A Bashir-style greeting for the Security Council

When Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir wants to send a message to the international community, he often does so via throngs of supporters carrying some particular message. A U.N. Security Council delegation visiting Sudan reportedly got that treatment today: Bashir supporters briefly stopped the U.N. envoys from leaving El-Fasher airport in north Darfur as they arrived ...

By , a professor at Indiana University’s Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies.

When Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir wants to send a message to the international community, he often does so via throngs of supporters carrying some particular message. A U.N. Security Council delegation visiting Sudan reportedly got that treatment today:

When Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir wants to send a message to the international community, he often does so via throngs of supporters carrying some particular message. A U.N. Security Council delegation visiting Sudan reportedly got that treatment today:

Bashir supporters briefly stopped the U.N. envoys from leaving El-Fasher airport in north Darfur as they arrived to raise concerns about renewed clashes in the region where the United Nations estimates about 300,000 people have died since 2003.

Demonstrators chanted slogans against the International Criminal Court’s genocide charges against the Sudanese leader, with women shouting: "With our blood, with our soul we sacrifice for Bashir."

When I traveled with the Security Council to Darfur a few years ago, the messaging was only a bit more subtle. The Sudanese military had parked an attack helicopter directly in front of the U.N. plane at the El-Fasher airport and very conspicuously guarded it as the Security Council ambassadors deplaned. It was as if they expected the French or American ambassador to hop in and try to take it for a spin.

David Bosco is a professor at Indiana University’s Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies. He is the author of The Poseidon Project: The Struggle to Govern the World’s Oceans. Twitter: @multilateralist

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