1 March 2009 Media Monitoring Report www.unmis.org United Nations Mission in / Public Information Office

Local News Headlines

• West pushing for confrontation, “we are ready” – Nafie (Al-Rai Al-Aam) • Abyei Administration hints at unspecified measures (Al-) • Taha and Machar to discuss national security law (Al-Rai Al-Aam) • JIUs a “failure” – (Al-Rai Al-Aam) • “Musa Hilal” interview (Al-Intibaha) • Tang arrest a complicated process (Khartoum Monitor) • Sadiq Al-Mahdi re-elected Umma Party leader (Khartoum Monitor) • UNAMID notes increase in robbery, looting in Darfur (Al-Rai Al-Aam) • campus suspends studies following militia attack (Al-Rai Al-Aam)

Websites/International Headlines • MFA denies UNMIS, UNAMID in evacuation mode (SMC) • GoSS VP says 57 killed in Malakal clashes (ST) • Ex-militia leader says not criminal (SRS) • AU praises efforts to contain Malakal clashes (ST) • SPLM official says JIUs need to be reassessed (Miraya FM) • UDF holds convention, aims at independence for region (SRS) • GoSS committed to assist women in upcoming elections (Miraya FM) • Egypt to send more peacekeepers to Darfur and Southern Sudan (APA) • Sudanese authorities arrest British journalist (ST)

Commentary

• Justice is coming (Ottawa Citizen) • Uncertainty as Sudan awaits president's arrest (Los Angeles Times)

NOTE: Reproduction here does not mean that the UNMIS PIO can vouch for the accuracy or veracity of the contents, nor does this report reflect the views of the United Nations Mission in Sudan. Furthermore, international copyright exists on some materials and this summary should not be disseminated beyond the intended list of recipients.

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UNMIS Media Monitoring Report 1 March 2009 WWW.UNMIS.ORG

Highlights

Local Arabic and English Language Press

West is pushing for confrontation, “we are ready” – Nafie Al -Rai Al-Aam reports Presidential Assistant Nafie Ali Nafie criticized US, Britain and France for using the ICC to re-colonize Africa and the Middle East. He described the ICC as the court of “hypocrisy and injustice”. “The west is pushing for a confrontation and we are ready,” he told a rally in Northern State yesterday.

MFA Spokesperson Ali Al-Sadiq told the paper the government “differentiates between the ICC, UNAMID deployment, justice and implementation of the people of Sudan’s initiative,” He said talks with Darfur rebels would continue.

Meanwhile, Sudan deputy delegate to the EU Hamdi Hasab Al-Rasoul Osman has criticized the ICC Counsel for International Cooperation’s call on the international community to back an impending ICC decision against President Bashir.

Sudan’s Interior Ministry announced yesterday its preparedness to contain any insecurity that might be caused by a possible ICC decision on Wednesday. Police Deputy Director General Lt. Gen. Adil Al-Agib said police and security forces were coordinating to deal with any eventuality. “Police will protect foreign institutions and organizations as well as their property and personnel,” he said

The Sudan Vision cites high diplomatic sources that about 37 African states have started coordinating their stances to make a unified move to withdraw from Rome Convention and the ICC.

MFA Spokesperson Ali Al-Sadiq told the paper that the government would protect UN missions and embassies in the Sudan against any negative impact that may result from a possible ICC decision against the Sudanese political leadership. MFA spokesperson Ali Al-Sadiq denied receiving any notice from UNMIS or UNAMID that they want to reduce their missions in the country.

The Citizen reports the Sudanese government said today that it is unaware of any plan to evacuate UN staff dependents from the country before an ICC decision.

There had been reports that UN missions had urged personnel to evacuate families from the country and that staff on vacation outside the Sudan were told not to return until further notice.

Abyei Administration hints at measures to address financial crisis Al-Khartoum reports Abyei Chief Administrator Arop Moyak as saying the Federal Finance Ministry continues to delay budget release. He said project implementation, reconstruction and IDP resettlement had come to a halt due to lack of funds. Saying the situation was unsustainable, he hinted they might be forced to take measures of their own, given the growing disillusionment of the local population.

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Taha and Machar to discuss national security law Al-Rai Al-Aam reports NCP-SPLM technical committee member David Kuku as saying VP Taha and GoSS VP Riak Machar would meet soon to resolve differences on the national security law.

JIUs a “failure” – Pagan Amum Al-Rai Al-Aam reports SPLM Secretary General Pagan Amum has called for a JIU review after the failures in Abyei and Malakal.

“Musa Hilal” interview In a lengthy interview, Mahameed tribe leader Musa Hilal told Al-Intibaha that over 30,000 youths had been mobilized, trained and are now ready to reject the ICC move. “We will confront any quarter if the mandate is violated whether international troops or humanitarian organizations” he said. “No organization or international body will be spared if proved involved,” he warned.

Tang arrest a complicated process Khartoum Monitor cited an official source that about 50 nationals were arrested in Malakal by SPLA and released later. GoSS VP Riak Machar described the arrest of Maj. Gen. Gabriel Tan as a “complicated process” given that the decision is in the hands of President Al-Bashir, SAF General Commander.

Sadiq Al-Mahdi re-elected Umma Party leader Khartoum Monitor reports Sadiq Al-Mahdi, 74, has been re-elected head of the Umma party at the end of his Party’s seventh convention on Friday.

UNAMID notes increase in robbery, looting in Darfur Al-Rai Al-Aam 28/2/09 -- UNAMID says the Darfur security situation is relatively calm other than an increase in robbery and looting incidents in S. and N. Darfur.

Malakal campus suspends studies following militia attack Al-Rai Al-Aam, 27/2/09 -- The administration of University has announced that it has suspended studies indefinitely at its Malakal campus and that its students would be distributed among the university's campuses in Al-Rank and Khartoum. University chancellor Dr Akwai Dwal Akwai told a Khartoum press conference that the university had sustained losses of about 50m pounds ($25 m) as a result of looting and destruction triggered by ’s militias.

Websites/International News Coverage

MFA denies UNMIS, UNAMID in evacuation mode Sudanese Media Centre website, 27/2/09 -- The government has made plans and set up mechanism to enable it avoid negative consequences of any decision by the ICC on the Sudanese leadership. In a statement to SMC, MFA spokesman Ali al-Sadiq said that diplomatic contacts were ongoing in all fronts and levels, bilateral, regional and international, with the help of friendly countries in the UN GA and SC. He pointed out that the Sudanese diplomacy had in the past managed to overcome even more difficult problems and was ready for the next battle with diplomatic contacts and coordination. He denied that the MFA had received indications of changes to operational procedures in Darfur or in the south from UNAMID or UNMIS. He described news reports that missions had plans to reduce or evacuate their staff as false,

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adding that the ministry had not seen anything of that sort. The official spokesman stressed that the government would shoulder its full responsibility regarding its obligations under Vienna Conventions on Diplomatic and Consular Relations. He added that protection of UN and foreign missions was part of the government duties which it would fully discharge, whether or not there is an ICC decision.

GoSS VP says 57 killed in Malakal clashes Sudan Tribune website, 28/2/09 -- About 57 people were confirmed dead in Tuesday's bloody clashes involving the SAF and the SPLA in Malakal. In a press statement on 27 February shortly after his arrival in back from Malakal, GoSS VP Teny said among the people killed included 26 civilians, 15 SPLA soldiers and 16 SAF soldiers. The wounded, he said, included 21 civilians, 40 SPLA soldiers and 33 SAF soldiers, bringing the total wounded to 84.

Machar stayed in Malakal town for three days, inspecting the town and assuring the citizens that the violence stopped and calm returned to the town. By Thursday shops were re-opened and civilians started moving in the town as normal.

The UN said that Malakal violence resulted in about 50 deaths from the troops of both sides as well as civilians. Also there are some 100 wounded people.

The deadly fighting erupted on Tuesday one day after the surprise arrival from Khartoum of General Gabriel Tang Ginya, for whom an order of arrest had been issued by GoSS President for his role in the Malakal clashes of November 2006 which left about 150 people dead. Tang been integrated with SAF for the last three years and, according to Machar, his arrival in Malakal on 23 February last week explained that Gen Tang, who arrived in the town on 23 February had been in defiance of SPLA and UNMIS commanders who had tried to persuade him to leave town.

“It took us sometime, that day we arrived around 0615 (PM) and we straight went to meet first the SPLA commanders who were around the airport. From there we went to where Gen Tang was with the JIU (SAF) and persuaded him to leave so that there would be cease-fire. And by then there was still fighting, so we persuaded him, he left. After that we began to move in the twilight and in the night between the two forces so that there is cease-fire,” Machar told the press. He said the cease-fire was observed, but that looting ensued next morning in the town which was later stopped through the intervention of the UNMIS peacekeepers and the CJMC. The GoSS VP also described how he had travelled to Faluj oil field in Malut County north of Malakal on two occasions to deal with the fall out from clashes there which had followed on the outbreaks in Malakal.

Meanwhile GoSS President Salva Kiir Mayardit has set up an committee of inquiry headed by Cabinet Affairs Minister Dr Luka Tombekana Monoja to investigate the cause of the Malakal confrontation. The committee is to report within one month.

Ex-militia leader says not criminal Sudan Radio Service (Nairobi-based, USAID-funded),27/2/09 -- Maj Gen Gabriel Gatwech Chan known as "Tanginye" says he would not have been able to go to Malakal if GoSS didn't want him in southern Sudan. General Tanginye told Sudan Radio Service by phone on Friday that he was unaware of President Salva Kiir's announcement that he is a wanted criminal.

“I did not know if what they say is true because if I knew, I would have stayed in Khartoum without visiting Malakal, because I do not want people to die because of my name. This is a

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UNMIS Media Monitoring Report 1 March 2009 WWW.UNMIS.ORG time for peace, not for war. I thought what happened in Malakal in 2006 was not my fault. If I knew that I am the one, I would not come to Malakal again. I know the time when I will fight my war in southern Sudan."

Gen Tanginye, who claimed that he is a member of a SAF JIU in Khartoum, said his unit had given him permission to visit Malakal. “I took my leave for seven days from Khartoum and I have a departure order, to prepare the funeral of my daughter who passed away in Malakal, and to renovate my house which collapsed a long time ago and see one of my flats which was sold by somebody who I do not know. I was given seven days to go and complete all my work. That was the reason why I went. I went with my bodyguard. I did not go with the army. I did not carry a single gun with me. I was just going home.”

AU praises efforts to contain Malakal clashes Sudan Tribune website, 27/2/09, Addis Ababa -- AU Commission chairperson Jean Ping praised the joint efforts exerted by the two partners to contain the clashes that broke out in Malakal on 24 February between SPLA and SAF-aligned former members of a militia led by Gen Gabriel Tang. Ping “commended the Sudanese leadership for the manner in which the parties swiftly dispatched a high-level delegation to defuse the situation on the ground.” He called on them to ensure that the JIUs begin to work coherently as provided in the CPA. He also “advised” that the JIUs “should demonstrate tolerance and uphold their professional obligations.”

SPLM official says JIUs need to be reassessed UN-sponsored Radio Miraya FM, 28/2/09, Juba – SPLM SG Pagan Amum said the JIUs needs to be reassessed. He said the JIUs had clearly failed given the incidents in Malakal and in Abyei before that. He said the current JIU is unqualified to form the nucleus of the Sudanese army in the future.

In Malakal, Miraya FM correspondent Othello Yarsiah reported the situation in the town had returned to normal, that shops had reopened and that the residents had resumed their daily routines. He also reported that police were concentrated around some areas.

UN Regional Coordinator David Gressly expressed satisfaction at the gradual return of calm to Malakal but noted that it was important that all parties concentrate on restoring confidence in one another.

UDF holds convention aims at independence for region UN-sponsored Radio Miraya FM, 28/2/09, Juba -- UDF has started its three-day convention with the stated aim of preparing for the upcoming elections. Party chairperson Peter Abd-al- Rahman Sule said that the convention marked the beginning of multi-party democratic transformation and the building of a strong civil society organization in the south. Mr Sule said the power can be transferred from one political party to another through popular votes. Organizing chairperson John Aurelio said the UDF manifesto is to make an independent country. Some 700 delegates from the south’s ten states, including representatives from other political parties, are attending the convention.

GoSS committed to assist women in upcoming elections UN-sponsored Radio Miraya FM, 28/2/09, Juba – GoSS Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs has confirmed its commitment to assist women and leaders at grassroots level to participate in the upcoming elections. The Ministry also stressed the need to work together with other partners to ensure free and fair elections and avoid violence. Page 5 of 9

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Egypt to send more peacekeepers to Darfur and Southern Sudan APA, 27/2/09, Cairo -- The Egyptian Foreign Ministry said on Friday that Egypt will soon send more than 900 peacekeepers to Darfur in western Sudan, plus another 660 peacekeepers to join the United Nations peacekeeping mission in southern Sudan.

Sudanese authorities arrest British journalist Sudan Tribune website, 28/2/09 -- British journalist Zuhair Latif was arrested by the security services in his house on Friday after they confiscated his computer hard drive, documents and tapes, according to an Associated Press report. Early this month, Canada's Foreign Ministry condemned the expulsion of a Canadian-Egyptian journalist, Heba Aly, just days after she made an inquiry about domestic arms production. There are no details about the detention of Latif who is also of Tunisian origin. He worked for French TV, Arabic media and had also worked for the UN.

COMMENTARY

Justice is coming -- Ottawa Citizen, Editorial, 27/2/09 -- Next week, the ICC will probably issue an arrest warrant for a sitting head of state, for the first time. Such a prosecution has huge implications. It is not merely a legal action against an individual, but also an intervention into the politics of a sovereign country -- and one that has not ratified the Rome Statute that created the ICC (although Sudan did sign the statute).

If ever a case merited the use of such extraordinary measures, though, it is the case of Omar al- Bashir, the president of Sudan. He is the mastermind of a humanitarian crisis that has lasted an astonishing six years, while the world watched. He has had every opportunity to stop the mass murder in Darfur; instead, he has enabled the janjaweed in their assaults.

Sudan's allies and sympathizers have been trying to stall the process. China and some African and Arab countries have warned that the indictment could "destabilize" the region. China wants the United Nations Security Council to use Article 16 of the Rome Statute to delay the prosecution.

It's hard to see what could be more destabilizing than a border region where 2.5 million people have been displaced or made refugees, due to Bashir's policies. The crisis in Darfur has long since spilled over into Chad, and threatened the chances for peace across the region.

Even some human-rights activists are nervous that the indictment could sour the peace process in Sudan. But in a meeting Thursday with the Citizen's editorial board, Kenneth Roth, the executive director of Human Rights Watch, argued against that. "Our experience has been that indicting people for atrocities tends to help, not hurt, peace processes... it tends to marginalize the most extreme elements and has actually created space for peace to emerge, in places where justice is pursued."

Roth predicts that people in Sudan will start to distance themselves from Bashir to save themselves. And the indictment might ultimately cause China and other supporters of the Bashir regime to rethink their policies.

Bashir has been threatening to respond with more attacks on civilians, peacekeepers and humanitarian workers. As Roth says, the international community must not give in to such blackmail. "If it does, it's sending a message to future mass murderers that you commit your

Page 6 of 9 UNMIS Media Monitoring Report 1 March 2009 WWW.UNMIS.ORG atrocities, and then when they come after you for prosecution, you commit more atrocities to get away with it."

Canada, which recently announced that it intends to make Sudan a major recipient of its foreign aid, and which played the lead role in the development of the Responsibility to Protect doctrine, has a strong interest in this case. Canada should speak with its allies and trading partners on the Security Council and warn them against giving in to Bashir's blackmail attempts.

The prosecution of a sitting head of state must remain a rare event. But war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide are assaults on the most basic legal principles held sacred by all nations. No human being is above that law.

Uncertainty as Sudan awaits president's arrest Los Angeles Times, Edmund Sanders reports from Khartoum, 1/3/09-- The billboard in downtown Khartoum delivers a not-so-subtle message to passing cars: “A real Sudanese never stands against a President during his time of need,” reads the text, under a picture of a smiling President Al-Bashir.

As if anyone in the Sudanese capital needed any reminders, an arrest warrant on genocide charges is expected to be issued against Bashir on Wednesday by the ICC, in a case that threatens to send the country down a path of uncertainty and instability.

Many hope that the war-crimes case stemming from Bashir's handling of the Darfur conflict in western Sudan will prod the hard-nosed regime into making reforms and ending the six-year war. But officials and analysts, both inside and outside the country, worry that the case could instead push the ruling party into a more antagonistic, isolationist stance, or even ignite another civil war.

“This is a whole new reality,” said Fouad Hikmat, the Horn of Africa director at the International Crisis Group. “It's anybody's guess what happens now.”

The arrest warrant is only the latest dark cloud emerging in what some see as a perfect storm brewing against Sudan's Islamist-led ruling party, which seized power in a 1989 coup. National elections this year will test the party's popular support and could unravel a fragile power-sharing agreement it forged with southern rebels. A new U.S. president has filled his administration with advisors who advocate a get-tough stance toward Sudan. Falling oil prices are bringing the country's once-thriving economy to its knees.

“This is going to be a decisive year for Sudan -- one that could determine whether the country will survive or not,” said Hayder Ibrahim, founder of the Center for Sudanese Studies, an independent think tank in Khartoum.

The ICC case arose from the government's counter-insurgency campaign in Darfur. Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo has accused Bashir of supervising a genocidal plot to wipe out certain tribes in the region. Private militias allegedly funded by the government killed 35,000 people and led to the deaths of at least 100,000 others from hunger and disease, according to the ICC case.

Government officials deny that genocide has taken place and accuse Western nations, chiefly the U.S., of using the ICC to topple an oil-rich Islamic republic with a history of opposing Washington policy in Africa and the Middle East. “The ICC is targeting Sudan because Sudan is a very rich country,” Sudanese presidential advisor Ali Tamim Fartak said.

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How the government responds to the arrest warrant in the coming months, and how the world reacts, will be instrumental in determining Sudan's future, experts say.

So far, the official government response has ranged from dismissing the case as inconsequential to warning it will increase violence in Darfur and spur attacks against Westerners in Khartoum. Last month, Sudan's intelligence chief, Salah Abdallah Gosh, said the case might trigger a rise in Islamic extremism.

Diplomats and U.N. officials in Sudan say the government's next move is unclear, but leaders appear to be leaving all options open, from a peace deal to war.

On the one hand, Bashir, who last fall convened the first-ever national convention to address the Darfur conflict, has opened peace talks with the leading rebel group and has sent diplomatic signals to the U.S. about democratic and humanitarian reforms.

"The time of the rifle is over," Bashir recently told an audience of opposition leaders.

At the same time, according to a Western diplomat in Sudan, the government has been arming militias throughout the southern and western regions -- the same strategy widely suspected to have been used in Darfur -- just in case rebels or political rivals move against it.

Harassment against opposition leaders, journalists, human rights activists and aid workers has increased substantially over the last six months. One man was convicted in January of treason for allegedly providing information to the ICC. Prominent Islamist Hassan Turabi was jailed after calling on Bashir to turn himself over to the ICC.

But some anti-government activists expressed mixed feelings about the ICC case, which is viewed by many Sudanese as a challenge to the country's sovereignty.

“I dream about getting rid of the government, but it should come through internal movement, not from the ICC,” human rights activist Azhari Alhaj said. “Having the ICC come in at this sensitive time could have a negative impact, because we are going to be seen as working for the ICC. We are the ones who are going to suffer, and no one in the international community is going to protect us.”

Its lobbying campaign against the ICC, the government has been trying to inflame nationalist sentiments, portraying the case as a “re-colonization” of Sudan and Africa by foreign powers.

But U.S. officials say that beneath the veneer of national unity and public support for Bashir, Sudan's ruling party is already debating whether its president has become a liability. There are rumors that some of Bashir's political backers are angling to replace him.

John Prendergast, an anti-genocide activist and Obama administration advisor, said the ruling party had a history of doing what needed to be done to survive. “They are going to have a serious debate about whether the interests of the ruling party are best served by having [an accused] war criminal as president,” Prendergast said, predicting Bashir would be nudged aside and offered asylum outside the country.

If Sudan were to replace Bashir or agree to reforms, U.S. officials are prepared to allow the ICC case to be deferred by the U.N. Security Council.

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“They are going to use the arrest warrant like a loaded gun, but not fire it,” said one U.S. government official who was not authorized to speak publicly. “It's a way to say, ‘Here is your last chance.’ “

Others warn such a strategy is fraught with risk. Former U.S. envoy to Sudan Andrew Natsios questioned whether Sudan's ruling clique would respond to outside pressure.

“We are assuming that they will become more rational,” he said. “But they become more inflexible, more confrontational and more brutal the more they are cornered.”

Natsios warned that the ICC arrest warrant might trigger the collapse of the regime or a return to war, particularly if it distracts from implementation of the 2005 peace treaty that ended the civil war with southern rebels.

“We could end up with another Rwanda or Somalia or Democratic Republic of Congo in which hundreds of thousands of people could be killed,” he said. “We could end up with something much worse.”

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