Why the Indictment of President Al Bashir will be a welcome relief to Sudanese People.

The news that the International Criminal Court (ICC) is going to rule on the long awaited case of Sudan’s President, Field Marshal Omar Hassan Al Bashir is historic. It is historic in the sense that if the judges, as anticipated, deliver the verdict calling for the arrest of the President, that ruling will not only signal the end of impunity in the Sudan, but will also act as a relief for all the marginalized Sudanese whose rights have been unjustifiably suppressed with sword since Sudan gained independence in 1956.

As everyone awaits the court ruling, the elites in the governing National Congress Party (NCP) and the so called experts of Sudan’s affairs personified in Alex de Waal are sending mixed signals to the international community. At times, they evoked the prospect of retribution to UN peacekeepers in the Sudan or paint a gloomy picture of Sudan descending into anarchy or for the case of NCP, threaten to revisit their Islamic roots if Al Bashir is indicted. But all these are outdated manoeuvres aimed towards postponing the urgency of the situation the NCP has created in the first place through its initial pursuit of exclusive theocratic governance which sanctified the killing of those considered to be the other. It is the sanctified killing of S. Sudanese during the SPLA –GOS war that was transferred to Darfur with vigour at the expense of religious solidarity. In light of these, all the arguments presented by the NCP and De Waal are not of any substance.

Take for example, the threat of the NCP returning to its Islamic roots. Who will really support that return to narrow minded approach whose consequences the party is reeling on at the moment? Besides, the NCP with its facade of being a rampart for the Islamic religion in the Sudan is not oblivious of the fact that the use of religion as a subterfuge for controlling national resources and political power has been fatally wounded by its own actions in Darfur. The NCP continual referral to it (religion) is meant as a deterrent to policy makers in foreign capitals.

The NCP is aware that the prospect of Sudan reverting to its previous support for terrorism will create anxiety in certain countries and is effectively prepared to use it as a bargaining chip in demanding the deferral of the indictment against the President. However, despite this strategy, the truth still remain that the majority of Sudanese support the arrest of this President. They consider the indictment of the President who called himself a leader of all Sudanese people and who has never felt any hesitation to murder the very people he purports to lead as the opening of a new chapter in the Sudanese history, the chapter in which dialogue and not force will take the centre stage in the resolution of national challenges.

It is incumbent at this hour for all the Sudanese of good will from all the corners of our great republic to stand on guard at this moment of anticipation. Never lower your defences in the face of this alleged turmoil promised by the oppressors of the marginalized and their so called experts who are leaning credence to the nonsense of Sudan descending into anarchy if Al Bashir is indicted. This is our moment. The NCP has no capacity to destabilize the country in our watch! The habitual tendency to kill ordinary citizens who oppose divisive and callous policies has come to an end in the Sudan. The language of violence is no longer a monopoly of the few who have utilized it for a very long time to the detriment of others. We all speak it today. The only different is that the oppressed speak it within the confine of justice while the tyrant in his desire to oppress ignores justice and this has finally brought him to the verge of his waterloo. Long live the Sudanese people