ICC arrest order has some surprising effects
Michael Laudahn eOpposition
Sudan's repressive military regime has placed its capital, Khartoum, on a
near siege footing to prevent the war crimes indictment of President Omar
al-Bashir leading to a palace coup.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/telegraph/multimedia/archive/00691/sudan-darfur-404_691737c.jpg
<--- A Sudanese man uses his shoe to hit an image of ICC prosecutor Luis
Moreno-Ocampo
In the first sign that the indictment has unnerved Sudan's rulers, the army
has declared it will carry out a three-day joint security forces exercise
across the city, situated at the confluence of the White and Blue Niles.
It fears both a coup orchestrated by Western spies and a renewed assault by
Darfurian rebels, who penetrated hundreds of miles of desert and mountain to
shell Khartoum in May.
Now helicopter gunships menacingly patrol overhead, foreigners in Darfur
have been warned they face death, tanks guard the Nile bridges and troops
are preparing to dig a defensive trench around Khartoum's twin city of
Omdurman.
These measures have been complemented by a political drive to stoke up
anti-foreign sentiment with a stream of angry demonstrations and newspaper
articles denouncing international charities working in Darfur.
On Thursday, a British woman working for the charity Tearfund was attacked
in her compound by armed men, chillingly vindicating the United Nations'
decision to evacuate all non-essential staff.
Tomorrow the government is planning to bring a million people on to the
streets of Khartoum in a mass display of support for President Bashir.
In the biggest protest so far, more than 1,000 people assembled outside the
Republican Palace at the end of last week, carrying placards bearing the
face of Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the International Criminal Court [ICC]
prosecutor.
What began as a good-natured show of solidarity soon changed as a stream of
anti-Western rhetoric spewed from the speakers.
The crowd surged forwards and began setting fire to their posters, before
hurling them to the ground and stamping on Mr Ocampo's face - one of Islam's
most grievous insults - chanting "God is Great" and waving fists in the air.
"We will fight any foreigner who comes to Darfur," continued one of the
speakers, a government official from Darfur.
For the crowd it seemed to mean any foreigner at all, and smiles became
snarls when the crowd spotted a white face. They relented only when
plainclothes security officials materialised to ensure they did not go too
far.
The demonstrations and rhetoric in Khartoum are reminiscent of the charged
atmosphere before the 1989 coup d'etat, when conservative Islamists brought
down the government and propelled Mr Bashir to power.
Now they are on the streets not to upset the government but to support it.
Some other things have changed since then: a glittering skyline of glass is
rising over the Nile and Humvees cruise the streets - two symbols of the
country's oil wealth.
But beyond the expensive toys there are signs the regime is unsteady.
Government officials are convinced the ICC is trying to destabilise the
presidency and engineer grounds for a "palace coup" within the governing
National Congress Party.
Ghazi Salahuddin Atabani, a presidential adviser, said it undermined the
head of state's authority and risked the break-up of the country.
"No-one is asking it aloud, but everyone is thinking it," he said.
Many in the capital are watching the Darfuri rebels to see whether they will
be emboldened to launch fresh attacks he added."They have already made
statements in the media and are rejoicing openly," he said.
For much of last week helicopters buzzed overhead as security forces mopped
up remaining members of the Justice and Equality Movement whose convoy of
"technicals" - pickup trucks mounted with machine guns - made an audacious
attempt to take the capital in May.
Tanks guard the bridges across the Nile from the city of Omdurman where the
government is planning to dig a defensive trench. The uncertainty has kept
foreign aid workers inside. The smart new cafes that have sprung up to cater
for western tastes have been quiet all week.
Families of United Nations workers have been evacuated and all non-essential
staff withdrawn from Darfur. No-one will speak publicly about the problems
facing charities, but some workers talk privately about the fear of
expulsions and intimidation.
One aid worker cast his eye around a Middle Eastern restaurant to make sure
no-one was trying to eavesdrop before explaining: "There hasn't been the big
explosion of anger that maybe we thought was coming.
"Now the fear is that we will now see increased harassment, additional
bureaucracy, problems getting travel permits - all the sort of things that
the government has done before and knows it can get away with if it does it
slowly over time."
Khartoum has long been suspicious of charities operating in Darfur and has
made life tough for those it accuses of dabbling in political matters. It
regularly accuses them of passing on information to the United Nations or
the ICC.
A fresh warning appeared in Al Sahafa Daily newspaper, accusing Save The
Children, Care and the International Rescue Committee of harbouring spies,
supporting Darfuri independence and working against the Khartoum government.
It concluded: "These hostile organisations exploit the international media
platforms to justify their presence in Darfur, seek the sympathy of the
donors, intensify pressures on the Sudanese government and work for the
continuation of the crisis for the longest time possible."
For now the government continues to woo allies at the United Nations in an
attempt to head off the ICC. But inside Khartoum, the international
condemnation has brought many to the defence of the president.
"I support the opposition but I cannot accept what the ICC is doing," said
Al Siir Sabil, a driver, sipping from a glass of sweet tea at the side of a
sand-edged road. "This is an indignity for all the people of Sudan. We are
the people who should choose who our president is."
--
Give us back our countries: Stop the criminal multiculturalism ideology
enforced upon the white world against the will of its peoples, leading to
mass immigration from the third-world: Mul-cul + pol-corr = lethal mixture
for the white world. And give us back our freedom: Dismantle all
surveillance technology.