Sudanese government

By Mohamed Vall in Africa on October 31st, 2009
Photo by Getty Images

The 15-member African Union Peace and Security Council's endorsement of the idea of a special hybrid court for Darfur crime suspects could be a solution for the ICC-Khartoum quarrel.

The summit that has been held in the Nigerian capital Abuja stressed the need for both a solution to the conflict in Darfur and justice for the victims of the crimes committed during the war. The idea of a hybrid court has been proposed by a special AU panel on Darfur headed by former South African president Thabo Mbeki.

After all, the hybrid idea seems to have worked in Darfur with regard to peacekeeping. Not that peace in Darfur has been successfully maintained. But at least, after serious and protracted discords between Sudan and western nations over how to deal with the situation, a combined force of UN and African Union troops has been deployed and an end has been put to the row.

By Mohamed Vall in Africa on October 26th, 2009
Photo by Getty Images

Obama's new policy of "carrots along with sticks" towards Sudan has drawn ridicule and derision both on the part of some humanitarian organizations and mainstream US media. "Naive" is the term most widely used by those critics to describe Obama's special envoy to Sudan Scott Gration.

While the Sudanese doubt the possibility of any major change in US policies towards Sudan, western critics of the new policy doubt if there will be any major change in the Sudanese government's behaviour with regard to the conflict in Darfur in particular. They believe the US government has decided to reward the regime in Khartoum with incentives in exchange for empty promises from that regime.

By Mohamed Vall in Africa on October 25th, 2009
Photo by AFP

The announcement of a new US policy towards Sudan has come after years of secret cooperation on terrorism. Sudan helped the CIA with anti al-Qaeda efforts in the Horn of Africa region. The Sudanese have not even been trying to hide this fact.

They were expecting immediate dividends: the lifting of US sanctions, removing Sudan from the State Department's list of state sponsors of terrorism. But none of that happened. So during the Bush years, Khartoum got really frustrated that after all it had given (historic concessions to the southerners in the Naivasha peace agreement and cooperation on terrorism) the US government had not changed its hostile stance towards the government of Sudan. Economic and military sanctions remained in place, Sudan's name has been kept on the list of state sponsors of terrorism and the US has been the only country on earth to label the conflict in Darfur as genocide.

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