Charges 'biggest test for Bashir'
2008-07-21 08:41
Khartoum - President Omar al-Bashir's indictment on Darfur genocide charges presents the Sudanese leader with the most serious challenge to his 19-year rule, raising questions about his legitimacy that could weaken his grip on power.
Al-Bashir was not new to threats to his Islamist regime, which had over the years built a reputation for dealing with disputes with a deft mix of brutality and political acumen.
But analysts said the danger this time was personal as he faced an international bid to remove him from power.
International Criminal Court Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo's July 14 indictment - the first against a sitting head of state - already had rattled the soldier-turned-political leader with a reputation as a survivor.
Unless a compromise was found, the indictment could lead to political instability that would be exploited by the president's rivals, analysts said.
Charges 'pose threat'
Moreno-Ocampo filed 10 charges against al-Bashir for masterminding a campaign of extermination and rape specifically targeting three Darfur tribes. The United Nations said about 300 000 people had died and 2.5 million had been uprooted for the past five years.
The charges included three counts of genocide, five of crimes against humanity and two of war crimes.
Hassan Haj Ali, a political scientist at Khartoum University, said the charges posed a threat to the entire country, not just al-Bashir's government, and might eventually create a dangerous power vacuum at the top of Sudan's political hierarchy.
"This vacuum may prove to be too tempting for some to take advantage of and move to seize power," Ali said.
Other analysts said the impact of the indictment had compounded al-Bashir's recent woes, such as the security lapses that were exposed two months ago during a highly symbolic attack on a Khartoum suburb by Darfur rebels.
Bush slams Bashir's regime
There was also a growing fear that the country could break up when the mainly animist and Christian south votes in 2011 on whether to remain part of Africa's largest nation.
Since seizing power in a 1989 military coup, al-Bashir's regime had been driven repeatedly to the brink of collapse.
At least two coup attempts, a civil war in the south, cross-border attacks by armies from neighbouring countries, a United States cruise missile attack in 1998 and United Nations. sanctions were among the threats he had faced.
Al-Bashir's troubles in the remote, western Darfur region began in 2003 after ethnic African rebels took up arms against the Arab-dominated government, which was accused of backing Arab militia fighters known as the janjaweed.
The janjaweed responded with a punishing campaign that wiped out entire villages. US President George W Bush last year accused al-Bashir's regime of complicity in genocide in Darfur.
Moreno-Ocampo's indictment was coupled with a request to the court to issue an arrest warrant for al-Bashir.
- AP