NCP CONTEMPLATES PRESUMED ICC INDICTMENT OF

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 KHARTOUM 001730 SIPDIS DEPARTMENT FOR AF A/S FRAZER, S/E WILLIAMSON, AND AF/SPG NSC FOR PITTMAN AND HUDSON ADDIS ABABA FOR USAU E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/26/2018 TAGS: ASEC PGOV PREL KPKO UN AU SU SUBJECT: NCP CONTEMPLATES PRESUMED ICC INDICTMENT OF PRESIDENT BASHIR, DISAVOWS SUICIDE AS AN OPTION Classified By: CDA Alberto M. Fernandez, for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d) ¶1. (C) Summary: Recent contacts with ruling National Congress Party (NCP) officials reveal that they have resigned themselves to the reality that an arrest warrant against President Bashir is likely, and they discount overreactions by the regime ("we're not going to commit suicide") but they expressed concern about the immediate and long terms impact of the indictment on the stability of the country and the regime. End summary. ¶2. (C) "We don't want to be suicidal, we will try to control things," NCP insider Yehia Babiker told polchief when asked how the regime was likely to react to an ICC arrest warrant for President Bashir. Babiker was calm when discussing the impending arrest warrant and did not make dire forecasts of immediate disaster for the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA),the Darfur peace process, and Sudan's cooperation with UN peacekeeping missions (unlike what many in the regime did immediately after the July 14 announcement). However, Babiker did express concern that an arrest warrant would potentially have a negative long term impacts on the regime's ability to "hold the country together" as Darfur rebels over time would become less likely to negotiate and would increasingly look to the international community to solve their problems. Babiker feared that the warrant could lead to events "beyond our control" that no one could anticipate now. (Comment: Babiker seemed to be hinting at a power shift in the regime, but did not say that directly. End comment.) Babiker urged that the new US administration take advantage of Sudan as a country where an early diplomatic victory - by way of a peace agreement on Darfur - might be possible. Given his positive experience helping negotiate the CPA, and his disappointment that the US did not follow through on promises to remove Sudan from the State Sponsors of Terrorism List, Babiker is one of the leading proponents in the ruling party of a "roadmap" to improved US-Sudan relations linked to a comprehensive peace agreement on Darfur. ¶3. (C) Leading NCP negotiator Sayed al Khateeb acknowledged to CDA Fernandez November 26 that there are many difficult issues that will challenge the regime in the next few months. Seasonal migrations in Southern Kordofan that annually cause conflict, falling oil prices and the resulting impact on Sudan's economy, haggling over elections and the draft referendum law, and continued conflict in Darfur - not to mention the ICC - could together present an overwhelming combination of crises. Some in the regime are still in denial, he noted, but others see the position of the NCP deteriorating over the next few months as a possible "perfect storm" of crises come together. However, Khateeb laughed and said "I must be optimistic or I will go crazy." ¶4. (C) While he is always open with us, Khateeb was even more frank than usual and said somewhat ominously that he could not afford to go crazy worrying because he would become useless to his family, "which is worse than committing suicide." Reflecting on President Bashir's recent comments that the Americans, British and French are "under his feet" (a serious insult in Arabic that does not translate well into English),Khateeb said that these comments were a "blunder" and do not represent the President's real views. With regard to the various potential crises over the next few months, including the ICC, Khateeb expressed confidence that the international community had figured out that working with the Sudanese government to defuse problems is the best of a series of bad options. ¶5. (C) The NCP's lead lawyer on the Abyei arbitration, Dirdeiry Ahmed Mohammed, scoffed at discussions of the ICC as a "ball-gazing exercise." Mohammed said there is no way to predict for sure what will happen if there is an indictment, but said hopefully that the new US administration could make a difference in keeping Sudan stable. Mohammed warned that "hitting hard" in Sudan never worked and advised that the Sudanese and the international community would be better off taking a path of reconciliation and peacemaking. Mohammed, a member of Sudan's National Assembly, pointed to the relative progress that has been made on CPA implementation this year and predicted that the Parliament will be able to pass revised media and political parties laws before the end of the current legislative session in July. Passage of the referendum law would also be possible if the SPLM could agree to elections in late 2009. However, there will be a problem KHARTOUM 00001730 002 OF 002 with the security law, Mohammed predicted, because the regime will not agree to disbanding the "organized forces" within the National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS). "When (former Prime Minister) Nimeiry dissolved the security forces in 1985 it was a disaster - he was overthrown within a year and the war escalated dramatically in the South." ¶6. (C) Comment: All of these remarks differ sharply from what we were hearing from the NCP in July in August, when there were dire warnings of severe repercussions should President Bashir be indicted by the ICC. We don't discount that the regime might take some aggressive steps initially, such as expelling certain diplomats or UN officials, harassing NGO and human rights workers, but all signs lately appear to indicate that the regime will react to an indictment with its practiced pragmatism - a combination of targeted aggressive responses on one hand (especially against Sudanese critics of the regime rather than the ineffective UN) and vague but conciliatory, productive steps on the other. The three NCP officials cited here are among the more moderate within the party (and were all involved in negotiating the CPA) but it should also be noted that there has been very little aggressive language used in the media by hard-liners such as Presidential Assistant Nafie Ali Nafie, who has been relatively quiet of late while Vice President Taha has taken a leading role on Darfur. Nafie's last recent foray into national politics was to rally students at the University of Khartoum to vote in the student union elections, while Nafie and other regime officials have been stating publicly that elections must occur in 2009. These are elections which, for now, the NCP is reasonably confident it can steal. Overall the NCP appears focused on its next moves and does not appear to be paralyzed yet by the looming ICC indictment. This could change quickly in January, however, if following an arrest warrant, an economic downturn, and any number of possible crises with the SPLM, the regime finds the South, Darfur, and the international community all stacked against it. Unlike more recent crises which this durable and ruthless regime has weathered relatively easily (since the internal 1999 Turabi crisis threatened to tear it apart),the question will be whether the NCP hangs together, lashing out at its foes selectively in a calculating manner, or fatefully turns on itself. FERNANDEZ