of those that are hungry, not the ones that have come hungry and fed."
