Amir Taheri: The Sudan - A Saga of Missed Opportunities

An economy in meltdown, a President of the Republic indicted for crimes against humanity, and a ruling clique fighting among themselves as piranhas in a pool.

The last thing the Sudan, one of Africa's martyred nations, wanted was a new round of violence shaking its foundations.

Yet, this is what happened on Monday as demonstrators took to the streets to call for an end to a despotic regime imposed with a military coup in 1989.

Although spearheaded by the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM), a southern outfit campaigning for independence from Khartoum, the demonstrations attracted a range of opposition parties from across the country.

Protestors sacked President General Omar al-Bashir's offices in a number of key cities in the south, the west and the north.

By mid-week, it had become clear that the movement enjoyed support from a broad spectrum of political groups, from the secular left to the Islamists led by Hassan al-Turabi, a former ally and, later, a prisoner of al-Bashir's. Even the ruling National Congress Party (NCP), an artificial concoction designed to offer despotism a democratic fig leaf, is now split.

It is no exaggeration to suggest that the president and his entourage no longer enjoy any significant support base.

President al-Bashir has always tried to justify his rule with the claim that he is the man who ended the north-south civil war that started in the 1950s, reaching its most intense phase from 1983 to 2005.

According to estimates by the United Nations, this was Africa's longest war and, having claimed 2.5 million lives, the costliest in human terms.

With almost 12 years of fighting, General al-Bashir's regime was responsible for at least half of those victims. Add to that the estimated two million believed to have died in the Darfur tragedy, and the general's record emerges as one of the bloodiest in modern African history.

There are times when history dictates the closing chapters even of the longest surviving rulers. Today, it seems that General al-Bashir's rule is becoming the subject of precisely such a final chapter.

The NCP regime may have reached the end of the line not only because of its disastrous political record, massive and well-documented corruption, and sheer brutality.

The main reason it is in trouble is its perceived incompetence, its obvious inability to offer a roadmap for the major problems the nation faces.

Today, the general looks like the Wizard of Oz at the end of the saga when he has to admit that he does not know how to lead Dorothy back to her home in Kansas.

It no longer matters whether he is a good man. What matters is that he is a bad wizard.

More at Asharq Alawsat

Sudan lifts media censorship

Omar al-Bashir, Sudan's president, has ordered an immediate end to state censorship of the media ahead of the country's first elections in almost 25 years.

In a decree carried by the official Suna news agency on Sunday, al-Bashir put an end to "pre-censorship", the system where newspapers are screened by state censors before being available to the public.

"We had a meeting with President al-Bashir. He ordered a stop to censorship from today," Ali Shomo, the chairman of Sudan's national press council, the state regulator, said.

Editors gave the announcement a cautious welcome, but some said they would still face pressure over sensitive stories.

Sudan's Ajras al-Huriya newspaper, which is linked to the former southern Sudan People's Liberation Movement, warned that journalists would still face pressure when writing about Darfur and other highly charged topics.

"There is no way they [the security services] are going to tolerate anything about security, about the International Criminal Court," said Faisal Silaik, the paper's deputy editor-in-chief.

Sudan's journalists have complained of regular censorship, saying security officers often visit their offices to check and sometimes remove articles ahead of publication, despite constitutional guarantees of a free media.

Editors say print-runs have been seized and titles shut down, particularly when writers tried to tackle controversial subjects such as the Darfur conflict and the International Criminal Court's war crimes case against al-Bashir.

Fadlallah Mohamed, the editor of independent al-Khartoum newspaper, said the move was "important" ahead of the national election due in April 2010 under the terms of a faltering 2005 peace deal that ended the country's north-south civil war.

"Censorship is contrary to free press in Sudan," he said.

"We are expecting the general election. It is very important to have a free press in such circumstances."

Read more here,,,,

Source: Al Jazeera (English)

Scores killed in Sudan clashes

More than 100 people have been killed in clashes in the Jonglei state in southern Sudan, officials have said.

The extent of the clashes, which erupted one day earlier when fighters from the Lou Nuer tribe raided a rival village, emerged on Monday after officials reached the remote settlement.

Kuol Diem Kuol, a spokesman for the South's Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), said a total of 51 villagers and 28 soldiers, police and national security officers had been killed.

"From the attackers, 23 bodies were found on the ground. These attackers were found in uniform with arms and organised in a military organisation in platoons with G3 rifles," Kuol said.

Mayen Ngor, the commissioner of Duk County, said the attackers had burned down 260 huts, the police station and local government buildings.

"This is a campaign against the Comprehensive Peace Agreement [the 2005 accord that ended Sudan's north-south civil war] and against the people of Duk," he said.

The attack injured 46 people and forced thousands to flee, according to Ngor.

David Gressly, a regional co-ordinator in south Sudan for the United Nations Missions in Sudan, said the attack appeared to have targeted SPLA forces based in the village.

"It is quite clear that the focus of the attack was on the organised forces themselves," he said.

"It is way too early to call this a civil war, but it is a significant law and order problem and one that the government of southern Sudan needs to stand up and address," he told the AFP news agency after visiting the area.

A surge of tribal killings this year has sparked fears for the stability of Sudan's under-developed south.

The United Nations estimates more than 1,200 people have died in ethnic attacks this year.

The Sudanese People's Liberation Movement (SPLM), which heads an autonomous regional government in the south, fought a two decades long civil war with the northern National Congress Party (NCP), now headed by Omar al-Bashir, Sudan's president.

The two parties signed a peace treaty in 2005, but tensions have remained.

Read more here,,,,,

Source: Al Jazeera (English)

Slavery in Sudan: Islamic Holyness in Action. Please (God), Help!

Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Support counterjihad heroine in her time of need...

STOPShariaLAWnow is the victim of a new flagging campaign on YouTube. This time they're targeting her video about slavery in Sudan, "My Slave, My Infidel."

Video/Documentary: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjmPVwG5jAk

Watch it, rate it and subscribe...

Source: http://occidentalsoapbox.blogspot.com/2009/09/support-counterjihad-heroine-in-her.html

Sudanese president's pilgrimage to Mecca defies International Criminal Court

David Charter | April 02

OMAR al-Bashir, the Sudanese President, made a pilgrimage to Mecca yesterday, threatening the credibility of the International Criminal Court, which has issued a warrant for his arrest.

Mr al-Bashir's journey to Saudi Arabia was his most daring act of defiance since he became the first sitting head of state to be named a fugitive from international justice last month and the court's highest-profile target.

The court, designed to dispense justice based on the premise that there are universal moral standards that apply to all human behaviour, wants Mr al-Bashir to face trial for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Sudanese region of Darfur.

While the 108 member nations that signed up to support the International Criminal Court (ICC) have a duty to arrest him, Mr al-Bashir has visited five countries since the warrant was issued - all non-ICC members - as he tries to polarise views against the court by portraying it as a vehicle for Western interference in Arab and African nations.

The ICC's four current cases are all against Africans, which some believe presents it with an image problem that Mr al-Bashir is doing his best to exploit.

The court's supporters are now prepared for at least one African nation to withdraw its support from the world's first permanent court for international justice after Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, the Libyan leader and President of the African Union (AU), called it "a new world terrorism" this week.

Mr al-Bashir was given a boost by the Arab League at the conclusion of its summit, which he attended in Qatar on Monday. "We reiterate our solidarity with Sudan and our rejection of the measure of the ... International Criminal Court against his Excellency," it said in its final statement.

Embarrassingly Ban Ki Moon, the United Nations Secretary-General, was also at the summit and in the same room as Mr al-Bashir, though he was careful to avoid any contact. The UN set up the process that led to the creation of the court under the Rome statute of 1998.

Mr al-Bashir's visit to Mecca, a short distance from Qatar, was said by the Saudi press agency to be a minor pilgrimage known as omra, in which he met officials from the Grand Mosque. The trip may help Mr al-Bashir cement support throughout the wider Islamic world, further eroding the court's authority.

Saud al-Faisal, the Saudi Foreign Minister, has said that issuing the warrant was a politicised decision that would not lead to the stability of Sudan or "solve the Darfur issue".

The International Coalition for the ICC, which represents the court's supporters, criticised those nations which welcomed Mr al-Bashir and scorned his attempts to drive a wedge between the Arab world and the court.

"He probably has a great deal to ask forgiveness for, if that is one of the purposes of going to Mecca," said Bill Pace, chairman of the coalition. "It is too early to say if the recognition by the Arab governments of Mr al-Bashir will hurt the ICC more than it will hurt the reputation of the Arab League and governments.

"It was expected that an arrest warrant for a sitting head of state would create tremendous controversy, and not only in the Arab world, but wherever leaders have fear of justice."

It is in Africa, where Mr al-Bashir has visited his neighbours Egypt, Eritrea and Libya, where fears are most acute that one of the continent's 33 signatories to the ICC will withdraw. The AU, representing 53 countries on the continent, pressured the ICC to delay issuing its arrest warrant against Mr al-Bashir for at least a year to avoid jeopardising the Sudanese peace process.

Jean Ping, the AU commissioner, is close to the Government of his native Gabon, an ICC signatory that some believe could be the first to walk away. Critics of the court are urging it to find non-African cases but that process will take time.

Mr al-Bashir has closed down 16 aid groups in Sudan since the arrest warrant was issued on March 4 and appears to have strengthened his grip.

"If there was an election now he would win it. The people admire a strong man and he has also managed to show himself as a victim of the West," said Faizal Silaik, deputy editor of the daily newspaper Ajras al-Huriya.

Source: The Australian

Genocide Henchman Leading Muslim Outreach to Obama

The president of American Muslims for Constructive Engagement is a former top aide to the indicted Sudanese president.

By Patrick Poole

In the 1990s, the extremist Muslim Brotherhood government of Sudan, led by President Omar al-Bashir, was continuing a genocidal jihad against the Christian and animist populations inhabiting the south of the country that killed nearly two million people and forced another four million from their homes. In July 2008, Bashir was indicted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes related to the regime’s subsequent genocide in Darfur.

As Bashir was waging his holocaust against the Christians during the 1990s, one of his closest advisors and top aides was Abubaker Ahmed al-Shingieti, who from 1993 to 1995 served as spokesman for Bashir’s government (as he was identified in a 1994 New York Times article). According to al-Shingieti’s own published résumé, he later served Bashir as director of public affairs for the presidency from 1995 to 1998, as the genocidal jihad against the Christians was at its height and Sudan was the hub of the international Islamic terror network. As reported by the New York Times, eight individuals charged in the New York landmarks bombing plot in 1993 were traveling on Sudanese passports. Read more ...

Source: Pajamas MediaAbubaker Ahmed al-Shingieti
Latest recipient of the Distinguished Islamofascist Award

Thousands protest in Sudan over charges against president

By Lydia Polgreen

DAKAR, Senegal: Thousands of people took the streets of Sudan's tense capital Sunday in a carefully choreographed protest against the expected request for an arrest warrant on war crimes charges for President Omar al-Bashir by the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court.

Students and members of the governing National Congress Party were brought by bus into central Khartoum, where they waved banners denouncing the International Criminal Court, based in The Hague, and the United Nations.

The Sudanese government held an emergency cabinet meeting to discuss how to respond to the expected announcement Monday of a request for an arrest warrant for Bashir, who has ruled Sudan since he took power in a military coup nearly 20 years ago. Read more ...

Source: IHT