War Criminals Are So Cute When They Disagree

by Michael Bear · 2009-03-18 21:31:00 UTC
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Another day of happenings on the Darfur-front.  First, and most exciting, is the spectacle of two accused war criminals contradicting each other.  The fact that both accused war criminals hold senior positions in the Sudanese Government only makes the situation that much more, well - you either laugh or you cry.

On Monday, Sudanese President Omar Bashir made fairly clear that he wanted all foreign aid organizations out of Darfur:

"I ordered humanitarian affairs officials that in one year we don't want any foreign aid organisation working on the ground with our citizens and that Sudanese organisations will fulfil this role."

Then, on Tuesday, Ahmed Haroun - the State Minister for Humanitarian Affairs, who's also been accused of war crimes (and crimes against humanity) by the International Criminal Court - tried to explain that Bashir didn't actually mean that foreign NGOs should leave per se.

Instead, once you translated Bashir-speak into NGO-speak, he was really only talking about capacity-building.

According to Haroun:

"The president wants to see, in a year's time ... a real transformation for national NGOs (nongovernmental organisations) to take a more proactive role.  This does not mean by the end of reaching this vision we are going to expel all international NGOs."

Haroun also showed that, if nothing else, prolonged exposure to international aid agencies had affected his very vocabulary:

"The right approach to achieve this is by developing a good plan in a phased approach, so that national NGOs develop capacity and take more responsibilities and gradually international NGOs phase out."

There are reports - tragically unsubstantiated (by which I mean completely made-up by yours truly) - that other Sudanese Ministers mercilessly tease Haroun every time he says "sustainability," "capacity-building," or "rights-based approaches" while discussing how best to commit genocide.

Or so I imagine.

[Photo of Ahmed Haroun from Reuters]

Michael Bear
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