Nazret
March 11 2009

Is Sudan’s pain Ethiopia’s pain too?

03/10/09
by nazret.com,

Assta B. Gettu

When a person is in an all self-afflicted or natural pain, his
neighbor feels his/her pains too.

Ethiopia and Sudan have been good neighbors for a long time. I
remember when I was young, I visited Metema and spent about a week
there. The Sudanese town is very close to the Ethiopian town; only a
river separates the two towns. People from each side of the river
exchange their goods freely and friendly. No passport was then
required to cross the river and eat lunch at either side of the two
towns.

However, one night, something awful happened on the Ethiopian side of
the town in the middle of the night: A house caught fire while people
were inside the house; immediately the serenity of the town changed
into chaos: women and children were screaming and the young men were
running to the river to fetch water. It was amazing how fast the
Sudanese on the other side of the river arrived with their donkeys
loaded with containers of water and started helping their Ethiopian
neighbors by extinguishing the fire. In doing so and doing it quickly,
the Sudanese saved many Ethiopian lives of that beautiful town, and
I’m sure if something like this happened to the Sudanese town, the
Ethiopians would do the same kindness to the Sudanese as the Sudanese
did to the Ethiopians.

In general, the Sudanese people are now physically or psychologically
in an excruciating pain after they have been told that their
President, Omar al-Bashir, has received the arrest warrant for
genocide and crime against humanity by the International Criminal
Court.

As a neighbor and a good friend, is Ethiopia also feeling the Sudanese
pain, sharing the Sudanese sorrow, and rallying with the Sudanese
people behind the Sudanese leader, al-Bashir and protecting him from
being arrested or giving him a shelter as the Ethiopian ancestors gave
a shelter to the family of the Prophet Muhammad?

It seems though that the Sudanese are expressing their deep sorrows,
pains and emotional feelings in support of their President al-Bashir
without feeling any sympathy to the 300,00 people perished in Darfur
by the hands of the Janjaweed Afro-Arab Africans from the Northern
part of Sudan supported, perhaps, by the President of Sudan against
these Black Africans ` the Darfuri.

No doubt, Ethiopia loves the Sudanese people, but when it comes to
fairness, justice and the rule of law, what could Ethiopia do in these
agonizing circumstances? Should Ethiopia stand up firmly on the side
of the rest of the Sudanese people, sympathizing with al-Bashir, or
should Ethiopia simply ignore the sufferings and tragedies of the
Darfuri people?

One of the Nobel Peace Prize winners, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, has
recently and without any hesitation denounced those African leaders
who tried to protect al-Bashir from being arrested by the ICC because
Tutu reasons that Bashir is a criminal who slaughtered his own people,
and those African leaders who support Bashir should be considered
criminals, too.

In my opinion, the Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu is
absolutely correct in expressing his feelings toward those 300,000
Darfuri whom al-Bashir slaughtered and rendered about five million
Darfuri homeless. It is indeed shameful to ignore the blood of these
innocent Darfuri for the sake of one Sudanese leader, al-Bashir. Even
if the African leaders blindly ignore justice, sooner or later, each
one of them will pay the price from the God of justice, and their
punishment will be heavy.

It is time for the African leaders to rethink about this important
genocide crime committed by one of their friends ` al-Bashir. It is
time to hand him over, not to hide him in Sudan or in other places in
Africa, to the International Criminal Court before it is too late and
absolve themselves from the bloods of the innocent Darfuri shed in
vain by the Sudanese dictator ` al-Bashir.

Of course, it is not new for some African leaders to hide a killer in
their backyards. Such a killer is still hiding and enjoying life with
his family in Zimbabwe and that man is Mengistu Haile Mariam; however,
the blood of those Ethiopians spilt by Mengistu Haile Mariam in the
streets of Ethiopia is still demanding revenge and justice from the
Almighty God. That was few years ago, but the deaths of the Darfuri
people are fresh as these people are still being slaughtered by the
Janjaweed Afro-Arab Africans supported by the Sudanese militia.

Those Ethiopians who lost their loved ones never forget the evil
actions of Mengistu Haile Mariam; in the same way, the Darfuri people
will never forget what their President, al-Bashir, did to the 300,000
of them and too many others who are still unaccountable.

The African leaders lack courage and integrity, and Desmond Tutu has
them all, and for this reason and for speaking out in the name of
justice, Desmond Tutu should be awarded a second Nobel Justice
Prize. Desmond Tutu has shown again the quality of leadership and the
full responsibility of an authentic Archbishop toward the children of
God – the Darfuri people.

Are there any other archbishop, bishop, pope, and a patriarch who care
more for the victims of conflict than the Archbishop of Desmond Tutu
in this world? I don’t think so.

The Organization of the African Union will be carefully judged how it
handles President al-Bashir’s criminal case and the cases of the
Darfuri homeless, motherless, and fatherless children. The eyes of the
world will be on it if it indeed fails to cooperate with the ICC in
arresting al-Bashir and handing him over to the International Criminal
Court to face justice in full measure.

To interfere for the purpose of justice in another country’s criminal
case is morally correct; had the world intervened earlier against the
1915 Armenian Genocide by Turkey, the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda, the
1995 Srebrenica Genocide by Serbia and the 1999 East Timore Genocide
by Indonesia, millions of people could have been saved.

The Organization of the African Union did nothing to prevent the
killings of many African people in the continent of Africa; people are
still being killed and they have no place to go except someone like
Archbishop Desmond Tutu raises his voice in defense of such
defenseless Africans whose leaders have totally neglected them.

So, which way should Ethiopia go, the Desmond Tutu’s way to condemn
the criminal and hand him over to the ICC or the OAU’s way to support
the criminal and to hide him from being handed over to the
International Criminal Court?

The OAU may have a reason why it is rallying behind the criminal
al-Bashir, and the reason is `If I’m quiet now, tomorrow the
International Criminal Court will come after me.’ With such a selfish
motive, the OAU will go down in history with its corrupt dictators; it
will be buried disgraced as its founder Emperor Haile Selassie was
buried unceremoniously.

As for Ethiopia, it is better by far to continue its old friendship
with the innocent Sudanese, not with the criminal ones; it is better
to be an advocate of justice for the poor than to be the friend of a
dictator and at that a number one killer.

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