Daily Darfur: In the Spirit of Violent Non-Cooperation...

An adviser to Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir announced today that Khartoum is "appealing to President Barack Obama to hear the African country's stance over Darfur."

"Mustafa Osman Ismail says Sudan hopes the new U.S. administration will listen. He says his country has been ‘burned' by the previous U.S. administration. Ismail's remarks were carried today by the official SUNA news agency."

The remarks are likely a testament to a genuine fear of the new administration's proposed plans to amp up pressure on Khartoum. I hope that Obama uses the opportunity lean his diplomatic elbows into the sides of the violent and uncooperative regime.

Speaking of violence...

The Sudanese military continued its offensive against the rebel Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) on Thursday, after the rebel group took control of the town of Muhajiriya, South Darfur, from another rebel faction accused to colluding with the government. At least five rebels and two government soldiers died in the clash, but no word has yet surfaced on the fate of the 30,000 civilians in the area.

And speaking of non-cooperation...

The Sudanese government rejected the possibility that Bashir will be surrendered to the International Criminal Court after an expected arrest warrant is handed down in a couple of weeks (no surprise there). A statement in the state-run media said that Bashir's government is "ready to confront the entire world and never allow Sudan to become a colony again under the pretext of ICC allegations."

Given this (expected) less-that-cooperative spirit, speculation continues to swirl around Khartoum's response to the indictment, when/if it is handed down. IRIN compiled a list of possible reactions, which runs the gamut from "business as usual" to US military intervention, or even a possible internal coup in Khartoum.

The European Interagency Security Forum (EISF), after conversations with officials at the ICC, expects an indictment to be handed down in early February.

UNAMID

Officials from the African Union, United Nations, and the Government of Sudan --- a.k.a. the "Tripartite coordinating mechanism for UNAMID" --- met in Addis Ababa today to discuss UNAMID's deployment, which (of course) provided Khartoum with a platform for another eye-roll-eliciting statement on peace in the region:

"Dr. Saddiq Mutrif, Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs of Sudan stated that the Tripartite arrangement that involved the three partners has proved to be immensely useful to enhance cooperation and decision making. He too underlined that the ultimate success was peace and stability in Darfur.

In the pursuit of peace, he said, dialogue between the Sudanese themselves was paramount. In this regard the Government spares no effort to lay the groundwork for dialogue, and condemns elements who engage in violence."

My incredulity, of course, is not in what he said, but what he actually means. Somehow I doubt that Khartoum's path to the "ultimate success" of "peace and stability in Darfur" is entirely noble --- one can ostensibly bring "peace and stability" to a region by bombing it into submission, which seems to have been the government's tactic to date.