The international community wants to see a deeper commitment by the Sudanese authorities to punish the perpetrators of human rights abuses in Darfur, writes Gamal Nkrumah Over the past few months, there have been times, it seems, that the United States has been bent on conflict with Sudan. Washington has become increasingly belligerent over the war-torn Sudanese province of Darfur. A US-drafted resolution was passed at the 15- member United Nations Security Council on Wednesday imposing sanctions on Sudan, including an arms embargo. There were only three abstentions -- Algeria, China and Russia. Sudan is making noises, some say far too feeble, in an attempt to mend fences with Washington. But Sudanese diplomacy must be more creative and flexible if it is to break the ice between Khartoum and Washington. It is in this context that Sudanese authorities announced the imminent release of a number of political prisoners. It is still not clear if Hassan Al-Turabi, former Sudanese parliament speaker and chief Islamist ideologue, will be among those released. "I believe they are in no hurry to release Sheikh Hassan Al- Turabi," Ali Al-Haj secretary-general of the opposition Islamist Popular Congress Party told Al-Ahram Weekly. Ali Al-Haj, based in Bonn, Germany, is the effective leader of the PCP abroad. He said that Sudanese Vice-President Ali Othman Mohamed Taha harboured a personal vendetta against Turabi. "It is not a matter for the courts to settle. There can be no proper trial for Al-Turabi. The case can be considered neither a legal nor a constitutional matter. Taha wants to settle old scores with his former mentor." Al-Haj said that the judiciary is not free in Sudan. "The judiciary is completely dominated by the hatchet men and hangers-on of the Sudanese government," he explained. "The Sudanese judiciary cannot be trusted. And the Sudanese government lacks any credibility." Al-Turabi's wife Wisal Al-Mahdi concurred. "They have released my son Siddig, but there is no sign of them setting my husband free," Al-Mahdi told the Weekly. "They treated them both diabolically." In a separate development, Sudan's Attorney-General Mohamed Farid said on Sunday that he expected 72 men charged with attempting a coup in Khartoum. Farid said that their trial would commence on 2 April. The men are charged with "waging war against the Sudanese government". Farid told reporters in Khartoum that no political prisoner has been executed since he took office in 1995. International human rights groups and Sudanese opposition figures hotly dispute Farid's claims. They insist that Sudan has one of the world's poorest human rights records. They point out that the country has feeble institutions and that gross human rights violations are commonplace and government-sanctioned. Meanwhile in a crucial week for Sudan's relations with the international community, the UN-appointed commission which lambasted the Sudanese authorities for gross human rights violations in Darfur last month, will to great measure determine Sudan's international standing. The report submitted to the UN recommended that 51 Sudanese nationals -- including high-ranking government officials, rebels and ethnic Arabs who served in the militias better known as the Janjaweed -- stand trial at the International Criminal Court on war crimes charges related to the two-year Darfur conflict. Sudanese opposition groups warn that the Sudanese justice system itself is incapable of administering justice. "The judiciary in Sudan is not independent. The basis for a free and fair justice system in Sudan is simply not there," Al-Shafie Khedr, a Cairo-based prominent member of the Sudanese umbrella opposition grouping the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), told the Weekly. "The political reform process in Sudan is seriously flawed. The Sudanese government has sacrificed the rights, welfare and livelihoods of the Sudanese people to ruthlessly cling to power," Khedr said. "The entire world knows that the Sudanese government, armed forces and allied militias committed gross human rights violations in Darfur." The Sudanese government's strong armed tactics must be strongly condemned by the international community. Sudan might not be a one-party state, but the token concessions it permits the officially- sanctioned opposition, are little more than a sham. Among those who are to stand trial in the weeks ahead are members of the opposition Islamist Popular Congress Party (PCP) led by Al-Turabi. The PCP leader was imprisoned last September in Khartoum's notorious Cooper (Kober) Prison. Farid, however, said that Al-Turabi would be released as soon as Sudan's emergency law is lifted. "As long as the emergency laws are in place there can be no real peace, security or justice in Sudan," Farouk Abu Eissa, former head of the Cairo-based Arab Lawyers Union and official spokesman for the NDA told the Weekly. "The Sudanese government must scrap the emergency laws, release all political prisoners, institute sweeping political reforms, and lay the foundations of a vibrant multi-party political system." As the Weekly went to press, the United Nations Security Council was scheduled to vote later on Wednesday on a separate French draft resolution which would send those Sudanese suspected of committing war crimes in Darfur to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague. The US vigorously opposes sending suspects to stand for trial in the ICC. "Sudan might benefit from the split over the ICC at the UN Security Council," Mohamed Fayeq, head of the Cairo-based Arab Human Rights Organisation told the Weekly. Fayeq, a member of the UN commission on Darfur warned of the dangerous consequences of isolating Sudan. But, he saw a ray of hope in the Security Council's decision on Wednesday to penalise Sudanese officials but not to impose economic and trade sanctions on the country as Washington had wished. "This will give Sudan some breathing space. The split might give Khartoum time to polish up its image, Fayeq said. He stressed that sanctions against the Sudanese authorities will inevitably hurt the ordinary people of Sudan the most. Moreover, the argument is made in Africa, and to a lesser extent among some of the non-Western UN Security Council members, including Algeria, China and Pakistan that the focus on Sudan is disproportionate. Russia and China which have close economic and political ties with Khartoum, strongly oppose imposing sanctions on Sudan. Many African nations, including Nigeria, Africa's most populous country and which hosts peace talks between the Sudanese government and armed opposition forces in Darfur, oppose setting up a special Africa-run tribunal in order to break the UN deadlock over handing suspected Sudanese war criminals to the ICC. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has singled out the crisis in Darfur as the world's worst humanitarian catastrophe. But the bickering over where to refer the war crime charges belittles the magnitude of the crisis when hundreds of thousands of lives of innocent civilians are at risk in Darfur.
