Showing posts with label Khartoum. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Khartoum. Show all posts

Al-Bashir, Out and About!

Posted by Kuku on 10:05 AM
Labels: , , ,

Omar Al-Bashir has taken his first trip abroad to Eritrea. It is yet to be seen if he will take the longer trip to Qatar to attend the Arab League summit in Doha. It seemed as though he would have used the recent religious ruling to stay put in the Presidential Palace on the banks of the Nile, but he wanted to send another small slap to the ICC and its supporters. It is this arrogant attitude that, I think, will eventually lead to his arrest.


Source: AP

comments (0)

Arrest Warrant is Issued for Al-Bashir!

Posted by Kuku on 11:37 AM
Labels: , , , , , ,

The International Criminal Court has finally issued its long awaited arrest warrant for the Sudanese President, Omar al-Bashir.

Source: SudanTribune

I'll get right down to my analysis...

The first thing that I noticed was the fact that the Court only charged him on two of three accusations, war crimes and crimes against humanity. The prosecutor did not get his third request for the crime of genocide. This is very telling. Both the first two crimes can be very easily proven and linked back to Al-Bashir, however, the third accusation (of genocide) cannot be as easily proven or linked back to the President.

Could this be seen as vindication for the Sudanese government and the President as to their claim that genocide is not taking place in Darfur?

I say yes! The mere fact that the prosecutor failed to prove to the judges that Al-Bashir should be arrested for genocide means that they could not prove (from the evidence provided by the prosecutor) that if genocide did occur, the President is responsible. This will be seen as a signal by the government as the inability of the ICC to prove genocide, and automatically claim that it is not taking place. The Justice Minister of Sudan claimed that this failure is proof of the weakness of the case against the President. This is more in line with the view held by the UN, which has yet to label the conflict genocide.

Also, the 'Save Darfur' crowd in the United States cannot be happier. In fact, they are using this opportunity to raise funds, as if this arrest warrant is all due to their so-called "advocacy." This is a snapshot of their website's home page taken after the arrest warrant was issued.

Along with most Sudanese I know, I am very critical of Save Darfur (et al.). They have been the strongest proponents of intervention in Sudan, something which will undoubtably exacerbate the situation for the worse. But I'll leave that for a later time.

The reaction in Khartoum by the government was almost instantaneous. After speaking with some relatives in Sudan, the situation seems normal and as one of my cousins put it, 'business is as usual.' People were expecting there to be a coordinated attack by the Darfuri rebel group Justice and Equality Movement , similar to the one that occurred back in May 2008. People also expected for general violence to breakout, but none of the sort has happened. That being said, people are very tense on the ground and anxious for what is to come. I think people are worried most about the implications on the North-South peace agreement (CPA) and the reaction of the southern government. Here are the positions of Sudanese most prominent political parties. Also, the government has kicked out several international NGOs, among them are OXFAM, Care, and Doctors without Borders.

Here is a clip of the scenes from Khartoum today:


Also, most government employees in Khartoum (I have been told) were given Wednesday off of work and were encouraged to attend the "maseera" (rally or protest) taking place. Tomorrow, they expect to hold a 'million man march' in support of the President. This event will, per Sudanese tradition, are filled with pomp, officials screaming at the top of their lungs, music, dancing and more music.

The implications of this arrest warrant will be greatest on the President himself. According to Ocampo, the Chief Prosecutor of the ICC, even if Al-Bashir travels to friendly countries, his plane could be "intercepted" and he could be flown to the Hague. This is will effectively limit the President to remaining within the borders of the country, the only place where he is safe from arrest. This is reminiscent of reports a while back of the ICC attempting to intercept the airplane carrying another Sudanese official wanted by the ICC when he attempted to fly for Hajj in Mecca.

Finally, the implications of this move by the ICC for all of Sudan will have negative effects. It will further isolate Sudan and fortify its pariah status in the international stage. The move will make it almost impossible for the President to conduct official business as a wanted head of state. The best solution would have been to allow the government to save face and come to an agreement. This decision has come at a time when the government and the JEM signed an agreement, which has now been put in doubt.


"All the perfume of Arabia will not clear the dirt" created by the arrest warrant. - Abdel-Mahmood Abdel-Haleem, Sudan's Ambassador to the United Nations.

comments (4)

Remember the displaced Palestinians?

Posted by Kuku on 10:44 PM
Labels: , , , , , , , , , ,

Apparently the plan to relocate the displaced Palestinian population near the Iraq-Syria border is finally coming to fruition. Reuters is covering the story here. I also wrote about this story a while back, read this and this.


According to Refugees international:
 Approximately 34,000 stateless Palestinians have lived in Iraq since 2003. Since the beginning of U.S. military operations in Iraq, many suffered persecution at the hands of the Iraqi government and other armed groups. More than 3,000 fled to the Syrian-Iraqi border, where they live in makeshift tents in the desert with limited access to basic services. Syria refuses to allow them to enter its territory and only a few have been resettled, mostly to Sweden and Chile.
I simply cannot understand the logic behind this decision. The Sudanese government (i.e. the ruling NCP) has decided it wants to help by providing pre-built shelters to these Palestinians. This is outrageous and seriously sickening. It is a slap in the face, to every Sudanese man, women and child! Not only is the NCP refusing to provide these same facilities to the citizens of the country, the rightful owners of the wealth and land, they are refusing to stop the active war against those same civilians in Darfur. They will do their best to condemn the recent Israeli offensive in Gaza while at the same time continue an arguably more brutal war under their own sovereign territory. Additionally, this government has made it clear that it does not want to pursue peace, justice, and the rule of law. 

Indeed, these Palestinians deserve a dignified resettlement. If Syria, the country most suitable to accept this displaced population, has refused to accept them, why should Sudan? There are tens of thousands of Sudanese citizens who have been forced to flee their homes and live in makeshift camps in and around the Sudanese capital, Khartoum. These people are denied their most basic rights, and are forced to live in the most humiliating circumstances. Basic amenities such as electricity, running water and sanitation are not provided.

Unfortunately, the NCP has been successful in squashing any opposition to their rule. If this happened in the pre-NCP Sudan, thousands of people would have taken to the streets and protested this action. I think the only group who is in a position to stop this great injustice is the SPLM. They supposedly share part of the power in the Government of National (dis)Unity. May must stop this resettlement process from occurring, at the highest levels of government. It is mainly their constituents  which have been forgotten and quarrel in these camps. They must make it clear to the NCP that they oppose this decision and work actively to stop it. 

Do not get me wrong, I have a lot of sympathy for the Palestinian people. However, Sudan is one of the last places where they should be resettled. It is obvious that the NCP does not care about the suffering of the Palestinians. They are only trying to convince their Arab "brethren" in Damascus, Jeddah and Cairo that they care. What they really need to do is to provide for the orphans of Mygoma, the millions displaced in Darfur, and the majority of Sudanese who live in squalor and poverty.

comments (0)

The Orphans of Mygoma

Posted by Kuku on 12:29 PM
Labels: ,

Great documentery by Aljazeera's Witness program. Please watch both parts below.


Part One -



Part 2 -

comments (2)

Here We Go!

Posted by Kuku on 3:30 PM
Labels: , , ,

Rebels attack Khartoum. I have alluded to this in a previous post below.


They have finally attacked Khartoum. More to come... (from the rebels)...


comments (1)

Free Surgery for the Poor

Posted by Kuku on 12:50 AM
Labels: , ,

For the sake of objectivity, it is good to point out the good things (even as little of them as there may be) that has been done by this regime. Here is an interesting piece from Reuters that discusses the decision by the government of Khartoum State (NCP et al.) to offer free surgery to the poor. The article doesn't give much details about the plan.

KHARTOUM, April 16 (Reuters) - State hospitals in Sudan's capital Khartoum are to give free surgery to the poor, with the annual health budget of $230 million boosted by oil revenues to one of Africa's fastest growing economies.
Much of Sudan's population lives in sprawling slums around the capital without running water or electricity, having fled the regional conflicts that have beset Africa's biggest country for decades. Few can afford medical treatment.
"This is intended to try to help the poor," the governor of Khartoum state told Reuters, explaining the decision to offer free surgery to those without the money to pay for it. He said the health budget was 23 percent of the total state budget.

comments (0)

They are coming!!!

Posted by Kuku on 9:17 AM
Labels: , , ,

Marhaba! The Palestinian refugees have arrived. Read this and this (an earlier post of mine).
Best quote in the world:

 "While the Sudanese presidential advisor Mustafa Osman Ismail told the press that Sudan was ready to receive and host two thousand Palestinian refugees in the area of Soba in Khartoum State. He said all services including water, electricity and transportation have been provided in the area. He stressed that the Palestinian refugees would be treated on equal footing as the Sudanese subjects in all service domains."
 
I am seriously insulted! I dare him to go and say that out in Soba itself, or Mayo or Jebel Awliya where tens of thousands of Sudanese "citizens" are living in conditions not fit for animals. This is utterly despicable and should be stopped. But I know that the Sudanese cabal will find someway of spinning this and making the people accept it. 

When did they even manage to connect the area with electricity and water? The people in the IDPs camps have been there for more than 20 years and the government doesn't even give a crap. Too bad they're just too black or kuffar for the government to give a crap (I know that seems too simple, but ask any of the people living in these camps, and that is what they'll tell you the reasons for their living standards are).

What's next? Free (higher) education and satellite dishes for all?

comments (3)

Khartoum -- Urbanization; Periphery --Marginalization

Posted by Kuku on 3:33 PM
Labels: , , ,

A great essay written on Alex de Waal's SSRC blog by Munzoul Assal, an anthropologist from Khartoum University, details the current situation with regards to Khartoum's urbanization.

Assal's analysis of the situation is spot on. The tens of thousands of IDPs in and around Khartoum have been almost literally ignored by the regime. Mostly southerners and Darfurians, these people literally live on the less than $1 / day everyone talks about. These large IDP camps, some of which I have visited during my work last summer with SUDO, were the most devastated areas during the rainy season.

Khartoum’s urbanization is pathological. It is the aggregation of people without their integration into a social and political system that enfranchises them and provides for democratic transformation.

The regime has been completely unwilling to provide the most basic amenities to the residents of these camps. Only when it comes time for elections, it starts to give lip service to their plight, and in some cases even allotting some people plots of land so they can remember which box to fill on the ballot. These people are so marginalized that they feel as though they have no future. It is only a matter of time before a serious violent outbreak to occur on a bigger scale, than that after Garang's death.

The failure of integration in Khartoum was brutally manifested in the events that followed the announcement of Garang’s death at the end of July 2005. While many analysts and local media commentators tried to link the rampage in Khartoum to angry southerners, it was found later that those who engaged in burning, killing and looting were not only southerners, but also marginalized people from different parts of the country.

The lack of reintegration on the part of the government will end up hurting it the most. It is imperative to find a way to provide for these people, and most importantly to give these people a reason to return to their homes all around the country. This will not happen until the focus of the government on modernizing Khartoum ends, while all the regions of Sudan (including some of the north) continue to lay in anguish.

comments (0)

UPDATE-- Two Day Weekend

Posted by Kuku on 8:47 AM
Labels: , , , ,

I was speaking with a close friend of mine back in Khartoum and he told me that the two day weekend will not be applied to any public schools. Obviously private schools (of which there are many), can set their own weekly holidays. So that settles the issue of Christian schools having to forgo their Friday-Sunday weekend. 



Blakerig, a foreigner living in Khartoum wrote about this here.

comments (0)

Bashir Appoints Musa Hilal as Advisor

Posted by Kuku on 4:42 PM
Labels: , , , , , ,

Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir appointed Musa Hilal, Janjaweed leader and NCP mercenary as a special advisor. Read more...

Huh??? Advisor to the Ministry of Federal Government? What is the Ministry of Federal Government? Al-Bashir is seeking advice from who??? This must be another joke!

+

=

America

Well, advisory positions are almost always ceremonial (barring a few exceptions), and I doubt al-Bashir needs the advice of a tribal leader who's been implicated on several different occasions to mass-murder. This (in my opinion) is most likely just another ploy to piss off the international community (US and the like) by literally saying "F**K YOU." Excuse my language but this is the best phrase to use in this situation.

Al-Bashir and his party have been cornered and now he's moving towards symbolic gestures, instead of swearing he'll divorce his wife if international troops are sent to darfur, which just happened.

The sitcom continues...

UPDATE--
There might actually be a strategic reason for Al-Bashir's appoint of Hilal as special advisor. According to Alex De Waal, the Arab mutiny against the Khartoum regime might even be spreading to the highest ranks of the Janjaweed, Hilal himself.
It’s more than a minor detail that some of the fiercest fighting of the last few months has involved the government fighting against mutinous Arab militias. It’s harder to argue the case for an ongoing Arab genocidal intent when some of the biggest Janjaweed commanders — including Mohamed Hamdan Hemeti and Musa Hilal — are flirting with the rebels. (Emphasis added) The question of what really is going on with the Arabs is complicated and I will explore it elsewhere. But you will agree that demonizing the Arabs as genocidaires is a pretty dangerous approach, especially at this particular juncture.)

comments (2)

Sudan Shelters Palestinians (IS THIS A JOKE?)

Posted by Kuku on 6:34 PM
Labels: , , , , , , ,

A ten day old article from the Jerusalem Post caught my eye today, Palestinians Who Fled From Iraq Seeking Shelter in Sudan. I had to inquire.

Apparently:

Some 2,000 Palestinian refugees who fled from Iraq are seeking shelter in Sudan.

Several parties are trying to negotiate a solution for the Palestinian refugees who sit stranded on the border between Iraq and Syria and in camps near the border, a spokeswoman for the United Nation's refugee agency said.

Abeer Etefa, Middle East and North Africa spokeswoman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), told The Media Line that talks were ongoing between the UNHCR, the Sudanese government, the Palestinian Authority and the Arab League.

All questions regarding resettlement of the refugees have been finalized, apart from the accommodation problem due to a housing shortage in the Sudanese capital Khartoum, Etefa said.

--JPOST.com

Palestinian refugees look outside their home in a Gaza camp in north of Amman -- Reuters (via TribuneIndia.com)

After another quick Google News search, I stumbled along this from the Kansas City Star:
So, which country stepped up to end this suffering? Sudan, of all places.

Al-Ahram, a state-backed Egyptian newspaper, reported this week on an announcement that Sudan has agreed to accept the Palestinians who fled sectarian violence in Iraq.

The Al-Ahram story said Khartoum will scoop up 2,500 refugees in all, emptying the miserable Tanaf and Walid camps. The government also agreed to accept some other Palestinians who had made it to Damascus.

Sudan is not exactly Sweden, and anyone following the Darfur conflict knows that the Sudanese government doesn't always act in such a model humanitarian fashion. Still, the dusty tableau of Khartoum should be a welcome sight for a community that spent so many agonizing months in a place even the United Nations referred to as "no-man's land."
--Kansascity.com

Perfect!!! Our government which cannot provide for the millions of its own citizens all over the country, is trying to do WHAT??? This absurd and ludicrous move is another attempt by the ruling regime to push their Arabization (a word I hate to use) policy. How will it justify this? I really can't wait to find out. There are literally tens of thousands of Sudanese citizens which have had to violently flee their homes in Darfur, south Sudan, the East and Kordofan areas. These camps, most of which I have personally visited, such as Mayo-Mandella, Jebel Awliya and Al-Selama are homes to people who have literally nothing but the clothes on their backs and the mud brick shacks they build to pretend they have something to their own in this world.


Young Sudanese kids from Darfur in a refugee camp in Chad I believe -- WFP

Don't get me wrong, I am not trying to belittle the situation of the Palestinian refugees. They are very unfortunate, but the government of a people has the responsibility to protect its citizens first, then look after its Arab (or African) "brethren." I cannot believe this government has the audacity to even propose such a move. This is without a doubt a move by the NCP to further align itself with the Arab countries and score some (cheap) points with Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia and the rest of these (failed) regimes. How will it explain this to the SPLA (its partner in this so-called Government of National Unity?) and the millions of Sudanese who are homeless as I am writing this right now? This is utterly disgusting and inexcusable. But for some weird reason, I have a feeling this move will go through (if it already hasn't) and the people of Sudan will continue to suffer.


comments (3)

Two-Day Weekend?

Posted by Kuku on 4:19 PM
Labels: , ,

I was reading Sudan Tribune this afternoon and discovered this article.

"Sudanese cabinet today has decided to adopt a two-day weekend starting from January 26.

The Council of Ministers on Sunday decided to expand the weekend holiday from the current one day (Friday) to two days (Friday and Saturday) beginning from Saturday January 26, for a period of six month for studying and assessment.

The Council of Ministers called on the Ministry of Labour to adopt the necessary arrangements to implement this decision in a manner that comply with the national and international labour laws and guarantee enhancement of the productivity."

It got me thinking. I remember several years back when this idea was widely discussed by a lot of people in Khartoum. In fact, it has been expected for a while. The actual notion of having a two day weekend seemed to be a foreign idea and many quickly dismissed it. The Egyptians, Saudis and most other Arab states had implemented the 2 day weekend. The Saudis as well as most other Gulf States added Thursday and Friday, while the Egyptian have Friday and Saturday off.

Several folks I remember discussing this topic with said that they don't want to seem to be copying the Saudis and implement a Thursday-Friday weekend. While the proponents of the Friday-Saturday, used the fact that having Saturday off would be a positive because it wouldn't disrupt the banking and financial sectors as the world's stock markets and other institutions close on Saturday as well. A (pious) friend of mine actually said that the fact that Saturday is to be added as a weekly holiday was due to the fact that many Sudanese companies had been doing business with Israel and the Jews. Made me laugh! I love how we are so paranoid about so many things, how America is out to get us and how Darfur is a Jewish conspiracy. Give me a break!!! Moving on...

This is going to be interesting in the long run. I personally believe that this is a positive move. Seeing how this is just a 'study and assessment' phase, I think we are going to very easily adopt this. Also, how will the Christian schools change their schedules? Because I know they take both Friday and Sunday off to please both Muslim and Christian students. Will they have a three day weekend? Or will this just continue with their regular schedules? Time will tell.

comments (2)

Blue Sky? Not in Khartoum!

Posted by Kuku on 2:30 AM
Labels: , ,

So I've been in Khartoum for about three weeks now, and I forgot what the sky is supposed to look like. It is absolutely crazy, this time of year, the sky is literally a light brown/yellowish color. Sometimes, there is so much dust that one can literally stare at the sun, without feeling any discomfort, as if it were the moon. It is somewhat depressing. This, along with the 45° (c)/114° (f) average temperature is not a very good combination. You would think that the dust blocking the sun would cool things down, no luck.

(Dusty) Khartoum Sunset

A relative of mine said that "Sudan is not suitable for human life," something that was funny and is kind of true. I understand that there are places that are as hot and dusty, but Sudan is pretty bad. However, it is still Sudan to me and with all its shortcomings, it is my favorite place to be. I don't know what it is, but I think if you ask any Sudanese ex-pat, they would prefer Sudan over where they've decided to live. They might find comfort and better services in the country they live in, but there is something about one's home that can not be explained.

Beautiful Khartoum

Thankfully, most other parts of the year are less dusty (and sometimes less hot).

comments (3)

Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)