Diplomacy with despots

BBC:

Just over a week ago it was hard to imagine how the international reputation of the Sudanese government could sink any lower.

Accused of sponsoring the killing and rape of hundreds of thousands of its own people in Darfur and then of blocking the peacekeepers who might protect them - barely a week passed without a threat of sanctions or a new UN resolution.

But thanks to the Gillian Gibbons saga, Sudan has managed to transform its public image from pariah state to something approaching a laughing stock.

If Khartoum was hoping to turn the teddy bear into a rallying point for Muslims across the Middle East it was quickly disappointed.

Condemnation of the British teacher's detention came in from around the world and from all religions - leaving the government looking for an escape strategy.

The carefully stage-managed pardoning of Mrs Gibbons by Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir will have satisfied few within his divided government.

Moderates who want better relations with the West will want to know why Sudan's president did not intervene sooner.

Sudan's foreign ministry has been shown to be an open but ultimately powerless limb of the administration.

Sudanese officials reassured British diplomats that the case would be dismissed right up to the moment that Mrs Gibbons was sentenced to 15 days in detention.

That disconnect is an experience shared by UN officials who spent months negotiating with Sudanese diplomats the arrival of a new peacekeeping force for Darfur.

Those talks have since been shown to count for little. Security agencies have impounded equipment, denied permission for night flights and refused to grant land for military bases.

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The bottom line is that Sudan negotiates in bad faith. The words of its diplomats is no good because its leaders have no intention of honoring commitments that are inconvenient to their objectives which include destroying their enemies in Darfur and humiliating those who interfere with that effort, which in this case includes the British. If in the process they look like fools, that is a pretty mild concern when you have genocidal ambitions.