SUDAN
Cutting the Umbilical Cord02/09/10, Cameron Duodu
As Southern Sudan prepares for a referendum on its status in the larger Sudan, Cameron Duodu, leading African journalist and a pan-Africanist asks: Will President Omar al-Bashir really allow Southern Sudan to go?
The 14th Summit of the African Union held in Addis Ababa from January 31 to February 2, 2010, was noteworthy not for what took place formally at the meeting but what happened outside it. A diplomatic wrangle occurred over Sudan that can be compared to the west African dance of kpanlogo.
This is an impish hi-life dance in which the partners waggle against each other, upwards and downwards, whilst simultaneously wiggling forwards and backwards, as partners and onlookers shout"Kpanlogo!" at each stage.
The Addis Ababa "shuffle" went like this: the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-Moon, told the Summit: (STEP ONE, BODY UPRIGHT) "In Sudan, time is of the essence. The elections are three months away. The two referenda to determine the future shape of Sudan are in just under a year.
"At the same time, millions continue to be displaced in Darfur. Earlier this morning I attended a mini-Summit on the future of Sudan organized by the African Union Chairperson... I was pleased that African leaders supported the United Nations efforts to pursue a four-track strategy ...namely to forge consensus among member states on the way forward;...continue to strengthen the UN presence on the ground;...promote discussions on key post-referendum issues and...build the capacity of South Sudanese institutions. At the same time, we must continue work to deepen the encouraging improvement in relations between Chad and Sudan."
Although the Sudan versus Southern Sudan conflict is fraught with difficulties of perception, none of the protagonists could reasonably object to anything that Ban Ki-Moon told the Summit. Outside the Summit, however, he gave an interview to two French journalists, which seemed to freeze him in one of the positions of kpanlogo (to the consternation of the spectators at what might be called the "Summit Ball"!)
STEP TWO: (BODY BENT DOWNWARDS, AS WRIGGLING CONTINUES) Or how a translation error led to an international incident.
"On Saturday morning, Ban Ki-moon appeared to be breaking with five years of standing U.N. policy toward Sudan, by telling two French news agencies that he would try to prevent Africa's largest country Sudan from splitting into two nations in the 2011 referendum on independence for Southern Sudan." "We'll work hard to avoid a possible secession," the wire service Agence France Presse (AFP) reported him as saying."
Ban's remarks ... set off a major international incident in Sudan, prompting Sudan's Southern leaders to accuse the Secretary-General of interfering in the South's decision to determine its own political future. Southern Sudan's president, Salva Kiir Mayardit, wrote to Ban, saying his remarks constituted "an erroneous description of the U.N.'s role as a guarantor" of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement, which ended the Sudanese civil war and gave southerners the right to vote on independence in January 2011.
Ban was quoted by the French reporters as saying that he favours a unified Sudan, adding, "We will try to work hard to make this unity attractive." But AFP had apparently mistranslated the English language interview (Kpanlogo!) in its first French version of the story(Kpanlogo!), and then repeated the mistake when the French was re-translated into English.(Kpanlogo!)
The actual quote by AFP said: "Then we will work very closely -- we will have to work very closely -- not to have any negative consequences coming from this potential or possible secession."
The story first appeared on the wires in French in the morning and in English in the early afternoon. It played out over three days in the international press, getting picked up by news agencies, the BBC and the Financial Times, causing consternation. (Kpanlogo!)
The slow-grinding machinery of the U.N. only issued its first public denial three days later. It read: "In order to clarify erroneous reports about remarks attributed to the Secretary-General concerning Sudan, the Secretary-General's spokesperson would like to reaffirm the Secretary-General's position, which is that the United Nations would work to support the parties in their efforts to "make unity attractive", as well as the exercise by the people of Southern Sudan of their right to self-determination in a referendum.
"Any suggestion that the United Nations may have taken a position that may prejudge the outcome of such a referendum is incorrect."(Kpanlogo! Alogo Aloogo, Kpanlogo!
Whew! The brouhaha points to the hidden landmines that still lie in Sudan's path to real peace. Next year's referendum will, of course, be held under "international supervision". But are there any guarantees that there won't be hanky-panky? Did Ban Ki-Moon let slip a potential UN sleight-of-hand, when he spoke to the French journalists? Why did it take three days to correct the "mistranslation" if it was indeed a "mistranslation"?
The people of Southern Sudan cannot be blamed if they ask such questions. I mean, even in a country under the international spotlight as Afghanistan, an election was held in which most of the opponents of the eventual "winner", President Hamid Karzai, accused him of massive election rigging. They also charged the international community -- including the United States and its ally, Great Britain, the loudest advocates of democracy throughout the world -- of condoning Karzai's fraud.
Can the frail, infant regime of Southern Sudanese resist any electoral crimes that are deployed through a hidden international agenda to influence the outcome of the 2011 referendum? The answer is disquieting, when one remembers what took place in Afghanistan, and before that, the electoral frauds in Kenya and Zimbabwe and the annulment of the Nigerian election of June 12, 1993.
Meanwhile, another grenade has been lobbed into the road-map of the Sudanese peace process. The International Criminal Court has been told, by its own appeals panel, to add the crime of genocide to the charge sheet against President Omar al-Bashir. President Bashir already faces an arrest warrant on seven charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes. The appeal panel's decision means that the prospects are now closer for adding thegenocide charge. The appeal was against an earlier ruling by the ICC, which said there was "insufficient proof" that Bashir had intentionally participated in genocide.
If a genocide charge is preferred against Bashir, it will be the first by the ICC against a serving head of state. (Slobodan Milosevic, the late Yugoslav leader, faced genocide charges but only after he had stepped down. He died in jail whilst being tried.)
Bashir rejects the charges against him, and his Government in Khartoum is claiming that the ICC has deliberately announced the genocide charge now to "obstruct" the elections to be held in Sudan in two months time. April. A Sudanese Information Ministry official, Rabie Abdelatif, said: "This procedure of the ICC is only to stop the efforts of the Sudanese government towards elections and a peaceful exchange of power.
We are not bothering actually what the ICC will say, whether it includes genocide or not."
But a spokesman for one of Darfur's most powerful rebel groups, the Justice and Equality Movement (Jem), welcomed the ruling. "This is a correct decision," Ahmed Tugud told Reuters. "We believe that what we have seen on the ground in Darfur amounts to a crime of genocide. Now we are assessing our situation on whether it is ethically possible to negotiate with a government accused of committing genocidal crimes against our people."
But is the ICC decision of any real import? President Bashir has indeed avoided arrest since the ICC issued a warrant against him, because many African and Arab leaders have become wary of the people the ICC chooses to seek an indictment against. Since the warrant was issued Bashir has visited Qatar, Ethiopia and Zimbabwe among other nations.
More important, the African Union has been split in its support for the warrant. Although countries like Botswana have been very critical of Bashir, the AU's most senior diplomat, Jean Ping, for instance, has hit out at the ICC, accusing the court of only targeting African nations. "We are not for a justice with two speeds, a double standard justice - one for the poor, one for the rich," Ping said.
Although Ping did not name any countries or personalities, the illegal invasion of Iraq by the United States and Britain, with the hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths it has caused, could not have been too far from his mind. If George Bush, the former American President who launched the war against Iraq, and his principal ally, Tony Blair, are both walking free with no warrants issued against them, a problem of perception is caused in African and the Arab world for the ICC. Many Africans, remembering that the ICC has put ex-President Charles Taylor of Liberia behind bars, have begun to suspect that the ICC's Machiavellian approach is, "If you can catch them, then issue a warrant. But if their countries are too powerful, then don't try."
The ICC, in other words, is undoubtedly engaged in its own version of kpanlogo!
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