The criminal paper-eater
The indictment of Sudans president isnt entirely useless
March 5 2009 is a momentous day for international justice. The International Criminal Court,or ICC,indicted President Omar al-Bashir of Sudan on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Darfur: he is the first sitting head of state to be issued with a warrant. Bashir has responded by saying that he would eat the paper with the charges a telling,and characteristic,turn of phrase. Ultimately,the decision cannot be enforced Bashir cannot forcefully be brought to the Hague,as there is no legal jurisdiction: the court has not got the authority to arrest Bashir in Sudan. He is,of course,unlikely to leave Sudan to enter any territory where he can be arrested; and there is international pressure,albeit limited from China and the African Union,to revoke the charges. This decision,however,can be used wisely to coerce the Khartoum leadership into acting on matters which it has traditionally avoided and overlooked.
The most pressing of those matters,Darfur,is a part of a larger problem,one facing the entire country. Sudan is roughly the size of Western Europe; ruling the vast country has always been problematic as can be seen from the multiple coups which eventually resulted in Bashirs accession. To the naïve eye the problem could be ascribed to divisions between Muslims and Christians,between Arabs and non-Arabs,settled tribes and nomads basically,the north and the south. In keeping with the British policy of divide and rule,Bashir has ensured that the south suffers as the north develops. However,a deeper look reveals that as much as the conflict can be accredited to the ideological divide between various factions perhaps the people are in fact not so different.
Take the case of the Zaghawa tribe,one of the many groups victimised due to their African attributes the colour of their skin and their place of origin though a closer look indicates that the people are in fact very closely related to the Moroccans,specifically the Berbers. The Zaghawas are also closely related to the Bedayet tribe,whose origins can be traced to the true Arab nomads the Bedouins. If one pigeonholes Sudans strife as Arab vs non-Arab,these relations,the interconnectedness between tribes,is lost. Successive powers have misused this interconnectedness to avoid reaching compromises in Sudan.
Analysts with the Council on Foreign Relations and experts at Foreign Policy are trying to take this
interconnectedness into account: neither Khartoum nor the rebel groups of which there are many are representative of Sudan; there appears to be no pan-Sudanese solution. This year Sudan will finally hold elections; however,the Sudan Peoples Liberation Movement or SPLM,the main rebel group,is too divided to win the upcoming elections,even if they were fair.
The ICCs decision will create pressure on the very fragile Comprehensive Peace Agreement,now in its fourth year,between the SPLM and the government. Khartoum has already responded by expelling aid agencies and threatened more expulsions. Ultimately it is through this agreement that Sudan will see any change; however,the parties involved have systematically ignored some of its major tenets.
Darfur is thus a specific example of Sudans general problem. For there to be any progressive change,there is a need to follow the tenets of the peace agreement over all of Sudan. The peace agreement has given the South autonomy for a period of six years with a referendum to be held later; however,this policy may fail to appease the warring factions for much longer. The indictment,which has dirtied Bashirs image even further,is going to derail further the agreements implementation.
How,then,to use the decision fruitfully? As a bargaining counter,to address Sudans graver problems such as the possibility of renewed secessionist claims from the south. A good starting point would be genuine dialogue over the Abyei border dispute. Bashir needs to make some gestures to his people that indicate he is in fact not the criminal the rest of the world is saying he is,and Abyei should be the point of pressure. This piece of land is at the heart of the conflict,and the peace agreement hasnt really addressed it. A referendum,as well a commission,has been conducted over Abyei; giving it to the Sudanese south means its central government loses a lot of land and oil revenues roughly 25 billion. In his last response to the report,Bashir informed he would eat the paper once again referring to the report. Even if the indictment is symbolic,it can be used to yield results.
alia.allanaexpressindia.com
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