From: Berhane Habtemariam (Berhane.Habtemariam@gmx.de)
Date: Sat Jan 24 2009 - 06:08:17 EST
Sudan: 'Anything is Possible' If ICC Indicts President
23 January 2009
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Khartoum — The issuing of an arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar
al-Bashir by the International Criminal Court (ICC) on charges of genocide,
war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur - accusations the
government rejects - would be an unprecedented event in the history of
international justice.
The court is expected to decide on the warrant in the coming weeks. But what
would be the ramifications in Sudan? Here are some possible outcomes being
discussed by observers and analysts contacted by IRIN. As one western
diplomat put it, "anything is possible".
Sudan's political developments directly affect both humanitarian needs and
responses. The UN and its partners say they need US$2.18 billion in 2009 to
supply four million people with food aid and more than 1.5 million
additional people with safe water; to help 54,000 returnees and get more
than 800,000 children into schools; to clear mines from more than 7,500km of
roads and ensure more than four million people have access to basic
healthcare.
State of emergency
Analysts say the government could dissolve parliament and declare a state of
emergency. The government has denied it will take this approach, but is
divided internally between moderate voices and more extremist hardliners.
"It really depends on which version of [the ruling National Congress Party]
survivalism prevails," says Eric Reeves, Sudan researcher at Smith College
in Massachusetts.
Coup
Rumours of a coup have also been rife. One senior member of government says
people within Bashir's inner circle "are conspiring against each other.
Bashir has become a liability to the party. He must go."
Analysts say Ali Osman Taha, Vice-President, is the most likely candidate to
succeed. Other names being circulated are Nafie Ali Nafie, presidential
adviser and leading member of the National Congress Party (NCP), and Salah
Gosh, head of the National Intelligence and Security Service.
But Reeves says none of them has enough support and they all know they too
could be prosecuted by the court for their involvement in the Darfur
conflict. As the diplomat said: "What's the point of leading a coup or
getting rid of him if you're on the list as well?"
Rebel attack
The rebel Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), which launched an
unprecedented assault on the capital in May 2008, has vowed several times to
attack again. In December, it warned civilians to stay away from army bases
as an attack was "imminent".
London-based El-Tahir El-Faki, speaker of JEM's legislative assembly,
promises the group - considered Darfur's most powerful - will hand over
Al-Bashir to the ICC. "If the indictment is issued, we will co-operate with
the ICC to capture Al-Bashir by all means, even if we have to go into direct
battle in any city in Sudan," he says. "We will do our utmost to hand him
over to the ICC. He has to face justice."
The government fears an arrest warrant would empower the rebels. "The rebels
will consider such a decision as some sort of support for them. They might
heighten military activity and target cities," says Ali Sadig, spokesman for
the foreign affairs ministry. "There is going to be some sort of chaos."
Several reports have pointed to increased mobilisation of government-allied
militia in Darfur in recent weeks, and the National Intelligence and
Security Service has said its forces are "on alert" to counter any attack.
US military intervention
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said recently there was a need to "sound
the alarm" again about Darfur. She said the US was considering several
options, including a no-fly zone over Darfur and direct intervention in
support of the struggling joint UN-African Union peacekeeping force, UNAMID.
Both Reeves and analyst Alex de Waal, of the New York-based Social Science
Research Council, say this is unlikely, considering the US military's
commitments elsewhere, the extent to which such an intervention would
undermine the peacekeeping force, and the danger in which it would put
American citizens in Sudan.
Increased sanctions by the US are possible.
Collapse of the 2005 peace agreement
One of the biggest fears among analysts and Southern politicians is the
impact on the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement, which ended more than two
decades of the North-South war that left two million dead and displaced four
million. According to De Waal, author of several books on Sudan, the
indictment's main impact will be to slow down the political process. "The
ICC will make it impossible for any other issue to be front and centre in
Sudan and kill off possibilities of [the vision of a] New Sudan and the
democratisation of Sudan."
The dominant party in the South, the former rebel Sudan People's Liberation
Movement (SPLM), had initially urged the NCP to engage the ICC. But more
recently, its leader, Southern President and national Vice-President Salva
Kiir has taken a strong stand against the court, in fear of what its
indictment would mean for the South.
"The problem we have here in South Sudan is what would happen to the CPA if
Bashir is charged by the court?" Kiir was quoted as saying in local press.
"What about the outstanding items in the peace agreement? Will they be
implemented afterwards? Will we have a referendum in 2011? These are urgent
questions that everyone should pay attention to."
Southerners have repeatedly warned that a collapse of the agreement would
necessarily mean a return to war. But the government promises it will
continue to implement the agreement and co-operate with the UN peacekeeping
mission in the South, as long as the latter is willing. "As long as those
two missions [UNMIS and UNAMID] are ready to continue business as usual, the
government will be committed to that," Sadig said.
Backlash against foreigners
In late 2008, some government statements hinted that UN peacekeepers would
be kicked out in the case of an indictment, though the government later
denied such accusations. Embassies, NGOs and UN staff have beefed up
security and developed contingency plans, trying to ensure their programmes
can continue if they are forced to leave the country. Evacuation plans are
also in place.
"They will feel obliged to lash out in some way," UN Under-Secretary-General
for Humanitarian Affairs John Holmes said of the Sudanese government in a
recent interview with Newsweek. "Some of them are saying 'give the bastards
a good kicking'... You can't imagine nothing will happen."
At a recent demonstration supporting Gaza, one protester called for attacks
on foreigners. A few days later, security chief Gosh warned that attacks by
"outlaws" could not be ruled out. Sadig said the government would do its
best to control people, who he expected would protest outside UN buildings
and embassies of countries that support the ICC.
Dilemma for UN
"[The indictment] is going to be as much of a problem for the internationals
as it is for Sudan," says De Waal. The UN and those countries that are party
to the Rome Statute of the ICC will face a dilemma, he says. "How are you
going to co-operate officially with a government whose head of state you
have an obligation to arrest? How do you send an ambassador? How do you have
an aid programme? How do you have a military cooperation agreement - which
is what the UN has to have because it has troops here? How do you sit down
across the table with military officers whose commander-in-chief has been
indicted as a war criminal?"
What might be more likely than forced expulsion of foreigners, De Waal says,
are self-imposed restrictions. Lawyers are studying this "terrain
incognito".
Crackdown on rights activists
A very likely outcome, analysts say, is an increased crackdown on rights
workers. In November, three local activists were detained, they say, for
allegedly raising awareness about the ICC, sending the court reports and
defending the cause of Darfur. One, Monim Elgak, says he was tortured while
in detention. Another, Amir Mohamed Suliman, says that while such detentions
are not unusual in Sudan, they have become more common since the
prosecutor's request for an arrest warrant. "Now it's a campaign," he says.
"This situation changed our work to be very difficult."
Mohamed Alsary Ibrahim, is on trial for allegedly trying to pass sensitive
documents about Darfur, leaked by a contact in Sudan's police force, to the
ICC. He denies this. Hassan Turabi, head of the opposition Popular Congress
Party, was detained on 14 January after urging Al-Bashir to resign and hand
himself over to the court in Sudan's interest. Media reports have said he
too could be put on trial.
Shrinking humanitarian space
NGOs already face huge difficulties obtaining visas for staff and getting
travel permits. "Even to transport fuel, every single time, you need a
half-dozen signatures," one aid worker said. Officials from the Humanitarian
Aid Commission have raided aid workers' offices, demanding to see
confidential emails and files, though the government denies the accusations.
Humanitarian actors fear an indictment will only make their work more
difficult. "I don't think there will be violence in the street," the aid
worker said. "I think it'll be more of a clampdown on space for humanitarian
agencies to operate. I think that's pretty much guaranteed."
Business as usual
However, these are all unlikely worst-case scenarios. "The most likely
outcome is that the government - either because they can't agree internally
or because they think it's the best course of action - actually does
nothing, and continues as before," De Waal says.
He points to the exclusion of Sudan from the International Monetary Fund
years ago. "Everyone thought that was the end of the story for Sudanese
finance. It wasn't."
Almost the entire Arab and African world supports Sudan against the ICC,
arguing it is a biased and political tool that only targets Africans and
infringes sovereignty. Al-Bashir would likely be able to travel freely in
the region without fear of arrest, and could, De Waal claims, simply carry
on with an arrest warrant over his head indefinitely.
For its part, the government has been defiant. Sadig says: "We will
disregard the ICC decision. We will not co-operate. We will not think of
handing over the president. We will be very much occupied with internal
issues. We will just forget about the ICC."
And even in the case of a coup and new leadership, says Reeves, little would
improve in Darfur.
"Grimly, there is little reason to suppose that even the indictment of
Al-Bashir for genocide would be the occasion for the kinds of action that
will sustain and protect the 4.7 million civilians affected by this conflict
who remain at the mercy of Khartoum's cabal of génocidaires," he wrote in
The Guardian in December.