New Ferrys, No more visas for Indian mechanics, and a visit by Sudan

In the news yesterday:

New Ferry - No crews or Facilities ready in time
Firstly, we now have taken delivery of the first fast ferry, aimed at providing a great fast connection to Musandam (and Salalah and Masirah). They look pretty sleek, and it is a great idea. But it was interesting to note that the ferry project has been on-going for 4 years, yet there are still no Omani crews trained, no dedicated jetty facilities started, no finalized regulations or procedures, no fare structures… IE the typical 'couldn't organise a piss-up in a brewery' from the Omani side. Even worse, a source close to the project tells me the fuel tanks are apparently too small to last the full trip from Muscat to Khasab, so there will have to be a refueling stop on the way, at a jetty that hasn’t yet even been built. Ah well. Once they eventually get it together it looks like a nice trip.

No more visas for Expat semi-skilled workers announced
The Ministry of Manpower announced their latest cunning plan to boost Omanisation, with the policy to deny new visas for expat workers in a swath of employment jobs: including car repair, workshops and even commercial cleaning services. In the long term it seems a good idea, plus in the short term it should increase the salaries of those expats here already, as most employers will not be running out to hire Omanis in these roles. But worryingly, the edict specifically excludes large companies, so presumably the Bahwans, Zubairs and the other big family companies have essentially been given exemptions. Which is bizaar, as these larger companies are exactly the firms best placed to implement long term training and are making enough profit to support the higher wages this policy will demand. Better get your hair cut fast...
Ban on visas for several professions

Sunday, July 27, 2008 10:58:36 AM Oman Time
MUSCAT — The Ministry of Manpower has announced that it has stopped issuing visas to companies engaged in the following activities: Import and export, cleaning, barber shop, laundry, electronic repair, garbage cleaning and selling, textile shops, mobile GSM shops, health clubs, workshops in aluminium, iron, wood, car repair and all related activities, tailoring shops and beauty parlours.

As per the new rule, companies engaged in these activities will not be eligible for visa clearance. Accordingly, existing companies cannot bring in new expatriate recruits, nor can new companies be set up. However, those currently employed in these activities can renew their visa. Ministry sources say the objective of the move is to enhance Omanisation and bring more local talent to the fore. “There is plenty of local talent but there’s very little space available for them,” said an official. Ministry sources also revealed that the visa restrictions apply only to small, grade 3 and 4 companies and not to those that have been awarded the ‘green card’ for compliance with labour laws and Omanisation targets.
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Genocidal Regime visits Oman
And finally, Sudan delegation arrives in Oman to start bolstering its support in the region, in the light of the ICC genocide charges against several high ranking Sudanese, including its President Al Bashir. As Sue Hutton pointed out in a comment on the previous post on this topic, Oman has long had a foreign policy founded on friendly relations with basically everybody, as befits a small country. But it still doesn't require supporting these idiots in the face of the horrendous actions taken for many years against civilians in Dharfur, supported by the government of Sudan in support of the Chinese oil extraction efforts. Dipolomancy is indeed often a distasteful business in the pursuit of National interest.

Interesting to note that The Times of Oman seemed to come out in support of the recent arrest of Radovan Karadzic for genocide by the ICC. How ironic.
Sudan envoy arrives with message for HM

ONA
Sunday, July 27, 2008 11:54:13 PM Oman Time
MUSCAT — Moosa Mohammed Ahmed, assistant of the Sudanese president and his envoy, arrived here yesterday on a visit to the Sultanate during which he will convey a message to His Majesty Sultan Qaboos bin Said from Sudanese President Omar Hassan Ahmed Al Bashir. Moosa Mohammed and the delegation accompanying him were greeted on their arrival at the royal airport by Sayyid Badr bin Hamad bin Hamoud Al Busaidi, secretary-general of the Foreign Ministry and the Sudanese ambassador to the Sultanate.

The Guardian article of a couple of weeks ago gives a nice summary, including the reaction of Sudan's principal supporter and arms dealer, China.

This morning China – Sudan's biggest arms supplier and a leading investor in the country – said it had "grave concerns and misgivings" over the ICC's decision.
"The ICC's actions must be beneficial to the stability of the Darfur region and the appropriate settlement of the issue, not the contrary," a spokesman for the foreign ministry in Beijing, Liu Jianchao, told reporters.
When asked whether China would use its position as a veto-wielding UN security council member to obstruct the court's actions against Bashir, the spokesman declined to rule this out, saying: "China will continue consultation with other members of the UN security council but, as for the outcome, that I don't know."

China are being somewhat disingenuous, as they voted (along with the rest of the UN Security Council) to allow the case to be refered to the ICC in the first place.
The interesting part will happen if the ICC do actually issue an international arrest warrent for Al Bashir (at the moment he's still essentially on trial in absentia), although that's unlikely to happen in time to nap him in September if he visits New York.

Sudan's ambassador to the UN, Abdalmahmood Abdalhaleem Mohamed, said Bashir planned to visit the general assembly in New York in September and warned that any attempt to arrest him there would be seen as a declaration of war.

For those who agree with the Times of Oman that Al Bashir is innocent, consider what he has been allegedly organising against the civilian African people in Dharfur:

...The plan was put into action, in the form of killings, mass rape and ethnic cleansing, after a revolt broke out in Darfur in 2003. "His motives were largely political. His alibi was a 'counterinsurgency'. His intent was genocide," Moreno-Ocampo said.

Three years ago a UN commission on Darfur ruled that the killings, despite their scale, did not constitute genocide. But Moreno-Ocampo argued that Bashir's guilt was far greater now because forces under his control had pursued the 2.5 million Darfuris made homeless in the conflict into the relief camps.
"Bashir organised the destitution, insecurity and harassment of survivors. He did not need bullets. He used other weapons: rape, hunger, and fear. As efficient, but silent," Moreno-Ocampo said.
"They are raping women, raping girls, raping in groups - raping to destroy the communities," he told CNN.

.

I know, its not black and white. The insurgency in the south started back in the 1980s, and the initial response of the Sudanese Government to arm and support the Arab Tribes was probably reasonable. But they've gone a long way from that now, with Government aircraft used repeatedly against unarmed women and children, and the GOS operating regularly in conjunction with the Janjaweed Arabs.

See these for some actual data on what's been going on in Darfur...
US State Dept Report
Médecins Sans Frontières
Boston News

Times of Oman - A supporter of a genocidal maniac

As predicted, The Times of Oman's editor came out swinging in the defence of Sudan's Genocidal President Al Bashir (see extract below), somehow making the ICC court's indictment of Sudan's Field Marshall President into a conspiracy by the Israelis and the Americans. Which, seeing as the USA is a vehement opposer of the ICC, a little weird. (the last thing the USA would allow is the idea of GW Bush being extradicted to Eurpoe to face charges on Guantanamo or Iraq!).

The real culprits are the Chinese, there for the Darfur oil, and in the process providing Sudan with arms sales and protection in the Security Council. But of coarse, the Times is also a big China fan...

The reason most civilised groups (like the Arab league) are against the ICC ruling is NOT because it isn't true, but because they are pragmatists who see the indictment as a blocker to actually sorting out the on-going killing and chaos. They find the ruling 'unhelpful' because it will strengthen Al Bashir's continuing resistance to international forces that, funnily enough, want to try stop the mass murder of thousands of innocent africans.

This guy does Oman no good whatsoever. He parrots whatever he thinks will make him look good with anyone with power. And thus comes out supporting someone who most civilised countries agree is a total monster. It has nothing whatsoever to do with American/Zionist conspiracies. There isn't even that much oil.

What's next Times of Oman?? - an article in support of Robert Mugabe? I prefer to look at what someone like Amnesty International says about the ICC ruling.

PRESS RELEASE
July, 14 2008
Sudan-International Criminal Court: An important step
Amnesty International said that today’s announcement by the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) is an important step towards ensuring accountability for human rights violations in Sudan. The organization was talking in reaction to the announcement by the ICC Prosecutor to seek an arrest warrant against Sudanese President al Bashir.

Amnesty International has repeatedly called for accountability for crimes under international law committed by parties to the conflict in Darfur.

The organization called on the Government of Sudan to ensure that its reaction does not have an adverse effect on the deployment of the joint United Nations-African Union Mission in Darfur (UNAMID). The government must guarantee that the civilian population in Darfur continues to receive protection from UNAMID and emergency humanitarian assistance.
ENDS

Here's the latest Al Zedjali opinion piece in full. My cat has more insight.

Sudan in clutches of international conspiracies
By Essa bin Mohammed Al Zedjali
Sunday, July 20, 2008 1:07:25 AM Oman Time

The invisible hands have come back once again to hatch international conspiracies against Sudan after a relative calm in Darfur crisis, which involved serious external interventions in a bid to secure both the American and Israeli interests in the region, which is rich with natural resources.

Israel has been trying for too long to separate the Darfur region from the rest of Sudan with complete support from the United States, but its efforts have failed to bear fruit. It has also failed to get its hands on Sudan’s natural resources, which are God’s gift to the country.

Now Israel and the US have both turned to a new trick leading to the condemnation of Sudan’s President Omar Hassan Ahmed Al Beshir by the Hague-based International Criminal Court (ICC), which, ever since its inception, seems to have decided to become an instrument to secure political goals and interests of the superpower. This travesty of justice is taking place despite the fact that the ICC’s sole purpose was to review and judge on the international cases of crimes presented to it on fair grounds with no political interests and to work within absolute legal framework and environment in the light of the international law and principles and not in the interest of some specific countries.

The arrest warrant for the Sudanese president, issued last week by Luis Moreno-Ocampo, chief prosecutor of the ICC, is like pouring oil on fire and worsening the Darfur crisis, as stated by a senior adviser to the Sudanese president who remarked: “The warrant is designed to create hatred and enmity among the tribal groups in Darfur.”

This latest move by the International Criminal Court was condemned by both the Gulf and the Arab countries. The decision was also criticised by the Arab Gulf Cooperation Council through a statement by Abdulrahman Al Attiyah, its secretary-general, as well as by Amr Moosa, secretary-general of the Arab League. The Arab League has responded to Sudan’s call for holding an emergency meeting for the Arab foreign ministers. The Peace and Security Council of the African Union has also warned the ICC about such moves endangering peace and security in the African continent.

The Arab foreign ministers in their meeting held yesterday in Cairo stressed that the ICC action against Sudan and its leader reflects the double standard of the international community in dealing with issues of human rights especially in the light of massacres on the Palestinian lands. This approach is very dangerous and if the ICC agrees with the decision of its prosecutor general, its consequences will affect all regions rather than bring stability to Sudan.

The Arab ministers may now discuss the possibility of asking the United Nations Security Council to adopt a resolution asking for the ICC to suspend its procedures for 12 months.

The ICC, as claimed by Sudan’s envoy to the UN, has no jurisdiction over Sudan and hence has no right to practise any authority over Khartoum unless requested by the Sudanese national courts as per the convention of the International Criminal Court. Ironically, the ICC has not only contradicted its own convention but also those of other bodies of the UN, which have sent an international mission to inspect and probe the actual conditions in Sudan, particularly in Darfur, and which have found no trace of a genocide in Darfur. l One finds it quite strange that the ICC is trying to exert pressure on the Sudanese government against the charges of genocide in Darfur while at the same time it continues to turn a blind eye to all the massacres committed by the US and Israel against the Arab and other nations, particularly in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine.

What is happening with Sudan and its president is a type of clear political blackmailing. Ironically, the US claims not to be involved in the issue and remains a silent observer of events. At the same time Israel too is maintaining a mysterious silence, which shows that the issue reeks of a conspiracy designed to implicate Sudan in an international controversy in order to badly affect its political stability and security. - emzedjali@timesofoman.com

Indeed: LMAOFOGL

Sudan President under investigation for genocide

Here was a nice story. Praised in the deeply ethical supporter of human rights, The Times of Oman as a great Arab statesman (while their editor in chief Mr Al Zedjali was hobnobbing with him at the Korean-Arab summit recently - see earlier post) the President of Sudan, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, is being investigated for genocide and war crimes by the International Criminal Court. Finally. Interesting that in yesterdays Times he's refered to as Field Marshal Omar Hassan Ahmed Al Beshir, president of Sudan (their lack of capitalisation on the p in president BTW).

The Times mentioned nothing about his little ethnic cleansing progrom in Sudan of course, but simply cut and paste his speach and the Koreans talking about how they were looking forward to getting in their and extracting resources.

IHT story

When Luis Moreno-Ocampo, prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, reported to the United Nations Security Council last month, he painted a dire tableau of death, rape and dispossession in Darfur, saying the entire state apparatus was involved in a five-year campaign of terror there. His target, it seemed, was Sudan's president.

This week, the prosecutor privately informed Security Council members that on Monday he would ask the judges at the court in The Hague to issue an arrest warrant for President Omar Hassan al-Bashir of Sudan, diplomats said. They said that the prosecution plans to bring charges of crimes against humanity and genocide in Darfur, a region of Sudan. The UN secreteray general, Ban Ki Moon, was also informed out of concern for the security of UN peacekeepers in the area, the diplomats said.

The prosecutor's office has called a news conference for Monday to disclose its plans.

The indictment of a sitting head of state in a war-torn country would not be unprecedented: Slobodan Milosevic of Serbia and Charles Taylor of Liberia were both charged by international war crimes courts while in office.
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