Bashir set fire on Darfur, Africa thought it normal

By: Barrack Muluka

[ Posted On: 2008-07-23 ]

After snatching power by military force in 1989, Sudan President Omar Hassan al-Bashir was sworn into office in Khartoum clasping the Koran in one hand and a Russian Kalashnikov rifle in the other.

Addressing a charged rally in the Sudanese capital, Bashir went on to “vow here before you to purge from our ranks the renegades, hirelings, enemies of the people and enemies of the armed forces.” Africa thought this was normal. Here was one more African sovereign, newly arrived to the throne. He promised to exercise sovereignty in typical African style, by fiat. Might was right.

Had not Bashir's forerunners purged their countries of “renegades, hirelings and enemies” in Uganda, Equatorial Guinea, Central African Republic and indeed in Sudan itself?

Bashir would soon take up his distinguished place in international assemblies in the Organisation of African Unity, the forerunner of the African Union.

Africa was rolling out the red carpet for him in sundry capital cities. What he did in his country and with his people was a matter of indifference to his counterparts elsewhere on the continent.

Never mind that Bashir did not mince his words about how he intended to exercise power: “Anyone who betrays the nation does not deserve the honour of living,” he declared. And African leaders welcomed him to the high table.

Martin Meredith recounts in his magnum opus, The State of Africa: A History of Fifty Years of Independence, “Bashir's coup marked the beginning of a dictatorship that dealt ruthlessly with Muslim and non-Muslim opponents alike.

One institution after another – the civil service, the army, the judiciary, universities, trade unions, professional associations, parastatal organisations – was purged of dissent. Prominent Muslim sects, such as the Khatmiyya and Ansar movements were silenced. Hundreds of politicians, journalists, doctors and trade unionists were detained without trial.” But Africa wined and dined with Bashir in high places.

Dissidents were taken to ‘ghost houses' where they were tortured. A 1994 UN report says: “Detainees were subjected to burnings, beatings, electric shocks and rape to extract confessions from them.”

In 1996, a presidential edict separated the activities of women from those of men. Meredith recounts: “The authorities introduced regulations which separated men from women in public transport, in theatres, cinemas and picnics. He enjoined Muslims not to look at members of the opposite sex, forbade men from watching women playing sportsÉ”

Religion became a tool of oppression. He sent armed expeditions in South to kill ‘in the name of God' declaring Arab soldiers who died there to be martyrs “irrigating the land of the South with their blood so that the land may sprout dignity and honour.” But Africa wined and dined with Bashir in high places.

!B>Save our people

Bashir's atrocities in Southern Sudan are mind-boggling, despite the subsequent fragile Comprehensive Peace Agreement. Suffice it to say that as the war in the South was ending, a new one was beginning in the North.

The war in Darfur has been a study in deliberate, planned and sustained extermination of a people by their governors. Over 300, 000 native Black Muslims have been systematically exterminated and another two million exiled by the Government backed Arab janjaweed.

The janjaweed are veritably licensed to rape, loot and kill at will. Theirs is a deliberate state funded initiative to exterminate the Black people of Darfur and replace them with Arabs, Meredith reports.

Whenever the UN has tried to intervene, Khartoum has resisted vehemently. But Africa wines and dines with Bashir in high places.

Now the prosecutor for the International Criminal Court (ICC), Luis Moreno-Ocampo, wants Bashir to be tried for crimes against humanity. Africa is not amused. Even such a distinguished and respected scholar as Prof Ali Mazrui was on the BBC this week, asking the ICC to leave Bashir alone, because Sudan is a sovereign state. Sudanese authorities say they do not recognise the ICC. They should therefore be left alone. And so Africa will continue to wine and dine with Bashir in high places.

But sovereignty reposes with the people; it is not defined by territorial boundaries.

Leaders and scholars who conveniently invoke sovereignty to oppress the citizenry remain the greatest threat to their nations' sovereignty. In any event, Africa's so called sovereign territorial borders were crafted by a colonising European community.

There is nothing inherently sacrosanct about them. To invoke artifice of this kind as license to kill and rape is an affront to the true sovereignty of the people.

International Good Samaritans must be encouraged to come to the rescue of the people of Africa from the political dinosaurs in diverse parts of the continent. Bashir should be arrested.

He should be taken to The Hague. His arrest and possible indictment should send a clear message to other dinosaurs wherever they maybe on the continent. Their days are numbered.

Article Source: http://www.afroarticles.com/article-dashboard

About The Author: Barrack Muluka is a publishing editor and media consultant with Mvule Africa Publishers

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