President Omar Al-Bashir knows that an international warrant has been issued for his arrest, referring him to the International Criminal Court (ICC) on charges of crimes against humanity. And although he knows that the Americans have repeatedly called on him to turn himself in to the ICC, he has requested a visa to come to the United States to attend the United Nations General Assembly. Such a request sums up Bashir's behavior and the way he thinks: a policy of provoking others and making light of them and of their stances. Indeed, this is precisely what he has done with the Sudanese people and with Sudan's political forces ever since he seized power in June 1989. By taking control of the military institution, placing his supporters in key positions of power and unleashing armed militias affiliated to his party, Bashir has been able to hold total hegemony over the central government. And although he would provide incentives here and there for opposition figures who would defect from their political parties or entities to join him for some time, the use of force and violence has in all cases been among the Bashir regime's favorite methods for dealing with the accumulated problems of this geographically vast, as well as tribally and culturally diverse, country. When Bashir was unable to resist exceptional international pressure, especially from the United States, and threats that had begun to endanger his rule, he was forced commit to the peace agreement with the South – reaching up to the latter's secession. Yet all other unresolved problems in Sudan – in the East and Kassala, in the West and Darfur, as well as in the center – remain as they are, when they do not increasingly worsen, as a result of the regime's complete rejection of all attempts to reach solutions that would include political concessions on the part of Bashir and his ruling party. As a result of such a government policy, the scope of violence, killing, displacement, and poverty has widened, and violent clashes nearly pervade all parts of the country, including the capital and large urban centers from time to time – to such an extent that tension and war have become the norm, while calm and stability have become the exception. Today, the violence has risen to a higher degree, despite the fact that the demonstrations, which the regime has confronted with all of the police and militias it could muster, were based purely on protesting the rising price of fuel. The regime has thus waged a broad campaign of arrests and silencing, reaching up to shooting and killing protesters. These protests and demonstrations, which are bringing together youth movements that are still refraining from raising political slogans, are placing the Bashir regime before an unprecedented challenge, whether in terms of the forces participating, the slogans being raised or the areas in which such movements are taking place. The issue has become one of directly confronting an unarmed population defending its livelihood, not political, armed, or secessionist movements, as had been the case throughout Bashir's time in power. The Bashir regime now finds itself confronting a new generation that dreams of more than applauding the President and his party. And it seems that the regime has taken its traditional decision to respond with repression and violence, placing Sudan today in the most dangerous phase it has been through. The Bashir regime has eliminated all safety valves in the country, after having exhausted traditional political parties (Khatmiyya and Ansar) and competition by the Popular Congress, the main constituent of the Islamist movement that brought Bashir to power. Moreover, the regime is still waging armed confrontations in the East, in the West, and in vast areas bordering South Sudan. This in fact leads to a dual process of weakening: weakening political forces that could have participated in government, with what this means in terms of the ability to influence the street; and weakening the central government, making it even weaker in confronting South Sudan and its President, Salva Kiir Mayardit, who has been gradually turning into a strongman able to influence the North, after the domestic situation and the issue of oil wealth has stabilized in the South. Omar Al-Bashir's regime has become a grave threat to what is left of the unity of Sudan, its stability and its return to a sound political life, with its use of brute force, its rejection of any kind of serious dialogue with the opposition or participation of traditional political forces, and its resort to extreme repression to confront the youth movement.
