The Republic of the Sudan is Africa’s largest country. It covers 2,505,810 square kilometres and borders on the Red Sea. It is in Sudan that the Blue Nile and the White Nile join to form the Nile which runs through Egypt into the Red Sea. However, for all its economic potential and its romantic history, Sudan has been at the mercy of warlords, civil war, genocide, and hunger for many years.
July, 2008 has brought positive change to Sudan. A new election law was passed on July 9th, which not only introduces proportional representation to the country by assigning quotas to political parties, but also gives women 25 percent of seats in the national assembly. This legislation is a huge step in a society that has traditionally been male-dominated. Sixty percent of MPs will be elected directly by voters in local constituencies and women will be guaranteed 112 seats in Sudan’s 450 member parliament. The 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement which ended two decades of civil war calls for elections to be held no later than 2009, and an electoral commission is supposed to be appointed within a month of the enactment of the election law.
A second factor that may help Sudan to leave its violent history behind is the indictment of the country’s president, Omar al-Bashir, for war crimes by the International Criminal Court at The Hague. On July 14th, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, chief prosecutor at the ICC, told a panel of three judges that, because of his “absolute control” of Sudan, al-Bashir bore criminal responsibility for the atrocities that occurred at Darfur. In his application for the indictment, Mr. Moreno-Ocampo stated: “The evidence establishes reasonable grounds to believe that al-Bashir intends to destroy in substantial part the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa ethnic groups as such. Forces and agents controlled by al-Bashir attacked civilians in towns and villages in habited by the target groups, committing killings, rapes, torture and destroying means of livelihood.”
In another statement reported by the United Nations, Moreno-Ocampo said that the horror in Darfur is different than other types of genocide. “The most efficient method to commit genocide today in front of our eyes is gang rapes, rapes against girls and rapes against 70-year-old women. Babies born as a result have been called Janjaweed babies and this has led to an explosion of infanticide. Al-Bashir is executing this genocide without gas chambers, without bullets and without machetes…he used other weapons: rapes, hunger and fear.
Bringing al_Bashir and his henchmen to justice may be very difficult. In the first place is the attitude of the Sudanese government. On July16th, the parliament condemned efforts to indict the president as the process could endanger the fledgling Darfur peace talks. Legislators said that action by the ICC could weaken the hold that al-Bashir has on the country and lend strength to the rebels.
Criticism concerning the indictment has also come from the Chinese government. China is a heavy investor in Sudan’s oil industry and is Khartoum’s largest arms supplier. In a Reuter’s article from Beijing, Chris Buckley quoted a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman as saying: “China expresses grave concern and misgivings about the International Criminal Court prosecutor’s indictment of the Sudanese leader. The ICC’s actions must be beneficial to the stability of the Darfur region and the appropriate settlement of the issue, not the contrary.” Beijing has to be careful, however, as it must balance its energy and political interests in Sudan with its desire for a respected role in the Darfur peace efforts.
South Africa also has expressed fears that any indictment of al-Bashir could endanger the peace talks. South Africa’s U.N. Ambassador, Dumisani Kumalo spoke with reporters before a Security Council meeting that: “The search for justice should not jeopardize the other priorities in Sudan.” Other African nations are also worried that legal action now could cause anything from a power vacuum to destroying the peace process altogether.
Western diplomats are aware that indicting Sudan’s president could make a delicate situation worse. They feel that if the Khartoum government were willing to give up the two men charged last year by the ICC for atrocities in Darfur, or would prosecute them under the Sudanese justice system, the ICC may drop its indictment against al-Bashir. Al-Bashir, however, states that he has no intention of co-operating with the ICC, as Sudan is not a party to the court.
