Omar al-Bashir Wins Presidential Election in Sudan

Photos

Omar Al-Bashir Wins Presidential Election in Sudan

see larger image

uploaded by Joel Cox

Omar al-Bashir Wins Presidential Election in Sudan

By Joel Cox

Despite his outstanding arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC), and allegations of genocide, Sudan’s president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir has been declared the winner of the country’s first deomcratic presidential election in 24 years.

In an election marred by allegations of bribery, voter intimidation, fraud, and poll rigging, Sudan’s dictator of 21 years walked away with 68% of the vote. Although al-Bashir's opponents dropped out of the race, citing these allegations early on, the election was officially recognized by the State of Sudan as multi-party, even after al-Bashir was left as the election's sole candidate. 

Salva Kiir, the president of the semi-autonomous region in southern Sudan was reelected with 93% of the vote. The South is expected to fully secede from the North forming Africa’s newest nation in 2011. Although al-Bashir has claimed he will not oppose the secession, many are skeptical as to what actions he will take against the South if the succession takes place.

Since coming to power in 1989, al-Bashir has been accused of widespread human rights atrocities in the South and what the U.S. has officially called genocide in Sudan’s Darfur region. 

As is the case in Iraq, the source of conflict in both of Sudan’s civil wars is rooted in oil: who gets control of it, and who profits from sale of it. While some of the most productive oilfields are located in the South and in Darfur, the inhabitants of these areas claim to have been marginalized by the government in Khartoum. The Civil war between the North and South broke out in 1983 and lasted until 2005. Over the course of the war, nearly two million civilians were killed.

In 2003, a new conflict began when rebels from Darfur attacked an airport in Khartoum, killing 75 people. In retaliation, Khartoum employed the use of proxy militias under command of the Sudanese military to raid areas in Darfur and Eastern Chad, clearing the region of all inhabitants or leaving them for dead. The most nefarious of these militias, the Janjaweed, are purported to have committed a staggering number of acts of rape, theft, torture, and murder, all sanctioned by the government in Khartoum. 

While reports on the death toll in Darfur have varied, in January 2010, the Centre of Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters reported the number of dead to be approaching 300,000. As early as 2006, Sudan researcher and analyst Dr. Eric Reeves reported death toll figures in Darfur as high as 450,000, with millions more being displaced into Chad, Ethiopia, Kenya, and other neighboring African countries, all of whom lack the resources or infrastructure to receive the massive influx of Sudanese refugees.

Throughout the first civil war, the government in Khartoum exploited the poverty and longstanding ethnic tensions between the nomadic Muslim tribes in the North and the largely Christian cattle herding tribes in the South to sustain their campaign. The Sudanese government has been accused of using similar tactics in the cultivation of ethnic tensions between Muslim tribes in Darfur, although violence in Darfur has lessened over the past several months.

Many critics of the recent election and the government in Khartoum believe this to be the reason Western governments have been restrained in their actions on Sudan. In retaliation to the issuance of al-Bashir’s arrest warrant, he expelled 13 foreign aid groups from the country, including OXFAM, CARE, and Mercy Corps. Any action taken by the West that might affect al-Bashir’s ambitions or the scheduled secession may provoke more violence, hence the election has received minimal American press coverage, as well as minimal comment from Washington. 

Since the inception of ICC, Omar Hassan al-Bashir still remains the only head of state to be indicted for war crimes. His extradition and/or trial is not expected anytime soon.

For more information on how you can help those affected by the crisis in Darfur, please visit savedarfur.org or enoughproject.org.