Pact With a Devil
Omar al-Bashir. [Source: PBS]The United States is negotiating with none other than Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir, to attempt to forestall what might very well turn out to be another prolonged civil war leading to another huge loss of life in that country. Sudan's Omar al-Bashir, was found guilty by an international court of justice (International Criminal Court) of genocide in Darfur and a warrant sent out for his arrest. Which the Arab and Muslim nations characterize as a miscarriage of justice.
Oil-wealthy Sudan, under its Islamist National Congress Party is concerned that the south where most of the oil and gas fields are located will vote to secede from the north. A previous civil war that lasted 22 years resulted in almost two million dead. And although the United States had, in 1993, placed Sudan on a list of sponsors of terrorism, replete with sanctions, it is now prepared to lift Sudan from the list if its government will agree to let the vote proceed without violent repercussions.
Sudan's north, with its largely Arab population, has little sympathy for the southern African tribes; the latter are farmers, the former traditionally herdsmen, and migrating herds foraging on land meant to grow crops don't make for agreeable compromises between people valuing their traditions and customs inimical one to the other. Sudan's dreadful Darfur situation with hundreds of thousands of Darfurians forced to flee marauding Arabs on horseback, raping women, murdering at will, is illustrative of the relations between north and south.
There has been no solution to the Darfur humanitarian crisis. Hundreds of thousands of Darfurians, forced to flee their homes and their farms and their villages, live in fear and misery in squalid refugee camps. Even there, the displaced are harassed and victimized by the marauding janjaweed.
Who will be prepared to launch their attacks once again in the south, in a violent attempt to keep the south from seceding from Sudan.
The relatively few UN peacekeepers posted in the geography are not likely to become involved if real violence erupts. Just as the UN peacekeepers were unable to intervene in Rwanda to save Tutsis from the horrendous slaughter by Hutus, the UN peacekeepers, most of whom augmented the presence of African Union peacekeeping force, ill-equipped and inadequate to the situation, will not have the authority to engage in combat.
There is the future prospect of a cataclysmic upheaval should the south, as expected, vote to secede from the north. What happened in India when Pakistan was created, with an exchange of people and the wholesale sacrifice of human lives when the Muslims slaughtered Hindus and Hindus returned the compliment, is fairly certain to re-occur in Sudan.
What the world witnessed more recently after the collapse of Yugoslavia and the resulting brutal war and slaughter between the Serbs, Croats and Bosnian Muslims will likely re-occur, in Sudan.
If, as expected, the fiercely determined, better militarily equipped north moves to secure the oilfields in the south, "it would be a humanitarian disaster and the international community would have to step in", in the words of one Western diplomat.
Impotently, however, much as it sat back and waited for the Rwandan crisis to resolve itself. And it isn't too likely that NATO will take it upon itself to intervene in Sudan given the fully-absorbing situation in Afghanistan.
Labels: Africa, Political Realities, Traditions, Troublespots
posted by Pieface @ Sunday, November 14, 2010
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