Foreign analysis: Sudan’s bombastic president takes a stick to the insects

Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir likes to wave a stick when he speaks in public, and he does not speak softly.

Whether rallying his armed forces against internal rebels and the army of newly independent South Sudan, or defying a war crimes arrest warrant from The Hague, the leader of mostly Muslim Sudan projects a career soldier’s voice of command.

Sending his forces this month to recapture Heglig, a disputed border oil region seized by South Sudan, the former paratroop commander unleashed a barrage of belligerent rhetoric against the ex-rebels who now rule his independent southern neighbour.

Calling South Sudan’s ruling Sudan People’s Liberation Movement “insects” – a play on words on their Arabic name – Bashir vowed to “liberate” the southern state that became the world’s newest independent nation last July.

The South’s government would only learn from “disciplining with a stick”, Bashir shouted, flailing the air with his own trademark stick for emphasis. He warned that any who raised their hand in an attack against Sudan, would have it cut off.

In power since 1989, and one of the Africa’s longest-serving rulers, Bashir has deployed a combination of steely determination and wily pragmatism to face off a series of domestic and external challenges to his rule and person.

After Sudanese troops and militia fought a bloody campaign against a rebellion in the strife-torn western Darfur region, in 2009 Bashir became the world’s first sitting head of state to be indicted for crimes against humanity and war crimes by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague.

He said at the time he viewed the ICC as “a political court and not a court of justice”, and called it a “tool to terrorise countries that the West thinks are disobedient”.

His comment on Darfur, where Washington says genocide was killing thousands and forcing some two million from their homes, was: “In any war, mistakes happen on the ground”.

ICC chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo has said Bashir’s destiny is “to face justice”. But although Sudan’s president has sometimes changed his travel plans to avoid the threat of arrest, he has still found governments in Africa, the Middle East and elsewhere willing to host him.

And to judge by the thousands of Sudanese who filled Khartoum’s streets to celebrate the recovery of Heglig, Bashir still commands popular support with his bombastic rhetoric, his impromptu dances and his regular use of colloquial Arabic.

Facing rivals within his own ruling National Congress Party, his government has been struggling to cope after the South’s secession, with rising inflation, foreign currency shortages and an external debt reaching almost £24.8 billion.

Former US president Theodore Roosevelt’s mantra was “speak softly and carry a big stick”. But when things look bad at home, a bit of victorious war rhetoric is always helpful to boost popularity.