Authorities in Sudan recently arrested and detained scores of opposition activists as President Omar al-Bashir resists a strengthening challenge to his 25-year rule.

Leaders of previously antagonistic groups agreed earlier this month at a meeting in Addis Ababa to work together to “dismantle the one-party state regime and replace it with a state founded on equal citizenship.” The government in Khartoum responded to the opposition’s joint “Sudan Call” by arresting and detaining two of its signers, human rights campaigner Amin Mekki Medai and National Consensus Forum head Farouk Ab Issa, on December 6, less than 24 hours after their return from Addis.

Ravina Shamdasani, an official with the United Nations’ human rights office, said their detention is part of a broader clampdown aimed at “silencing political opposition and criticism.” President Bashir, 70, recently announced that he will seek re-election in April.

In a move he interpreted as a personal victory, International Criminal Court prosecutor Fatou Bensouda told the UN Security Council on December 12 that she is suspending investigations of alleged atrocities in Sudan’s Darfur region.

The ICC had issued an arrest warrant for President Bashir four years ago on charges of perpetrating genocide and committing crimes against humanity and war crimes in Darfur. Ms Bensouda decried the Security Council’s failure to help enforce the warrant for President Bashir’s arrest.

READ: ICC asks UN to help enforce co-operation

Kenya, Djibouti, Malawi and the Democratic Republic of Congo have been referred to the Council for ignoring their obligations as ICC member-states by refusing to arrest President Bashir when he visited their respective territories. The UNSC has not acted on any of those referrals.
Citing reports of systematic sexual violence carried out by government soldiers, Ms Bensouda told delegates of the Security Council’s 15 member states, “Victims of rape are asking themselves how many more women should be brutally attacked for this Council to appreciate the magnitude of their plight.”

The Security Council’s failure to act in regard to Darfur, where an estimated 300,000 people have been killed and more than 2 million displaced, amounts to “a huge stain on its credibility,” said Elise Keppler, associate director of Human Rights Watch.
But President Bashir has nothing to fear from the Security Council due to the support Sudan receives from China, which can veto any council resolution.

China rates as Sudan’s leading customer for oil sales. And the Chinese Communist Party has consistently opposed what it views as outside interference in the internal affairs of sovereign states in the developing world.

President Bashir felt emboldened earlier this month to call for the withdrawal of UN forces from Darfur. Herve Ladsous, the head of the UN Peacekeeping Department, said this will not happen anytime soon, given that violence is worsening in Darfur.

Despite its partnership with China, Sudan’s stability is potentially threatened by the global drop in oil prices. Khartoum’s earnings from exports of crude had already declined due to the year-long civil war in South Sudan, which has disrupted delivery of oil to ports in Sudan.