Sudan is Heating Up -- Al-Turabi Released from Prison, Bashir on Speaking Tour and UN Troops Attacked

In the week following the ICC’s arrest warrant for President Bashir Sudan has seen a flurry of activity. Three days of protests in Khartoum rejected the ICC’s decision; Muslim opposition leader Hassan al-Turabi has been released from prison following his arrest in January; and President Bashir has decided to go "on tour" around the country to decry the ruling by the world's highest court. Meanwhile, the U.S. embassy has allowed non-essential staff to voluntarily evacuate and UNAMID is reporting increased attacks against peacekeeping troops.

What does this mean?

Over the next few weeks we should expect to see increased activity in the country. Many analysts fear that the attack against the UN-AU peacekeepers in Western Darfur may be an indication of what is to come. Furthermore, the Sudan Poeple's Liberation Movement has been relatively quiet since the warrant and vice-president Siir has cancelled his trip to Tokoyo, where he was going to discuss security issues in Africa.

While opposition parties have been relatively quiet, political instability is beginning to enter the public arena. Significant tensions are beginning to mount between different factions of the Muslim north, and this was enhanced by the release of the Popular Congress Party leader al-Turabi, the government’s harshest critic.

Earlier this year, al-Turabi was thrown in jail for his insistence that President Bashir is “politically culpable” for the deaths in Darfur. Once an ardent supporter of fundamentalist Islam and and a close ally of President Bashir, al-Turabi was responsible for inviting Osama bin Laden to Sudan in the earlier 1990s. But al-Turabi split with the president in 1999 and is now an advocate for democratic principles and human rights.

Since his release from prison, al-Turabi has continued to criticize the president, saying in an interview with the BBC,

"My position on international justice is firm and principled. It is possible to say that this position is stronger with regard to bringing justice and spreading the authority of the court which is more important than the power of the UN Security Council (UNSC)."

Asked whether he thought the government would throw him back in jail if he continued his criticism, Al-Turabi responded, "You can't predict what they will do because they don't think logically. They may do it. They may not."

New York Times correspondent Lydia Polgreen believes that the release was an indication that the government is willing to appease the nation’s political parties in order to “resolv[e] some of the nation’s internal political divisions given the threat of arrest facing Mr. Bashir.”

But Omama al-Turabi, Mr. Turabi’s daughter, said in the Sudan Tribune that the government’s decision to release her father was not politically motivated. It was a response to the family’s concerns for al-Turabi’s health. “On our last visit he [Turabi] told us that he had severe cold and after the physician inspected him it was found that his blood pressure has skyrocketed,” she said. Omama rejected any notion that the government had made a deal or bargain with Al-Turabi.

For articles on Al-Turabi’s release, see:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/7931769.stm
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-fg-turabi-qa10-2009mar10,0,8183.story?page=1
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/10/world/africa/10sudan.html?_r=1&ref=world
http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article30439

For articles on Bashir’s speaking tour, see: http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-fg-sudanbashir9-2009mar09,0,2597541.story

For articles on the attack of UNAMID peacekeepers, see:
http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSLA133134
http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article30448