The Monitor (Kampala)

His journey was billed as a routine visit, but with the International Criminal Court (ICC) likely indictments hanging over his head, Sudan President Omar al Bashir's trip to Southern Sudan was always going to be nebulous.

As he often does on such visits - four of them since the peace agreement - Bashir came bearing goodies - power dams for southern Sudan - and addressed the Legislative Assembly.

But coming just over a month following ICC prosecutor ICC Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo's request to the judges in the Hague that he be indicted, Bashir's journey would always have commentators read it in the context of his government's diplomatic offensive against the ICC.

If he came with heightened security, perhaps higher than the last time he was here, then he was scared of the wide reach of the arm of the ICC. If he came with only a sprinkling of soldiers, as he did, and moved around with a lot more ease than last time, then he was confident in a territory that has shown little love for him.

If he signed the contracts for power dams, as he did, then he was buying the southern Sudan love, so as to effectively fight the ICC.

But Bashir's trip was never ICC induced.

The visit has been talked about since May, when al Bashir was supposed to open the National Security Headquarters building in southern Sudan. Bashir instead, sent his vice President Ali Osman Taha.

And southern Sudan has long been sold on the need to suspend the indictments against al Bashir - not for Bashir's sake -- and, therefore, doesn't need Bashir to convince them.

"Our late hero Dr John [Garang] one time said a stranger going to collect a cup among pots in a dark room, will definitely break the pots," the Speaker of the Southern Sudan Parliament, James Wani Igga said before welcoming Bashir to address the legislators.

"But the owner of the room will know how to safely collect the cup without any damage to the pots however dark it may be."

To Igga, the dark room is the Comprehensive Peace Agreement that ended a 21-year civil war.

"Only those who made it, the two partners, know its value and delicacy," Igga said. "Many parties in the Sudan do not even care about it, leave alone protecting and implementing it. Perhaps, we should inform Mr Ocampo to consider and put peace first and foremost in the Sudan."

Igga was following a script. The Sudan People Liberation Movement long interpreted the indictments as a danger to the peace agreement, and, therefore, there to be rejected.

The ICC wants al Bashir arrested for allegedly masterminding and implementing a plan to destroy Darfur African tribes after they rose up in arms against his regime.

The same day that Ocampo-Moreno issued his statement, south Sudan's ruling Party, in a statement, said the party was taken aback by the speed of the developments.

"This has understandably created a serious situation that could threaten peace and stability in the Sudan," the Party said, according to a statement.

But Sudan's ex-rebels also say that the only way out is for the ruling National Congress Party to cooperate with the ICC.

The ex-rebels also suggested that Bashir's government develop within a week's time, a roadmap for resolution of the Darfur conflict, in consultation with all political forces and civil society groups.

Bashir is yet to develop any such roadmap. In fact, Bashir has all but ignored the SPLM roadmap on Darfur with no signs of repercussions.

Still, Bashir's trip, coming after what even critics agree has been a wildly successful diplomatic offensive - thanks in large measure to other presidents too scared of the ICC reach -- had the aura of a victory lap.

Right from the moment Bashir alighted the Presidential plane, he swaggered like a winner - not a man who was cutting and running.

And when addressing Parliament, he did not plead with anyone to support him fight off the ICC indictments, perhaps because that, in the south, is mission accomplished.

Little doubt that in his address to the Parliament, here, Bashir skirted talk of his likely indictment, at least not until when at a brief press conference on his way out, a journalist asked what could happen to Sudan in case warrants of arrest were issued. The indictments, he said, are of no consequence to Sudan.

And for all his refusal to engage on the ICC issue with the southern Sudan political leaders while in Parliament, al Bashir sounded like a man ready to fight - to the end. And it was not about fighting the ICC.

He mentioned US President George Bush at least three times.

When Sudan, in 2006, signed the Darfur Peace Agreement with rebels in Darfur, Bashir said, US President George Bush called him.

And for fifteen minutes, Bashir said, the US President assured him that now the US was ready to normalize relations with his government. Other pledges had been debt cancellation from the G8, after signing the agreement with the south, in 2005.

"After we signed the DPA, that was the first time for Bush to give me a direct telephone call, You have done this and that, and now we are ready to listen to anything from you," Bashir said, according to a translation of his Arabic statement.

"We did but nothing was done." According to Sudan's president, he was promised that rebel groups that rejected the Darfur Peace Agreement would be sanctioned or punished.

And, with backers in the US and in Europe, Bashir said, some rebel factions started to cause chaos. "They told them, Don't sign; we will impeach the government," Bashir said.

His government, Bashir said, has tried to fix the Darfur problem through peace talks; and it has also tried to unite the rebel factions so that they could talk with one voice ahead of the talks in Sirte, Libya. Some didn't come, he says; those who came said they didn't come to sign.

"Who is responsible for the failure of the peace talks in Sirte?" said Bashir. The way the Sudanese President tells this story, it's not to brag that he spoke to the American President.

Rather, because Bashir is literally saying that no matter what he does, the US seems out to get him. "I think the US government is very good at keeping its promises," Christopher Datta, the US Consul General in Juba told this Correspondent. "It's President Bashir who has to ensure that he keeps his promises."

But at this point, Bashir's statement tells us that he has decided that digging in is probably better than digging out of his crises. And that from this point forward, whatever the ICC does and says is moot. It's a stalemate - and not just on Darfur, but, may be, for southern Sudan's peace agreement, too.