The Archbishop of Sudan, Dr Daniel Deng Bul, has called on the British Government to step up its support for the country’s CompreÂhensive Peace Agreement (CPA) as the key to peace in Darfur and across the country. Britain is a co-signatory of the agreement, which marked the end of Africa’s longest-running civil war in 2004.
“We are crying to the interÂnational community not to abandon the CPA. If it succeeds, then the conÂflict in Darfur, too, will be resolved. The British, the Italians, the AmeriÂcans, and the Norwegians need to step up now. This is a crucial time,” Dr Deng said on Thursday of last week during a visit to Salisbury dioÂcese.
He was speaking just before the indictment of the President of Sudan, Omar al-Bashir, for war crimes. On Wednesday, the InterÂnational Criminal Court issued a warrant for the President’s arrest for crimes against humanity in Darfur.
Hmmm. This article is dated March 6th, 2009, so I’m wondering it’s finally being posted here now. But I’m glad that you did post it, Kendall. Better late than never.
Sudan, including “New Sudan” as the southerners love to call their part of the country, is indeed at a critical cross-roads. The indictment of that brutal tyrant, Omar al-Bashir, for war crimes may be old news to many of us, but some people probably missed it when it happened almost three months ago. I find it odd and distrubing, but not totally surprising (unfortunately), that the indictment only mentions war crimes committed in connection with the Darfur region in western Sudan, and not the many more years of equally heinous war crimes that he presided over in southern Sudan.
Although the world is plagued by a number of horrible dictators (the notorious Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe immediately comes to mind, along with the insane ruler of North Korea, or the collective military junta in Burma, etc.), as far as I’m concerned, the dubious distinction of being the worst and most oppressive tyrnat in the world goes to Omar al-Bashir. He’s the absolute worst. He is the epitome of utter wickedness and demonic evil. And I don’t say that lightly.
David Handy+