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Report of Peter K Bechtold

I, Peter K. Bechtold, PhD., am responding to a request from representatives of the Federation of Sudanese Trade Unions to offer an expert opinion about the consequences for peace in Sudan, and especially in the Western region ofDarfur, if the International Criminal Court (ICC) proceeds with an indictment of Sudan's current President, LTG Omar Hassan Ahmed al-Bashir (frequently referred to as "Bashir") as currently proposed by an initial submission from the court's prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, in July 2008.

I have seen only summaries of Mr. Ocampo's allegations, reported in the media as containing 10 separate charges, such as, most startlingly perhaps, the "deliberate efforts to erase the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa communities", which would constitute "genocide", inter al. I propose to provide some context for understanding the conflict in Darfur by describing the overall geographic, demographic, historical, economic and political factors which have contributed to the Darfur crisis, and to political turmoil in Sudan in general in recent times, before I address the more specific issue ofT CC action and its consequences.

My qualifications for offering my commentaries include the fact that I have been a student of Sudan during my entire professional life. A summary CV may be obtained from my website www.drbechtold.com. My interest in Sudan began in 1961, when I met in graduate school a then Senior Inspector and later Director of the Sudan Gezira Board. I also met then America's dean of Sudan scholars, Professor Robert O.Collins with whom I shared university housing during a summer language studies program and who stimulated my interest in that country. By 1963 I had decided to select Sudan as the focus of my doctoral dissertation and began to read extensively about it.

My first visit to Sudan came in October 1964 and I stayed on for almost two years conducting dissertation field research. At the time, the country was divided into 9 provinces and, over the years, I managed to visit all 9 at least once. My professional visits to Sudan occurred in 14 different years; the last one in March 2008, when I also had the opportunity to go to Darfur and visit two IDP camps: Salaam and Abu Shok near El­ Fasher.

I was one of only 5 foreigners to observe the March Round-Table Conference on National Reconciliation, especially regarding Southern Sudan in 1965 during which leaders of all Sudanese parties, Northern, Southern, Western and North-Eastern attended and spoke. Also, religious and secular, unionist, federalist, and secessionist leaders spoke. Similarly, I was invited to attend a comparable conference in September 1989, the National Dialogue to which all parties were invited and all came except for the SPLM.

I have personally met with leaders of Southern movements, e.g. General Joseph Lagu, Joseph Garang, Clement Mboro ofNyaNya days, also political figures like William Deng (SANU), Bona Malwal, Dunstan Wai, Lam Akol and several times with the SPLM leader Dr. John Garang de Mabior and several of his deputies. ICC-02/05-171-Anx8 15-01-2009 3/11 CB PT

Among Western politicians I have met with the former longtime Darfur Governor Ahmed Ibrahim Direige, also the Governor of North Darfur Province in March 2008, the leader of the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM, formerly the Darfur Liberation Front) Abd al-Wahid Muhammad Nur and Dr. El-Tahir A. El-Faki, Speaker of the Legislative Assembly of the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), both in Summer 2008.

Among Northern leaders I have interviewed one-on-one are President Omar Hassan Ahmed al-Bashir, his predecessors LTG Siwar ai-Dhahhab and Isma'il al-Azhari, PMs Sadiq al-Mahdi and M.A. Mahgoub, Islamist leader Dr. Hassan Turabi, Communist leader Abd al-Khaliq Mahgoub, and many others rank and file.

During my years in government service I have briefed many United States government officials posted to Sudan, including four ambassadors, several charges d'affaires and one head of the Africa Bureau in the US State Department.

I have been an active member of the Sudan Studies Association of America since its founding in the early I980s. I have also served as an officer in SAFE, a small NGO collecting textbooks for shipment to universities in Sudan.

My publications that I am able to recollect include: Parliamentary Elections in the Sudan. Ann Arbor, MI, University Microfihns, 1968. Thesis- Princeton University.

Politics in the Sudan:Parliamentwy and Military Rule in an Emerging African Nation. New York: Praeger, 197 6.

Numerous articles in Africa Today and Middle East Journal; chapters in edited books, bibliographic entries, a major bibliography on the Near East and North Africa with a special section on Sudan; a number of contributions to blogs on Sudan.

INTRODUCTION

Most Western media accounts of the crisis in Darfur describe deliberate attacks by the Sudan Armed Forces on orders of the "Arab" or "Arab-dominated" government in Khartoum or their "Janjaweed" proxies against defenseless and innocent "African" villagers. They include stories of massive atrocities such as large-scale murder, rape used as a weapon, burning of villages, and forced dislocation from homes to refugee camps for internally displaced persons (IDP). Some insinuate a policy by Khartoum to achieve Arabization through "ethnic cleansing" of existing "African" populations in Darfur. The SLM leader Abd a!-Wahid Muhammad Nur goes further and charges forced Islamization by the "Islamo-Fascist" regime in Khartoum (Wall Street Journal, June 18,2008).

Such descriptions are highly misleading; they distort realities on the ground and, sadly, contribute to prolonging the very real conflict and add to the very real suffering of many people in Darfur. To set the record straight, and to assist the Federation of Trade Unions

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in proposing an effective plan for conflict resolution, I want to provide in summary form the historical, demographic and political context for this very real humanitarian crisis.

GEOGRAPHICAL FACTORS

After more than 4 decades of studying Sudan intensively I have concluded that understanding anything at all about this fascinating country requires, at a minimum, full awareness of its size, its human and ecological diversity, and its inadequate infrastructure.

The tenth largest country on earth, and the largest in Africa at almost one million square miles (2.5 mill sq. km), Sudan contains fewer all-weather roads than most American counties, much less states, at least prior to the year 2000. When l was first in Darfur in 1972 there were less than 5km of pavement in a territory the size of France.

Given the extensive rainy season as one moves southward, and the debilitating sandstorms, called haboob, in the North, transportation over land is haphazard at best. This is as true of Darfur as of the entire country. Add to this picture that the Nile River is not navigable for transport except for short distances and by small craft in limited stretches, and that the narrow-gauge, single-track railroad built by the British military more than a century ago is as antiquated as it is inadequate, and the result is a recipe for classical underdevelopment.

Indeed, since Sudan acquired its modem identity in the 1820s under Ottoman rule, no government to this day has been able to exercise adequate control beyond a modest perimeter of perhaps 250-300km from the capital Khartoum. Hence, distribution of food from producing to consuming areas, provision of educational and health services, tax collection, and even the recruitment of soldiers has been limited and haphazard.

As a result of all this, groups in outlying areas have been left to their own devices, expect little from Khartoum and have minimal loyalty to the central authority. I myself have heard constant complaints about the lack of services from residents in the West, South, East and even the North of the country. (These conditions and complaints have been well-documented in numerous studies and are unchallenged by government officials and politicians). When feelings of marginalization escalated-for understandable reasons or, perhaps, due to local politicians agitating their populations--conflict has erupted. The more remote the region, the more severe the problem. The two most remote regions have been 1. Southern Sudan, especially the Sudd area and 2. Darfur. (One of Europe's foremost experts on Darfur, R.S.O'Fahey, reported that while crisscrossing Darfur on camelback in 1978 for 6 weeks he never once encountered a government official.)

In the absence of effective government, conflict resolution was based on customary law--Sulh~arbitration and negotiations among local chiefs. Many anthropological studies as well as Sudan archives, including from colonial times, document the high success rate of these traditional methods. When negotiations failed, armed conflict might return for awhile until the next round of Sulh, under different auspices, perhaps. It is noteworthy in

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this context that international intervention, with or without the ICC, is unlikely to be accepted and more likely will be resisted (as happened when the British tried to intervene during WWI and the French in neighboring territories, as well as the Libyan activities in the 1980s and 1990s).

DEMOGRAPHIC DIVERSITY

This situation would be challenging enough if the country and its people were homogeneous. Unfortunately, the opposite is true in Sudan, one of the world's most heterogeneous nations. Serious anthropological research has identified almost 600 different tribal groupings speaking up to 400 different languages and dialects. In terms of religious affiliation most Northern Sudanese are Muslims but they tend to divide into more than a dozen rival sects called Tariqah; there are several million Christians as well. Meanwhile in the Southern region up to 200 religious identities have been chronicled. Most of these are referred to as "animist" or African traditions, with perhaps 10-15% Christians and about 5% Muslims. Significantly, all indigeneous Darfuris are Muslim and most belong to the Mahdiyyah tariqah. Religious diversity in Darfur is not an issue, notwithstanding early reports in the American media. This is not to say that religion plays no role in the modern conflict. In fuct, the leader of one of the two largest rebel groups, the JEM, has been reported to be a strong Islamist, and his theological orientation has been cited as one reason for the factions within the JEM.

GOVERNMENTS

Given the bewildering demographic diversity and the geographic and topographic dimensions of the country, it is not surprising that loyalty has been localized: to family, clan, tribe and village. Political organizations since the 1920s and especially after WW II have centered around religious and tribal identities and the country's body politic was a rich kaleidoscope reflecting these diverse, yet unequal groupings. Not surprisingly, it has been extremely difficult to produce a "national" consensus on anything, and all Sudanese governments have suffered from severe instability. Three times the nation was ruled by democratically elected parliaments, multi-party and Western-style democracies, all of them coalition governments, because no party or faction could ever come close to gaining a majority of seats in parliament. And three times these parliamentary democracies were aborted by military coups (FN: The juntas were led by, respectively, Ibrahim Abboud November 1958-0ctober 1964, Ja'far Numayri May 1969- Aprill985 and Omar H.A.al­ Bashir, June 1989 to present.) whose leaders promised more effective government than the hapless civilians, each time followed by purges of political elites putatively responsible for the mess. The last such coup occurred on June 30, 1989 when military officers led by MG Omar H.A.al-Bashir seized power from PM Sadiq al-Mahdi and established rule by the "Revo lotion for National Salvation" (RNS), presumably to overcome all the mistakes of the past. It punished members of the former regime more drastically than any earlier goverrunents since independence had, leading to mass arrests, accusations of massive human rights violations and a significant exodus of political refugees to Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Europe, Canada and USA. Most of these exiles and victims of human rights abuses were Northern Muslims. Many

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of them have come together in the common cause to oppose the RNS regime and formed various coalitions, e.g. the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), also the Sudan Peoples' Liberation Movement (SPLM) led for many years by Dr. John Garang and now by Salva K.iir, and apparently a model for at least one major Darfurian rebel group, the SLM.

REGIONAL REBELLIONS

For the above-stated reasons of ethnic heterogeneity and geographic diversity and distance from the center, regional rebellions, large or small, brief in duration or longer­ lasting, have dominated Sudan's political history since independence in 1956. The better known are the North-South Civil Wars of 1955-72 and 1983-2004 concluded by comprehensive peace agreements in Addis Ababa (March 1972) and Naivasha, Kenya (January 2005). Yet throughout these decades lower-intensity fighting took place in Darfur, South Kordofan, and the Eastern region of the Red Sea Hills. Local politicians had formed the Darfur (formerly Suny) Liberation Front, the Nuba Mountains Federation and the Beja Congress as political movements with purely regional agendas. During parliamentary rule these groups were represented in the national assembly but during periods of military rule they frequently resorted to armed revolts.

One key event for all these movements was the formation of the Kutla al-Souda, the "Black Bloc" in the 1950s during the transitional period prior to independence, when embittered Southerners aligned with indigenous African groups in the North, e.g. the Fur and Nuba in the West and some Beja from the Northeast. This rather loose alliance of some educated "blacks" was revived in 2002/03 just as pressure for resolving the South vs. Khartoum conflict was mounting dramatically under international auspices. Ironically, when the SPLM agreed to a comprehensive settlement with Khartoum, the SLM leadership in Darfur took notice and began to agitate for a similar result. With Khartoum completely focused on negotiations in Kenya, especially under substantial American pressure, the SLM apparently saw an opening for a surprise attack on government outposts in February 2003 and launched what is now known as the Darfur crisis.

THE DARFUR CONFLICT

The region ofDarfur was one province at independence; it is now divided into three: North Darfur with El-Fasher as capital, South Darfur with Nyala and West Darfur with Geneina. Scholars specializing on Darfur count as few as 80 and as many as 123 different tribes. In population size and tribal diversity Darfur ranks first among regions in Sudan, although at least one million, some claim two, have been living in the metropolitan Khartoum province.

Contrary to many journalistic oversirnplifications, all Darfuris are African and Muslim. Wben traveling through the region it is almost impossible for outsiders, i.e. non-Darfuris, to tell one ethnic group from another. The only obvious difference occurs among lifestyles in different ecological zones. To wit, the Northern third is virtually uninhabited and sheer desert; the central third is mostly pastoral except in the higher elevations around Jebel Marra (highest elevation in Sudan) which allows for some cultivation; and

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the Southern third receives relatively more rainfall and this permits limited agricultural activities. The two livestyles then are a function of the ecological conditions: semi­ nomadic pastoralists in the North, mostly herding camels and goats, and agricultural villagers further South growing vegetables and maintaining cattle rather than camels. In the "journalistic world" the former have been labeled "Arab" and the latter "African" even though that distinction is rather silly since all are African, are indistinguishable in terms of pigmentation for all but the superspecialist, and they all speak some version of Arabic of which there are several. In my research covering 80 some years it has become evident that accommodation was worked out between the agriculturalists and the pastoralists with generally acceptable definitions of Dar homelands and the provision of cordoned passageways for access to water for herds. The only trouble occurred whenever droughts lasted two to three years and encroachment by camels and goats into vegetable gardens of cattle-folks brought out stick-now gun-wielding youths.

Historical records go back at least to the mid-seventeenth century and reveal an unending series of tribal contests over limited resources. Because there are NO rivers in all of Darfur-not even one perennial creek-human habitation centers around baobab trees that function as water holes. Control of these "oases" makes life possible, and fighting over scarce resources becomes existential. Robert Collins has described the rise and fall oflocal kingdoms and other dynasties over some 350 years. More often than not, the smaller tribes aligned themselves with larger federations, e.g. Fur, Zaghawa, Rizaigat, Berti, Ta' aisha, Habaniyya,etc.

The region was virtually untouched by the rest of the world prior to WW I when the British colonial authorities decided to reign in the ruling Sultan ofDarfur and destroyed his military, killed him and annexed Darfurto Sudan in 1916. With their erstwhile European rival France in control to the West in Chad -and beyond-the Darfur/Chad border gained some significance, but not real detailed demarcation. Many tribes lived on both sides of the border and moved freely within their Dar (traditionally recognized homeland), so that the Dar Fur would abut the Dar Masalit and the Dar Beni Halba,etc. As it turned out, major "Darfurian" tribes, e.g. the Masalit and especially the Zaghawa have straddled both sides of what has become suddenly an "international" border and their tribesmen are ruled from Khartoum and N'Djamena, thousands of miles apart and totally irrelevant to these tribesmen. All this might be comical, e.g. how can a Masalit live in the "Land ofthe Fur"(the meaning of Darfur),etc., but the "bi-national" Zaghawa also live partly in the "Land of the Fur", and they also provide the President of Chad, ldriss Deby.

The tragic-comical part arises when Western journalists like Nick Kristof of the New York Times, foremost among crusaders for "action" against the "genocidaires" in Khartoum, encounters a Zaghawa translator in a Chadian refugee camp, hires him to accompany him into Zaghawa land in Western Darfur and he uses his singular experience to "describe' what has been going on in all Darfur. He is later followed by Hollywood actors, e.g. George Clooney and Mia Farrow whose entire experience and subsequent lectures before mass audiences in the US are based on these Chadian/Zaghawa narratives.

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Significantly for this court case, I have read in a number of publications that Mr. Moreno­ Ocampo has allegedly never been in Darfur either (as of July when he submitted his indictment brief) but only in Chad. If true, his evidence is second hand at best, and derives from dubious sources, i.e. one major party to the conflict, the overwhelmingly Zaghawa-based JEM.

A number of scholars have documented that serious fighting has raged in Darfur throughout the 1990s, including battles involving Fur, Rizaigat, Masalit, Abbala, Zaghawa and "Baqqara" tribes. In addition, many "Chadian" refugees streamed especially into Western Darfur as a result of the latest chapter in the decades-long Chadian civil war. Add to this toxic brew meddling and outright interference by Libya's Mu'ammar Qaddafi who had ambitions for a Greater Libya in the Saharan region, but minimally wanted to absorb the Aouzou strip of Northern Chad which the Europeans had "wrongfully" assigned to Chad rather than Libya, and who had positioned an "Arab Legion" in the Northern parts ofDarfur.

By summer 2001 the security situation was precarious once again, and a group of Fur and Zaghawa activists met on July 21 at Abu Gamra in Jebel Marra and swore on oath on the Koran to cooperate in their opposition to their perceived Arabization of Darfur (FN:Collins, A History of Modern Sudan,2008). The chief Fur activist was Abd al-Wahid MNur who was to form the SLM, following most of the script of the SPLM and, according to some sources, had received some logistical support from the SPLM earlier ( see before). One additional source of inspiration may have been the publication in 2000 of the Black Book, whose authorship is attributed to the JEM leader Dr. Khalil Ibrahirn. It documented that over 80% of all government jobs since independence, from cabinet ministers to ministerial drivers, had been allocated to "Arabs" from the Danaqla, Shaigiyya and Ja'aliyyin tribes and that Westerners had been "systematically excluded".

In short, the SLM launched the current Darfur crisis on 26 February, 2003 by attacking several government outposts near Jebel Marra, killing dozens (CIA estimate: hundreds) of uniformed personnel, burning their barracks and destroying 6 small aircraft on the ground. The JEM went into action a few weeks later and attacked government outposts in their region, and on one occasion, in perhaps a joint operation in April2003, several hundred government personnel were taken prisoner and about 200 were killed "in cold blood" in prison with their hands tied. The Darfur rebellion was on.

Khartoum and its military were focused on negotiations with the SPLM in the South, and were in no position to respond directly in Darfur. As many have pointed out: A very large proportion of SAF soldiers are actually recruited from the impoverished region of Darfur and they "could not be trusted to shoot at their cousins". What to do? The regime decided to revive an older tactic used in parts of the Southern campaign, i.e. arm tribes with historic animosities against the current rebels and let them do the fighting. Throughout 2003 and the first half of 2004 this became the war scenario, and the resultant killings of guerillas in their home villages and the accompanying destruction have become the narrative for Darfur activists in the United States and parts of Western Europe. On the positive side, the clamor received the world's attention, and international

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organizations responded with massive humanitarian aid. On the negative side, the stabilized situation--beginning with 2005----did not produce a comprehensive, but a partial peace agreement in Abuja, Nigeria in May 2006 with one rebel faction signing for peace but two others refusing to do so despite considerable pressure from international mediators. Ever since, the fighting in Darfur has been mostly rebel-on-rebel, i.e. those who rejected the DPA fought the "traitors" who had signed. When I visited Darfur in Spring 2008 there were at least 19 separate rebel groups fighting each other and occasionally raiding trucks belonging to relief organizations. The JEM and SLM leadership continue to refuse participation in peace negotiations while the government in Khartoum has committed to attend. Abd a!-Wahid has been quoted as saying:"Why should I accept the peace offerings of Khartoum when the American people are behind me and we can get a better deal, like our Southern brothers in their CPA at Naivasha"? It is noteworthy that both Abd a!-Wahid and his JEM counterpart live in European hotels, and use these bases for lobbying receptive journalists and some parliamentarians. So far, UN and other foreign leaders have failed in their efforts to bring about unity for the rebels so that they could negotiate with one voice. Given the record of these rebel leaders, it is not clear just how high negotiation ranks among their priorities. Do they want peace/and if so, what kind of peace, with what sort of guarantees? Do they want to resurrect the Sultanate of Ali Dinar or the ancient Zaghawa kingdom that used to rule the Chad Basin, Waddai and "Darfur" in medieval times? Who knows, because they won't say. What they will say is that they want to bring down the rule of General Bashir and his RNS regime. Evidently, toward that end they play along with the Western activists and provide fodder for Mr. Ocampo hoping that he will deliver if the USA won't.

COMMENTS ON SPECIFIC ISSUES

I have been asked to comment on the impact that arrest warrants could have on the political and peace building process in Sudan. The previous section is particularly relevant inasmuch as the international community, the UN, the EU, the AU have all agreed that peace negotiations MUST have priority. Inasmuch as the Bashir government has shown its readiness to negotiate in good faith and has agreed to proposals for convening a conference, the removal of Bashir from the equation would undermine that objective. If it were shown that refusal to negotiate can be rewarded by having the refuser's opponent removed, what incentive is there for any party in conflict anywhere to compromise?

An additional consideration would have to be: Just what are the repercussions of removing a sitting head-of-state in an African country by a Hague based court? I am afraid that the consequences might very well be riots inside Sudan and (unfortunate) attacks on foreigners and international officials. Usually this is not the Sudanese way, but in this case the Sudanese will be nnited in believing that Bashir was unfairly charged­ see my prior discussion-and they have a reputation of responding emotionally to personal and national insults.

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One should add that intellectuals in Sudan opposed to the RNS regime are disappointed because they had hoped to vote Bashir and his group out of office during the elections scheduled for this year. If he is formally charged and subpenoed, the elections may be delayed or even cancelled or, he is likely to win in a landslide because even his strong critics feel the need to show support for their ruler and to oppose foreign meddling.

After the preliminary indictment in July 2008 President Bashir demonstratively traveled to Darfur and appeared before huge rallies in Nyala and El-Fasher. Regardless of the eventual outcome of this crisis, many Darfurians disagree with the rebels. Note that huge numbers of refugees have fled to IDP camps in government-controlled areas, away from the rebels and the fighting. Ifthey were afraid of the government side as alleged by certain activists and Mr. Ocampo, why would they expose themselves to their tormentors? Another inconvenient truth-for the activists, that is--concerns the fact that many believe that the single largest ethnic community in the metropolitan Khartoum region is the Darfuris. If Khartoum is committed to "erase their communities" as per Mr. Ocampo, they must be awfully dumb to live in the enemy's territory.

Sudanese have always been very sensitive to perceived slights, especially those perpetrated by foreigners, be they Egyptians, British, Americans or others. The notion of interference in domestic matters is generally not acceptable for any community that I know of. Having foreigners judging your own leader is worse.

One reason why an African mission (AMIS) from the AU in Darfur was much more acceptable than the UN is that the US, under cover of the UN, had infiltrated inspectors into Iraq during the 1990s with its own intelligence personneL Inasmuch as President Bashir has been convinced for years that he is on the short list for US- led regime change-not without reason-he was unwilling to accommodate an international mission that he cannot trust as much as one from Arab or African states.

I have been asked to comment on what solutions are preferable for the conflict in Darfur and the crimes that have been committed there. An African solution is clearly preferable to Khartoum, not only because it, and Darfur, are located there, but because African regimes are more likely to understand tribalism and regional conflicts against groups empowered by preferential treatment started in colonial times. IfEuropeans-and their North American cousins-become the judges of events which are traceable by African minds to the misdeeds of these colonial powers a few decades ago, then resentment will built up very quickly.

The other side of this same coin is, of course, that the rebel holdouts rely NOT on African mediators to support their case but on foreigners. What credibility can they possibly have, even should they succeed?

I am asked about the allegation of genocide in Darfur. I am not aware of a single reputable scholar specializing inion Sudan who has stated that there is or has been a genocide in Sudan. Writers like Eric Reeves have long ago lost all credibility because of

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his endless attacks on Khartoum, a place or country he has never visited hy his own admission. Nor is he a research specialist in this field; he has been Professor of English at Smith College in New England.

Other writers like John Prendergast and his colleagues in the ENOUGH! Project have no academic standing becanse they are activists and admit that their focus is on policy advocacy, not on analysis.

Allegations regarding genocide have indeed been widely questioned. Aside from the USA, not a single government has alleged that there is a genocide happening in Darfur. Neither have the UN or the Secretary-Generals Kofi Annan and Ban-Ki-Moon; nor have commissions of the African Union, the Arab League, the Organization of Islamic Conferences or any other international body that I am aware of.

Mr. Ocampo's allegation that President Bashir and his government have pursued, and continue to pursue, policies to "erase the Fur, Zaghawa, and Masalit communities" are simply astonishing. When I visited the compound ofthe Governor ofNorth Darfur state in March 2008, I and my group of fellow academics were entertained by folklore groups of Fur, Zaghawa and Masalit along with Berti and a few others. I have taken their photographs for the record and the pictures are in my possession. As mentioned before, if the IDP camps with Fur residents were endangered, why are these individuals flocking to their putative executioners to live under their protection?

As reported previously, the US statements by President Bush and Secretary Powell were linked by senior American officials to be connected to the 2004 elections on the "strong recommendations" of Karl Rove. After 2005 I am not aware of any occasion when an American official used that term again. I might add that a fellow panelist who has been consistently critical of Sudan and also alleged "genocide" in Darfur in 2004, admitted during a discussion that the "genocide" label was employed by her activist group as a tactic because "there has been crisis fatigue among NGOs and others; the world has too many of those, but when one hears of a genocide, then that gets attention".

As noted above, Messieurs Reeves and Prendergast are not considered reliable among Sudan scholars. Neither is Ali Dinar who writes from Philadelphia, PA as an affiliate with the University of Pennsylvania, because he has a strong partisan interest. He appears desirous of reconstituting his grandfather's independent Sultanate. Mention should also be made ofthe US based SAVE DARFUR Coalition which has been the largest political action group lobbying for military action against Sudan. Their objectives and methodologies have been described in a favorable front page article by the Washington Post's leading reporter on political action groups (PACs), J. H. Birnbaum (FN: June 1,2007,Section D, p.l/3.). SAVE DARFUR has branched out to Western Europe and helped start the Aegis Trust in UK and URGENCE DARFOUR in France.

Respectfully submitted on 8 January, 2009 in Laurel, Maryland, USA Dr. Peter K.Bechtold

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