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30 June 2009 - Horror of Bashir's twenty year rule in Sudan

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Today President al-Bashir celebrates 20 years since the military coup in which he took power in Sudan. In the past two decades he has waged two civil wars, taking the lives of more than 2.6 million people, and displaced a further 6.5 million; he has funded murderous rebel armies in Chad and Uganda; and most recently he has been indicted by the international criminal court for five counts of crimes against humanity and two counts of war crime.

Few of his contemporary dictators can claim so many casualties and such opprobrium. Yet Bashir continues to manipulate even his critics in the international community, setting Russia and China against Europe and the US, and cynically lobbying the African Union and Arab League to back him against the "neocolonialist", "imperialist", "Zionist", western "conspirators". Diplomats struggle to grasp that the architect of such ubiquitous suffering and violence can, at the same time, be a highly skilled diplomat. Bashir is the master of conceding the minimum required just at the right moment to delay concerted actions, such as sanctions, against his regime.

As Bashir enters his third decade in power, we urge the UN and its member states to reflect on the horror and destruction he has brought to his country and not to allow the suffering of the Sudanese people to be forgotten. Only a coherent, concerted and consistent policy towards Bashir will deliver peace and justice to the people of Sudan.

Rebecca Tinsley Chair, Waging Peace

Gerhart Baum, Former UN special rapporteur on human rights in Sudan

Giles Fraser Canon, St Pauls

Ed Husain Quilliam Foundation

Rabbi Maurice Michaels

Stephen Mangan

Lord Alton

Peter Tatchell, human rights campaigner

Richard Freedman, Director, South African Holocaust Foundation

Helen Baxendale, actress

Caroline Moorhead, journalist and biographer

 

Sudan365 Countdown Clock

Sudan365 Countdown Clock

Beats for Peace

Sudan 365

WP in the News

1 June 2010, letter in the Guardian, 'African Democracy and Human Rights'

 

'African Democracy and Human Rights'

Letter to the Guardian

Tuesday 1 June 2010, Louise Roland-Gosselin

 

The snubbing of the inauguration of Omar al-Bashir by Britain and the US, (World leaders stay away as Bashir sworn in for new term in Sudan, 28 May) demonstrates the hypocritical stance world leaders continue to take to the Sudanese president. In April, the international community accepted the results of Sudan's deeply flawed elections, despite evidence of ballot-box stuffing, political intimidation and violence at polling stations, in the hope of keeping cordial relations with Bashir. His indictment by the international criminal court for war crimes and crimes against humanity has been almost completely sidelined and it is believed that the US is preparing to lift trade sanctions on Sudan. Better relations with Bashir, it is thought, will bring peace to Sudan – yet talks on Darfur are at a standstill and the government continues to bomb Darfur's Jebel Marra with impunity.

For over five years the world has pandered to Sudan behind closed doors, publicly issuing empty threats, which have resulted in conditions for the people of Sudan only becoming more desperate. It is time that Cameron and Obama took seriously the threat of a man who has killed over 2 million of his own civilians.