Brains Like a Shoe

First posted at Save Darfur’s blog…

On Wednesday, U.S. Special Envoy to Sudan Scott Gration testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on the challenges facing the forty million people of Sudan. General Gration gave a sobering and honest assessment of the post-election situation in Darfur, where violence has been on the rise, and of the potential roadblocks to a peaceful and transparent referenda process early next year.

The Senators pressed General Gration on the administration’s plans and available resources to respond effectively to “all possible scenarios.” As Senator John Kerry noted, the international community is in a rare position to have “a map of the fault-lines” of a crisis. While General Gration seemed to be surprisingly comfortable with the current resources at his own disposal within the State Department, he acknowledged the magnitude of the challenge. For example, General Gration agreed with the recent assessment by Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair that South Sudan is currently the area of the world most at-risk for mass killing or genocide. He also highlighted the key issues that could be triggers for conflict during the referendum period – most notably the demarcation of borders and oil sharing.

On Darfur, General Gration stressed for the first time in unequivocal language that general insecurity and lawlessness remains his chief concern.  Rather than once again touting gains from the protracted peace talks in Doha or the diplomatic rapprochement between Sudan and Chad, he stated bluntly that such progress on the strategic level “has not changed the lives of people on the ground…[who] don’t have a way out.” Specifically, he noted as unacceptable the continuing offensive in Jebel Marra, the continued aerial bombardments by the Sudanese Armed Forces, and the breakdown in the ceasefire between the Justice and Equality Movement and the Sudanese government.  His frank acknowledgement of the unfilled gaps in services for victims of gender-based violence since the expulsion of 13 humanitarian aid organizations in March 2009 was also particularly noteworthy.

Read the rest of this entry

First posted at Save Darfur’s blog…

My colleagues Jerry Fowler and Mark Lotwis left Sudan last Friday heading back to Washington.  In order to set up a few more meetings in the South, I stayed on in Juba. Little did we know President Omar al-Bashir and his entourage of advisors and security agents would be coming to town—and staying in the same modest hotel as the Save Darfur delegation, in the very wing where Jerry had been sleeping.

Over the weekend, I had heard that Bashir would be traveling to Juba and a few other towns in the South to campaign.  In my mind, I imagined a quick dash by motorcade from the airport to a rally in Juba and then a few darts by plane to some other choice locations in the Greater Equatoria states.

So I was quite surprised when early Monday afternoon, I was confronted by a newly erected roadblock in front of my hotel.  Initially, the mix of police and security officials told me that I could not pass. When I explained that I was staying at the hotel beyond their checkpoint, they quickly scanned my backpack and then gave me strict instructions on how to walk to the next crowd of security personnel suddenly stationed in front of hotel gate.  After another round of negotiations that involved coaxing hotel staff out to verify my claims, I was finally permitted to enter the foyer—where I was promptly urged by a security guard to take my room key and, like a misbehaving child, go straight to my room.

Read the rest of this entry

Check out a piece that I just posted at Huffington Post…

“Bashir’s Pre-Election Victory Lap at the Scene of the Crime”

Can you imagine Slobodan Milosevic running for president in Srebrenica? The world would have been justifiably outraged. Yesterday, however, indicted war criminal Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir visited El-Fasher, the capital of North Darfur. While not an official campaign appearance, the trip comes three days after Bashir received the formal presidential nomination of his party in the upcoming elections in April. It is long past due for the world – and particularly the United States – to express its grave concern about the sham electoral process that in a few months could effectively legitimize Bashir’s repressive government. Read the rest here.

Bec Hamilton invited me to react to Ben Wallace-Wells’ essay, “Darfuristan,” in the current issue of Rolling Stone. You can read the full post on her great blog, “The Promise of Engagement.”

Here is the meat of it…

My issue with this essay though, and other less well-researched criticisms of the advocacy movement (see Mahmood Mamdani’s diatribes), is that it captures the fluidity and complexity of international politics and American activism to the gross neglect of important shifts and dynamics in Sudanese politics. The essay goes half-way by discussing the highly politicized nature of the IDP camps in Darfur today. By reading the complete essay though, one would think that Bashir and his National Congress Party (NCP) have successfully rebuffed all international pressures and that they have once again securely protected their monopolization of power and wealth in the country.

But as those who follow Sudanese politics closely know, Khartoum is not the same Khartoum today. The regime has its back against the wall and is fighting for survival in a self-destructive way unseen in its twenty years of dominance. Such an analysis is at the heart of the International Crisis Group recent paper entitled, “Sudan: Preventing an Implosion.”

Consistent international condemnation and isolation of the Bashir regime’s egregious actions in Darfur, South Sudan, and even in Khartoum and other areas of North Sudan, have opened the door for Sudanese actors committed to human rights and a more democratic and liberal form of governance to speak out and challenge the regime. The recent demonstrations of the Juba forces and the emergence of grassroots groups like Girifna are the two most obvious examples.  Reported cracks within the NCP regarding the future of the party and the state also reveal that all may not be well within the ruling cabal. The elections scheduled for April 2010 could put to the test all of these changing dynamics, especially if the opposition and civil society continue to work together to demand greater freedoms and civil rights. The international community and activists should not take sides in these elections, but they should continue to demand greater political space to allow Sudanese politics to take place without resorting to violence and repression.

Protesters yesterday in Khartoum, courtesy of Girifna

First posted at Save Darfur…

It was déjà vu yesterday in Khartoum, when on the second Monday in a row the police and security agencies loyal to Omar al-Bashir’s National Congress Party (NCP) forcibly shut down a peaceful demonstration organized by the Juba group (those political parties that signed the Juba Declaration in September) . The student group Girifna has a gallery of photos from the scuttled demonstration. This time NCP officials tried vigorously to split the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) from the network of political parties calling for reforms to the national security laws, peace in Darfur, and free and fair elections in April 2010.

On Sunday, the SPLM and NCP announced a breakthrough in their negotiations over the 2011 referendum, the status of the Abyei area, and the popular consultations promised to the people of the Blue Nile and South Kordofan. So on Monday NCP officials said that the SPLM had also agreed to suspend the protests warning that any move to the contrary would nullify the recent breakthrough. SPLM leaders though denied these reports, with Yasir Arman, the deputy secretary general of the SPLM, stating: “any attempts to drive a wedge between the SPLM and the Juba forces will not succeed.”

Instead, some SPLM officials participated in the demonstration and afterwards they and other participants strongly condemned the use of tear gas to disperse the gathered crowds. In addition, Pagan Amum, the secretary general of the SPLM, accused (in Arabic) the NCP of paying people to suppress the demonstration.

Read the rest of this entry

Protests in Sudan Today

First posted at Save Darfur…

Omar al-Bashir and his National Congress Party (NCP) failed another test today of their commitment to holding free and fair elections in Sudan scheduled for April 2010.  Responding to a march (see video here of crowds chanting “Freedom, Peace and Security”) planned by the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) and northern opposition parties, the Sudanese security forces violently quashed the demonstration and arrested a number of Sudanese politicians and activists.  We have been compiling information throughout the day.

The following is a run down and here is also a collection of pictures.

Amnesty International confirms that over 200 people, including opposition leaders and human rights activists, were arrested at the demonstration. It demanded that Sudanese authorities announce the names and whereabouts of those arrested and either charge them with recognized criminal offenses or release them immediately:

“This is yet another example of the culture of violence that the Sudanese government has adopted,” said Tawanda Hondora, deputy director of the Africa program at Amnesty International. “The government must respect the right of protesters to peacefully assemble and express their views. This is a crucial time for Sudan and all parties should abstain from using violence, especially in the light of the coming elections and referendum.”

Two of the leading members of the SPLM, Pagan Amum and Yasir Arman, were among those arrested. Our sources tell us that Arman was beaten severely by a group of police officers before being taken to the hospital.  Both men are now free. The children and grandchildren of Sudanese opposition leaders Sadiq al-Mahdi (Umma Party) and Hassan al-Turabi (Popular Congress Party) were also detained during the day. Here is an interview of Amum from prison:

All of us have been arrested in violation of our constitutional right of peaceful demonstration and marches. Our intention was to present a petition to the members of parliament to enact within these two weeks the Referendum Law on the right of self determination for the people of southern Sudan…Sudan is on the edge of an abyss and we must do everything to preventing it from falling into this abyss of disintegration and chaos…[We are protesting] so that these laws are enacted in conformity with the constitution so that there are freedoms which will ensure that the upcoming elections will be free and fair.

Al-Jazeera reported early this morning that the Sudanese security blocked them from covering the protests and confiscated their tapes.  Fortunately, they captured this footage before being shut down. Our colleague has quickly translated and transcribed two interviews in the footage.  The woman in a white toab(Sudanese national dress), a member of the Umma party, about a third of the way through the video says:

The arrest of the SPLM leaders and members of the Sudanese parliament has proved that there is no freedom in Sudan. This demonstration is peaceful, the people are peaceful. If the government is facing it with this number of military and police forces and with harassment and violence, that means this country doesn’t have freedom, no respect for law and order, no freedom of expression.  This consequently demonstrates the reality that the government is using the force to maintain its seat (in power) and is not allowing any democratic transformation in this country to take place.

After this interview, the man in suit, a member of PCP, asserts:

It’s impossible for the election to take place in an environment dominated by oppression and dictatorship. It’s crucial to change the laws one of which was referenced by the police today to justify their reaction to the protest…because the government’s justification for their reaction is Article 127 of the Sudanese criminal laws that allows the authorities to stop any kind of demonstration or protest even if its peaceful, as well as prohibiting any gathering for delivering statements of protests to the government…The demonstration is calling for the reform and amendment of many laws that were supposed to be amended based on the Sudanese Interim National Constitution.

Read the rest of this entry

This week Georgetown University’s Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding released a list of the top 500 most influential Muslims. Some blogs have criticized the overall exercise, as well as pointed to the conspicuous absence of individuals like Mohamed Yunis and Fareed Zakaria.  In looking at the six Sudanese included in the list, they collectively encompass much of the past and present in Sudan.  But who might be missing and who best represents the future of Sudan?

To start, the report describes Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir in the following unflattering way:

al bashir, his excellency president omar: Al Bashir is the current president of Sudan and head of the National Congress Party. He came to power in a coup in 1989 and has since instituted elements of sharia law throughout the country, including in Christian and animist areas. The ICC issued an arrest warrant for al Bashir in 2009, indicting him on five* counts of crimes against humanity (murder, extermination, forcible transfer, torture and rape) and two counts of war crimes (pillaging and intentionally directing attacks against civilians). *Note: Bashir has been indicted on seven charges.

It also, unsurprisingly, includes the two other Sudanese leaders that have dominated politics and the religious discourse in Sudan for the last four decades:

al turabi, hassan abdallah: Al Turabi is a Sudanese religious leader. He is widely regarded as a moderate and uses Islamic teachings to foster social development. He is an advocate for women’s rights, and believes Muslim fundamentalists place prohibitions above social development. He has recently stated that Sudanese president Omar Al Bashir should give himself up to the International Criminal Court for the sake of Sudan.

al Mahdi, H.E. Imam Sayyed Al Sadiq: Uniquely situated on this list as the single most influential Sudanese leader who derives influence from his lineage—his great grandfather, Muhammad Ahmad, claimed to be the Mahdi, or messianic figure in Islamic eschatology—Imam Sayyed al Sadiq al Mahdi is also Imam of the al Ansar sufi order and president of the moderate Islamic Umma Party.

These short descriptions fail to convey the complex intermingling of politics and religion in Sudan.  In reading them, one would never know that al-Turabi provided al-Bashir with the hard-line Islamist ideology and man-power to overthrow al-Mahdi’s democratically-elected government in 1989.  Labeling al-Turabi as a “moderate” may make sense today as he has recently taken stances that have upset Salafists in Sudan and beyond.  In doing so though, the description ignores al-Turabi’s track record of imposing strict sharia law in Sudan in the 1980s and 1990s and also providing refugee and support to the international jihadist movement – including, of course, inviting Osama bin Laden to use Sudan as a staging ground in the mid-1990s.

As for Darfur, the report highlights the tragedy by including:

osman, salih mahmoud: Salih Mahmoud Osman is a Sudanese lawyer, human rights advocate and a member of the Sudan National Assembly. Listed in European Voice’s 50 most influential people in 2007, Osman also received the 2005 Human Rights Watch Award and the American Bar Association’s 2006 International Human Rights Award.

Read the rest of this entry

Zhou Yongkang of the Communist Party of China andSudanese Vice President Ali Osman Tah meet in Khartoum

First posted at Save Darfur…

To close the week, more information on the China/Sudan deal reported first in the Sudanese press and covered here on Wednesday and breaking in the English-language press today.

John Garnaut at The Sydney Morning Herald details the power of security chief Zhou Yongkang who led the Chinese delegation to Sudan.  Garnaut describes the contingent from Beijing as “almost as impressive as Obama’s” and writes:

Zhou could not have made his visit to Sudan without the party leadership considering how it might affect the Obama-Hu Jintao spectacle in Beijing. Ostensibly, however, he and Bashir were simply getting down to business. They unveiled the first Khartoum-Beijing direct flights, opened a Confucius Institute, signed an agriculture agreement and agreed to jointly pump yet more oil.

The article also gives more of the back-story on China’s investments in Sudan:

Back in 1995 Zhou Yongkang was working his way to the top of China’s biggest oil company, Petrochina. He had close connections with another oil industry veteran, Zeng Qinghong, who happened to be a powerbroker for the then president, Jiang Zemin. Zhou and Zeng were the drivers and Jiang was the decision maker behind China’s hugely controversial decision to exploit Sudan’s oil reserves at a time when Western companies could not afford the political or reputation risk, according to several Chinese oil industry and foreign policy sources…This week, Zhou gave a modest account of that personal history.

”Fourteen years ago, then Chinese president Jiang Zemin and you made the strategic decision to start China-Sudan oil co-operation, and our bilateral pragmatic co-operation has since entered a stage of fast development,” Zhou recounted to Bashir, on the delayed CCTV report. Bashir was quick to give Zhou some personal glory.

“You are the important promoter of the Sudan-China oil project, the Sudanese people have special affection towards you,” said Bashir. “Sudan-China oil co-operation not only brought Sudan oil but also peace.”

Read the rest of this entry

Bashir in El-Fasher, Darfur

First posted at Save Darfur’s blog…

President Bashir’s National Congress Party in Sudan is driving for one primary goal: winning the national elections scheduled for April 2010.  All analysis of the NCP’s behavior between now and April should be viewed through this lens.

Bec Hamilton in a blog yesterday sees such motivations behind the NCP’s outrageous suggestion of closing down IDP camps next year:

[T]he NCP sees the 2010 election as a rare chance to start over with a clean the slate in the eyes of its neighbors, if not the broader international community. “Democratically elected Bashir” sounds so much better than “indicted war criminal Bashir.”

But the desire is not just to win the elections (the conditions have already been established such that short of radical changes that I don’t expect to see, I think it’s safe to say they have that one in the bag already). The desire is to be seen as having won them legitimately, which in turn requires convincing anyone who would dare to say otherwise, that the elections will be “free and fair.” The consequences of this desire are seen in several areas, one of which is the aggressive agenda that Khartoum is now pushing on IDP returns.

There is a very real sense in which those in Khartoum view the IDP camps themselves as the problem – as if the camps would disappear, then there would no longer be a “Darfur problem” and the world shift the spotlight. What the regime understands well is that “free and fair elections” and “2.5 million IDPs” are not concepts easily reconciled.

Part of the NCP’s effort, therefore, will be to make the case that the vast majority of Darfuris can participate in the electoral process.  A NCP-leaning newspaper this morning includes the headline, “The Displaced are the highest percentage of registered voters in South Darfur.” The article claims that in 10 days that 388,000 IDPs have registered to vote.  With no election monitors (domestic or international) working in Darfur, no one will be able to confirm or deny these numbers.

Read the rest of this entry

First posted at Save Darfur’s blog today…

This week, I have been writing about the African Union Panel on Darfur’s recent report delivered to and endorsed by the AU Peace and Security Council.  Having summarized the recommendations that Save Darfur submitted to the panel regarding the peace process, I will now summarize our recommendations for steps that should be taken to address the challenge of justice and the suppression of impunity arising from the conflict in Darfur.

In our submission, we highlighted the AU’s stated will in its founding documents to suppress impunity and ensure justice for mass human rights violations and atrocities.  As such, we urged the AU that “when faced with a choice between the rights of African people and the interests of African states and their leaders, the African Union should stand on the side of the people.”

To make the case for why justice was paramount to tackling the crisis in Darfur, we pointed to recent Sudanese history:

Parties negotiating the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) to end the decades-long war between North and South Sudan decided to leave accountability mechanisms out of the accord.  Less than five years later, implementation of the CPA has fallen far behind schedule, violence has increased on border regions, and regional and international leaders have been forced to devote significant energy and resources to upholding the CPA and preventing a return to civil war.  Similarly, the Darfur Peace Agreement (DPA) failed to address the need to end impunity and ensure justice for the victims of the conflict that has raged in Darfur since 2003. This deficiency of the agreement was one major reason for its death on arrival – why it was unable to gain the confidence of the non-signatory rebel movements and much of Darfuri civil society, particularly community leaders in the IDP camps.

Read the rest of this entry