Sudan鈥檚 President Omar al-Bashir should hang in the halls of infamy somewhere between Hitler and Pol Pot. But few Americans recognize that he and his National Islamic Front regime are directly responsible for the death of a staggering 2.4 million of his countrymen, the displacement of seven million more, as well as the enslavement and misery of hundreds of thousands of others, including tribal people in northern Uganda. Representing the interests of only a handful of small northern tribes, Bashir鈥檚 regime has devoted itself to marginalizing and making war on Darfur and most of the rest of Sudan鈥檚 citizens since seizing power 18 years ago.
If further Sudanese deaths are to be prevented, there must be clarity about what this tyrant and his regime have wrought.
As president of the nation鈥檚 National Islamic Front (NIF) government and a general, Bashir is the person most responsible for the Darfur genocide, which so far has taken an estimated 400,000 lives and displaced two million western tribal people. He presides over an air force that carries out aerial bombardment and strafing of Darfur鈥檚 reed tukul villages, and a military that arms and protects the groups that torment the region by land, the Janjaweed tribal militias. His forces have attacked relief centers, refugee camps, and rebels gathered for peace talks. His senior officials have opposed the deployment of U.N. peacekeepers, and, as President Bush stated this week: 鈥淧resident Bashir鈥檚 actions over the past few weeks follow a long pattern of promising cooperation while finding new methods of obstruction.鈥�
Darfur鈥檚 is not the only blood on Bashir鈥檚 hands. During the 1990s and early in this decade, he and the NIF regime also presided over what he has called a 鈥渏ihad鈥� against the Christians and African traditional believers and 鈥渁postate鈥� Muslims in south and central Sudan; this earlier onslaught should also be considered genocide: It left two million people dead and five million displaced. It was triggered when the non-Muslim south rebelled against Khartoum鈥檚 imposition on them of Islamic law. It ended in 2005 with a peace agreement achieved in large measure through President Bush鈥檚 leadership and his administration鈥檚 diplomacy. Millions of southerners even now remain stranded in relief camps, unable to return to a devastated land that will be struggling to recover for years to come. Untold others from Bahr al Ghazal and the Nuba Mountains who disappeared during the conflict are thought to be still enslaved. The peace agreement itself is at risk because of what the south sees as the National Islamic Front鈥檚 war agenda.
For the last decade, Bashir has also been providing arms and sanctuary to an abomination called the 鈥淟ord鈥檚 Resistance Army鈥� (LRA), which, in a psychopathic effort to seize power in Uganda using abducted children soldiers, has killed 200,000 people of the Acholi tribe and driven some 1.5 million of them into refugee camps. UNICEF reports that over 25,000 children have been kidnapped in LRA attacks on homes and schools, including, once, the student body of a convent girls鈥� middle school, and then used as fighters, porters, and sex slaves. Bashir鈥檚 support has fueled LRA depredations for over a decade.
In congressional testimony last January, Bush鈥檚 former U.S. Special Representative on Sudan Roger Winter identified a 鈥渇undamental flaw鈥� in U.S. and international policy on Sudan 鈥� 鈥渢he erroneous assumption that Sudan鈥檚 NIF-controlled government, led by President Omar Bashir, actually wants to be a good government and can be successfully appealed to 鈥榙o the right thing鈥� on behalf of Sudan鈥檚 marginalized peoples.鈥� In view of the record, this fiction must be abandoned.
Winter testified that 鈥淣IF has been at war with the majority of the people of Sudan every single day since it came to power by coup on June 30, 1989. It will not change now when all their acts of death and destruction have cost them nothing.鈥� The Bush administration has finally acted to impose financial sanctions against certain foreign companies involved in Khartoum鈥檚 oil sector (American trade sanctions that prevent such investment by American companies have been in effect since the 1990s). To be effective, it will need to broaden them and be joined by Europe, and by China, and Malaysia, two governments deeply invested in the regime鈥檚 oil industry.
And the Save Darfur Coalition must shift its tactics to help make this happen. Until now, its saturation 鈥渘ame and shame鈥� campaign in the print media, on television, and through bumper stickers and posters has been nearly exclusively directed at President Bush, with the implication that he lacks compassion for the victims in Darfur 鈥� so much so that the campaign has been forced to put up a web posting denying it is engaged in 鈥淏ush-bashing.鈥�
Of the dozens of press releases the Coalition has issued since the beginning of the year, merely one mentions Bashir by name, and only to say that he 鈥減aints a false picture.鈥� Not exactly the stuff to shock a conscience. While one other recent release strongly 鈥渃ondemns鈥� bombings by Sudan鈥檚 government (without mentioning either Bashir or his regime by name), the thrust of the publicity campaign downplays the specific government actor in Darfur鈥檚 violence. Overall, the Save Darfur Coalition鈥檚 press listings give the impression that genocide just happened.
A crisis of the magnitude and duration of Sudan鈥檚 urgently requires a new human-rights approach. Since the days when Eleanor Roosevelt worked to first establish an international human-rights movement, naming names of tyrants has been essential to its successes. For reasons of policy and morality, it鈥檚 time to lay the blame for the ongoing Darfur genocide, as well as the past atrocities in central, southern and eastern Sudan, squarely where it belongs 鈥� on Omar al-Bashir and his National Islamic Front regime. And U.S. policy needs to be clearly and consistently premised on this unvarnished truth.