BlackPerspective.net
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War Crimes Charges Filed Against Sudans President Over Darfur
July 14th, 2008
There are a couple of issues that these charges bring up.
1. This filing could cause Al-Bashir to be less cooperative with relief efforts, and harm the Darfurians. I agree with the prosecutor that he’s slaughtering them anyway, and doing nothing; waiting for him to come around hasn’t worked. He’s done everything to thwart the joint UN/AU peace keeping force for the past year.
2. From a developing world standpoint, you always have to be worried when America and Europeans start declaring a head of state to be a criminal. It could always be used as a pretense to invade the country later, ala Iraq or the proxy war taking place in Somalia right now.
While we cannot allow the imperialistic designs of the west cause us to champion Al-Bashir; at the same time we have to watch the language used and moves made in this regards.
Sudan president al-Bashir charged with genocide
THE HAGUE, Netherlands - The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court filed genocide charges Monday against Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, accusing him of masterminding attempts to wipe out African tribes in Darfur with a campaign of murder, rape and deportation.
The filing marked the first time prosecutors at the world’s first permanent, global war crimes court have issued charges against a sitting head of state.
Luis Moreno-Ocampo asked a three-judge panel at the International Criminal Court to issue an arrest warrant for Al-Bashir to prevent more deaths. Some 2.5 million people have been forced from their homes in Darfur and are still under attack from government-backed janjaweed militia.
“Genocide is a crime of intention — we don’t need to wait until these 2.5 million die,” he said in an interview with The Associated Press.
Moreno-Ocampo was undeterred by concern that his indictment against al-Bashir might lead to vengeance against Darfur refugees and the closing of Sudan’s doors to relief agencies and possibly peacekeeping troops.
“The genocide is ongoing,” he said, saying that systematic rape was a key element of the campaign. “Seventy-year-old women, 6-year-old girls are raped,” he said.
Moreno-Ocampo filed 10 charges against al-Bashir: three counts of genocide, five of crimes against humanity and two of murder. Judges are expected to take months to study the evidence before deciding whether to order al-Bashir’s arrest.
Despite the charges, al-Bashir is unlikely to be sent to The Hague any time soon. Sudan rejects the court’s jurisdiction and refuses to arrest suspects.
Moreno-Ocampo’s decision to go after al-Bashir is expected to cause further turmoil in Sudan and some analysts fear it could make life even worse for refugees living in Darfur’s sprawling camps and reliant on humanitarian aid for food and water.
Moreno-Ocampo said most members of the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa ethnic African groups were driven from their homes by Sudanese forces and the janjaweed in 2004. Since then, the janjaweed have been targeting the camps aiming to starve the refugees.
“They (al-Bashir’s forces) don’t need gas chambers because the desert will kill them,” he said, drawing a comparison to Nazi Germany’s notorious method of mass murder during the Holocaust.
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Yobachi Boswell is creator and publisher of BlackPerspecitve.net. I’m a writer, activist and political watcher based in Nashville, Tennessee. I’ve also been know to do some spoken word and MCing in my day.
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Yobachi,
When do you think that there will be any real action taken?
As I understood it from the initial report on this story unless Al-Bashir is caught outside of Sudan. It does not seem likely that he will allow himself to be in that position anytime soon. Even though he told Ann Curry that if charges were brought against him, he would have no problem defending himself.
They’re not going to physically get him any time soon; but hopefully this servers to tighten the noose; along with other steps that have been and still need to be taken, to disuade him from further escalation of his attrocities. It should also serve to help him decide to work out a peace plan.
Also hopefully it gives other despots more pause before they decide to carry out attrocities.