Facing genocide charges from an international tribunal, Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir has taken several recent steps to shore up his image, including holding a high-profile Darfur peace conference. But his opponents have called the meeting a farce and others say the gestures are “too little, too late.”
Al-Bashir’s latest moves include speeding up deployment of international peacekeepers in Darfur and arresting an Arab militia leader charged with war crimes by the International Criminal Court (ICC) — the same court that charged al-Bashir with genocide in Darfur. The government says the militia leader will be tried in a domestic court but hasn’t set a date or outlined the charges.
Many are dubious al-Bashir’s latest moves are more than an attempt to head off an ICC arrest warrant. The head prosecutor requested the warrant in July and judges are expected to make a decision within weeks.
“The regime is battling for time,” Sudanese analyst Haidar Ibrahim said. “It is now time for decisions, not discussions.”
Western and Sudanese officials say Sudan has been asked to show progress on several fronts, including speeding up the deployment of Darfur peacekeepers, improving humanitarian conditions and starting a credible peace process. However, it is unclear if progress would allow al-Bashir to avoid prosecution.
The UN Security Council is the only group that can ask the ICC to suspend its prosecution.
The most concrete step the president has taken is to speed up the deployment of a joint UN-African Union peacekeeping force in Darfur that took up its mission in January but has failed to get close to its full strength of 26,000 — partly because of bureaucratic stalling by the Sudanese government.
Since the ICC charged al-Bashir in July, the government has cleared a backlog of paperwork and allowed some peacekeepers to travel to Darfur by air, according to the mission. Those actions have helped increase the peacekeepers in Darfur to about 11,500, after stagnating at about 9,000 for most of the year.
But the Sudanese military also launched a new offensive against rebel-held areas in northern Darfur in August that the UN estimates has displaced some 40,000 civilians. The government says it is targeting bandits in the area who have attacked aid groups, but rebels have called the offensive a declaration of war.
The Darfur conflict began in early 2003 when ethnic African rebels took up arms against Sudan’s Arab-dominated central government, accusing it of discrimination. The fighting has killed up to 300,000 people and forced 2.5 million to flee.
Rebels say the recent military offensive conflicted with al-Bashir’s call for peace at a high-profile conference in Sudan earlier this month.
But rebels, key to any peace deal, boycotted the conference and said al-Bashir was not serious. They called the meeting a stunt to head off an ICC arrest warrant.
“If mediators are serious about it, they have to force the regime to stop the killings and rape,” said Abdulwahid Elnur, the exiled leader of the Sudan Liberation Movement. “The regime is ready to sign any agreement and then implement nothing.”
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