[allAfrica.com] [celtel.com] It is Time to Bring Sudan to Account The Monitor (Kampala) OPINION October 8, 2004 Posted to the web October 8, 2004 By Elias Biryabarema Kampala If there was a time when Kampala had a most felicitous moment to tax Sudan for its decade of evil machinations against Ugandans,that time is now. Apparently the Arabised regime of Khartoum has all of its diplomatic defences wobbling, with geopolitical variables having rapidly shifted to render it vulnerable and cast Uganda firmly in a position to bring this regime to account. Perhaps President Museveni might not have awoken to this reality, but a real opportunity lies at his doorstep to stem the Khartoum terror. Its icy diplomacy with Washington has just taken a quick dip over Khartoum's succor for the Janjaweed genocidairs. The international community is disconsolate over a regime with latent potential for sowing death, chaos and pain-when it is not enslaving children, it is savaging the southern Black Dinkas, hobnobbing with Kony (feeding and arming him), harbouring Osama Bin Laden, or bludgeoning infants and raping their mothers in Darfur - it is a regime depicting itself as a scar on the conscience of peace-loving mankind. Currently Sudan is also feebly fending off withering US and EU pressure to fix the insane militias in Darfur, stop the bloodletting and generally behave itself. By the resolution 1564 passed on September 18, the United Nations will impose sanctions on Sudan late this month if the country has not stopped its genocidal crimes in Darfur. This is just about the perfect mix of circumstances that Kampala craves. For twenty long years Khartoum has wantonly backed Joseph Kony's diabolical LRA that has entrapped our northern brothers and sisters in a theatre of massacres. This regime has even tended to boast about it in a most numbing manner. I recollect covering an event where Sudan's Deputy Head of Mission, Mr Mohammed Eisa was asked if Sudan ever felt any contrition for its alliance with a fiend like Kony and whether it had any apologies to extend to God's children in northern Uganda who suffered unspeakable brutalities at the hands of Khartoum's support for LRA. Eisa rubbished the suggestion, and instead shifted responsibility for the LRA conflict onto the Ugandan government. I was nonplussed, knowing his own government had conceded in the past to rogue officers in its military ranks having extended support to the LRA. A month or two later, Sudan's Charge d' Affairs appeared on WBS TV's Talk show to battle charges of orchestrating a genocide in Darfur through its vicious proxies, and denied that even a single woman had been raped in Darfur. It was a most awful denial. It is the norm that a diplomat should dress his country's bare bottom but intelligence also guides you not to for instance behave in a way that aggravates the humiliation engendered by a bare bottom. To deny that even a single woman has been raped in Darfur against internationally accepted facts, that about 50,000 thousand people have been murdered and a million more displaced by a campaign of rape, arson and food poisoning, is to illuminate the full extent of your country's brazen deceit. That is what Sirajudin did. Uganda had the misfortune of being cast in the eye of Khartoum's storm of terror. Several estimates have about 60,000 Ugandans to have fallen in Kony's terror, directly engineered by Khartoum as has now been put beyond dispute by a dozen or so accounts of ex LRA fighters. It also takes responsibility for past fatalities as a result of territorial incursions when its planes would strafe parts of northern Uganda. Kampala therefore has enough case to now use its geopolitical advantage to demand a full account of Sudan's nearly two decades of unprovoked bellicosity. We must use to advantage the international pressure now piling on Khartoum to cease its terror, funneled through a cocktail of savage militant outfits; Kony's LRA, the Janjaweed, militias in southern Sudan that it used to prosecute its protracted war against SPLA, and all the riffraff elements fostered by Sudan to terrorize peoples of God. A window of opportunity is on our doorsteps today. Already the United States has enacted a law-Northern Uganda Crisis Response Act-that will enable Secretary of State, Mr Colin Powell, to keep tabs on Khartoum's military or logistical support to Kony and other terror networks, and provide regular congressional briefings. The law equally mandates him to watch the Sudan government's action or inaction in fulfilling its responsibility to capture the remnants of LRA insurgents that will attempt to flee through it or scamper about in their territorial jurisdiction. Khartoum has already reneged on a seven-day pledge it gave at its own volition to capture or kill Kony. All this strengthens our case against Sudan. The recent improved cooperation in squeezing Kony notwithstanding Khartoum's evil character is just as raw as ever. While it has its focus on the LRA in northern Uganda now, Kampala must also exploit the Darfur crisis. Our voice both at the UN and at home should sound loud and clear; Darfur must stop. Kampala must swiftly connect the dots between Darfur and LRA. Pressure on Khartoum to stop its barbarous campaign in Darfur must translate into a sort of additional force for us as we marshal efforts to cut Kony from Khartoum. We have got to master the game fast and press the right buttons as Sudan squirms in distress with sanctions hanging on its head. We have a lesson to borrow from Iraqi exiles, for instance, that played a perfect chess game to railroad UK and US into war with Iraq. With the two nations' growing disenchantment with Khartoum, it is incumbent upon us to fray the nerves further. We could, and quite accurately, portray Darfur as a mere extension of the regime's old use of atrocities to crush its perceived enemies, a characterisation borne out by its support of Kony. By its initial rebuff of an African Union offer to expand both its military presence to about 3,000 troops and broaden the forces' mandate to include securing the refugees, Khartoum also estranged some of its would be continental allies. It is just about time the nemesis was paid in his own currency. The author is a reporter of The Monitor. rwampara@hotmail.com   =============================================================================   Copyright © 2004 The Monitor. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). =============================================================================