Daily Darfur: Escape to Sunny Eritrea

by Michelle

category: Daily Darfur

Published March 24, 2009 @ 03:13AM PT

Q: Where does an indicted war criminal/the world's #2 dictator/international media darling go on vacation?

A: To the home of the world's #8 dictator, of course.

Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir threw caution to the wind with his first international trip since the International Criminal Court issued warrants for his arrest earlier this month. By which I mean, he made an unannounced trip across his own border and into an allied nation, Eritrea:

"This looks like a symbolic act -- to show he can do it. It is not that significant in itself," said Fouad Hikmat, an analyst for the Nairobi-based International Crisis Group.

"He is just crossing one of his country's own borders, visiting a neighbour who doesn't really have dealings with the international community," he said.

"The real question is whether he will be able to cross international air space to visit Qatar."

Khartoum is considering "special arrangements" to protect Bashir's plane en route to Qatar, as he risks apprehension as soon as he enters international air space.

Out of the Diplomatic Toolkit: Escalating Rhetoric

In a recent trip to Darfur, which included a visit to the overcrowded Zam Zam Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camp, the Charge d'Affaires of the US Embassy in Khartoum, Alberto M. Fernandez, found a significant deterioration of the humanitarian situation following the expulsion of 13 foreign aid agencies nearly three weeks ago.

Zam Zam recently received an influx of 36,000 new IDPs, who fled fighting between Darfuri rebels and the Sudanese government in the South Darfur town of Muhajariya earlier this year, and is suffering from, among other things, a shortage of water. In his daily press briefing, State Department Spokesman Robert Wood reiterated Secretary Clinton's assertion that Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir will be held personally responsible for deaths that occur as a result of the expulsions.

US Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice also stepped up her criticism of Bashir, in a statement on Monday:

"Let me be clear. This is not a made up crisis, as the representative of Sudan would have you believe. On the contrary, this is a very real and urgent crisis of his government's own making. President Bashir and his government are responsible and must be held accountable for each and every death caused by these callous and calculated actions. The Sudanese government made this decision and owns its consequences."

So what is the US actually doing to back up its rhetoric? That remains to be seen, as the Obama Administration is likely (hopefully) working diplomatic backchannels that, for a variety of reasons, must stay out of the media spotlight. (Though will likely surface in books 10 years down the line.) But according to Tom Malinowski of Human Rights Watch, expectations for action are high, if tempered with a heavy dose of realism:

"Asked if Obama was facing higher expectations for effective action on the Darfur crisis, Malinkowski said, ‘They are high because he said appropriately tough things on this during the campaign.' Obama's global standing relative to that of his predecessor, he said, has also fueled hopes that he could motivate a stronger international response. ‘Does that mean he will be able to magically come up with the rescue force for this extraordinarily complicated crisis? No. But it does raise expectations that this administration will be able to do more than just declare ‘genocide' and walk away.'"

Other items of note...

ICC Chief Prosecutor, and arguably Bashir's arch-nemesis, told BBC that the expulsion of the aid agencies confirms that "he is exterminating his people."

Has Darfur fallen of the radar of American Christians? Linda Brinson at EthicsDaily.com, by way of Jeffery Weiss at the Dallas Morning News:

"The "Save Darfur" signs and banners that once sprouted in church yards in America have largely vanished, replaced by notices for some other cause. E-mailed petitions and calls to action that flood the inboxes of Christian activists tend to be about some other problem these days. The evangelicals who in 2006 were running full-page ads in leading newspapers urging the U.S. government to take stronger action to halt the genocide in Sudan have largely turned their attention to other topics."

A video from Al Jazeera chronicles the extraordinarily difficult task facing UNAMID peacekeepers:

[Photo: A man kisses a poster of Sudan's President Omar Hassan al-Bashir during a protest against the International Criminal Court's (ICC) arrest warrant for al-Bashir in Khartoum March 5, 2009. REUTERS/Zohra Bensemra]