It was announced today that Omar Hassan al-Bashir is the winner of Sudan's multi-party election, the first in 24 years.  This sounds like a positive move forward until you realize that Omar Hassan al-Bashir is the only sitting head of state who is on the ICC's wanted list (international criminal court) for war crimes.  

Sudan's president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, has been declared winner of the country's first multi-party elections in 24 years.

Bashir took 68% of a vote criticised as falling well below international standards. He remains the world's only sitting head of state wanted by the international criminal court (ICC) for war crimes.

Source:  The Guardian

Omar Hassan al-Bashir is accompanied on this list with such degenerates as Joseph Kony (Leader of Lord's Resistance Army), Kony's pal Dominic Ongwen, and several Sudanese war criminals.  

As of yet, there isn't sufficient evidence to warrant an arrest of Hassan al-Bashir, but the ICC has (on numerous occasions) credited him with being a key catalyst to the genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan.

Conflicts leading to genocide in Darfur are believed to have begun in 2003 and are continuing to this day, without much humanitarian relief from other countries.  The political stability of any African country is very much questionable, but Sudan is sometimes in a whole other league.

Joseph Kony, as mentioned previously, is another african militant guerilla leader on the list of the ICC wanted, and has been for quite some time.  If the term Invisible Children strikes any memory strands, you can directly associate that with Kony.  His "army of god" abducts children from their homes and forces them to fight in his army.  Truly a terrible man.

Rebel movements continue to create violence and murder innocent civilians in Sudan, and Omar Hassan al-Bashir has shown no sign of combating this. 

In the days of the 2008 Presidential election, a seldom mentioned topic of the Sudanese genocide in Darfur peeked its head in on occasion.  Barack Obama, who had been known in his Congressional days to work across party lines to better humanitarian efforts in countries such as these, mentioned the Darfur genocide as a campaign effort.  As politifact's Obama-meter labels, Barack Obama made a campaign promise in this realm of foreign policy.

Pressure Sudan to end violence in Darfur

"As president, Obama will take immediate steps to end the genocide in Darfur by increasing pressure on the Sudanese and pressure the government to halt the killing and stop impeding the deployment of a robust international force." ... as well as a special envoy to send aid and peace talk relief efforts to the afflicted region of Sudan. 

Dark days have fallen over Darfur for a number of years, and its troubling to realize just how many people have no idea what Darfur even is.  I voted for Obama, among other reasons, with hopes that he would address this situation that was virtually neglected by the Bush Administration.

Currently this campaign promise is labelled as "In the works," meaning that Obama has begun the process of accomplishing the goal. It has not seen any action in a number of months.

Sudan is an incredibly politically corrupt nation, whose government will most of the time refuse to acknowledge the genocide.  Even they do acknowledge it, they completely misconstrue the numbers to play it off as not being as bad as it is.  The situation is dire.

In recent months, there was claimed to be a low point in violence.  Peace treaties, although mostly failing in the past, had seemed to have made some headway and a resolution to the genocide was thought to be in somewhat dim sight.  However, conflict in the region is yet again on the rise.  Parts of the country are seeking independence, more citizens are fleeing to an already over-encumbered Chad, and the Janjaweed are still terrorizing the land.

This isn't exactly the big-ticket agenda item, and The United States certainly has a vast amount of "large" problems to deal with itself.  However, some action taken by the Obama Administration would be nice, seeing as how thousands upon thousands are dying.

Awareness must be spread, because this conflict continues without many even knowing that it exists.

"The Bush administration has spent years not only talking at very senior levels with one of the world's worst tyrants, who is responsible for genocide, but also reportedly offered the regime major concessions in exchange for minor steps and rolled out the red carpet for some of its most reprehensible officials." -- Susan Rice, May 2008

In March, President Obama launched a "high-level, urgent review" of US policy toward the Sudan. As a candidate, Barack Obama campaigned hard on toughening US policy toward the Sudan and bringing an end to the fighting in Darfur, which he described routinely as "genocide". As a Senator, Mr. Obama visited Darfurian refugee camps in Chad in 2006 and identified the issue as a priority. Today the Obama Administration in a stunning reversal unveiled its new Sudan policy. From the New York Times:

Laying out the basic outlines of his Sudan policy, President Obama said Monday that he would renew "tough sanctions" against the Khartoum government and increase pressure if it failed to improve the dire situation in Darfur -- but he also held out the possibility of incentives if Sudan cooperated.

"As the United States and our international partners meet our responsibility to act, the government of Sudan must meet its responsibilities to take concrete steps in a new direction," Mr. Obama said in a statement released by the White House.

The strategy, worked out after months of intensive debate, is meant to build pressure on Sudan to end the abuses that have left millions of people dead or displaced in its vast Darfur region. It places a greater emphasis on incentives than the Bush administration policy, but officials were quick to stress that there were also additional punishments on the table.

The president of Sudan, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, has been charged with crimes against humanity and war crimes by the International Criminal Court in the Hague for his role in human rights abuses in Darfur, and the new policy has come under criticism from some human rights advocates for its willingness to engage with his government.

A Sudanese presidential adviser, Ghazi Salahadin, said after the policy was announced that the new approach had some "positive points" and represented a "new Obama spirit," but he expressed disappointment that the president had referred explicitly to genocide, Reuters reported from the capital, Khartoum.

Washington officials offered few details on Monday about the policy beyond its general aims. The United States, Mr. Obama's statement said, would work to end gross human rights abuses, including genocide, in Darfur, seek implementation of the peace agreement that ended a war between northern and southern Sudan, and ensure that Sudan not serve as a haven for terrorists.

"If the government of Sudan acts to improve the situation on the ground and to advance peace, there will be incentives; if it does not, then there will be increased pressure imposed by the United States and the international community," the statement said.

Speaking at a news conference at the State Department, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Maj. Gen. J. Scott Gration, retired, the president's special envoy to Sudan, and Susan Rice, the ambassador to the United Nations, did not provide details on what incentives might be offered to Sudan. Mrs. Clinton said that the administration had "a menu of incentives and disincentives, political and economic, that we will be looking to," but added that it was in a classified addendum to the strategy document.

One does not does give "incentives" to Omar al Bashir. One arrests Omar al Bashir for crimes against humanity. The Administration's embrace of realpolitik is fast becoming a disgrace. This Administration is embracing tyrants while spurning meetings with the Dalai Lama.

The US Sudan strategy announced today includes, "A frank dialogue by the Special Envoy with the Government about what needs to be accomplished, how the bilateral relationship can improve if conditions transform, and how the government would become even more isolated if conditions remain the same or worsen. The dialogue must be based on a policy of 'verify, then trust.'" It goes on to say, "Backsliding by any party will be met with credible, meaningful disincentives leveraged by Washington and the international community." In other words, a slap on the wrist. By embracing Omar al Bashir and extending him a lifeline, the Obama Administration has condoned genocide against not just Darfurians but the numerous peoples of the South Sudan.

There are, no doubt, limits to American power. The reality is that the West has little to no leverage on the Sudan. But to offer "incentives" to a government that Obama himself once described as having "offended the standards of our common humanity" is a bridge too far for me. Though the Administration is describing the approach as pragmatic and driven by a sense of urgency, it is willfully naive to expect that Omar al Bashir is even interested in changing his behavoir. How does one even attempt to reform a genocidal maniac?

Well if you're General Scott Gration, the Special Envoy to Sudan, you start offering "gold stars and cookies". On his return from meeting the charming mass murderer al Bashir in Khartoum, General Gration said "We've got to think about giving out cookies. Kids, countries -- they react to gold stars, smiley faces, handshakes, agreements, talk, engagement."

You have got to be kidding me.

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(cross-posted at kickin it with cg and motley moose)

Physicians for Human Rights, in partnership with the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, has published a report documenting the scope and long-term impact of rape and other sexual violence experienced by women who fled attacks on their villages in Darfur and are now refugees in neighboring Chad.

The report -- titled "Nowhere To Turn: Failure To Protect, Support and Assure Justice for Darfuri Women" corroborates women's accounts of rape and other crimes against humanity that they have experienced in Darfur, as well as rape and deprivations of basic needs in refugee camps in Chad. Based on interviews with female refugees living in Chad's Farchana refugee camp, the report calls for "vigorous prosecution of rape as a war crime."

"Many Darfuri women refugees live in a nightmare of memories of past trauma compounded by the constant threat of sexual violence around the camps now," said said Susannah Sirkin, the physician group's deputy director.

"Women who report being raped are stigmatized, and remain trapped in places of perpetual insecurity. There's no one to stop the rapes, no one to turn to for justice for past or ongoing crimes, and little psycho-social support to address their prolonged and unimaginable traumas."

Dr. Sondra Crosby, a Physicians for Human Rights consultant and expert in refugee trauma, said "the atmosphere of intimidation was palpable as we listened to women describing their profound suffering and fear, and their yearning to return safely and with dignity to their former lives."

Of those refugees interviewed, "32 reported instances of confirmed or highly probable rape" -- 17 in Darfur and 15 in Chad, the group said. "Among the instances of rape reported in Chad, the vast majority (10 of 11 confirmed reports) occurred when women left the camps to gather firewood." And just over half of the 88 women interviewed -- 46 of them -- live in fear of sexual assaults around the refugee camp.

The group supports the issuing of International Criminal Court warrants against the Sudanese perpetrators, calls for "legal reforms in Chad to end impunity for sexual violence," and for "effective psychosocial support to survivors." Further it said increased protections are needed by police and peacekeepers, including "effective firewood patrols."

See the photos included in the report.

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Here in New England, people look forward to April as the days turn longer, and warmer and the first signs of Spring emerge. The young, and young at heart, often recite the old standard, "April showers bring May flowers." Unfortunately, in far too many parts of world, April is not a month to look forward to, as April is well on its way to becoming known as a month of tragedy; one with a strange and deadly history.

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