Sudanese president charged with genocide
Looks like is official on the charges against Bashir. On the Rwandans versus the Sudanese, I am probably the only westerner who has been inside both militaries. My experience with the Sudanese is dated (1984) but their military culture is probably unchanged. I'd bet on the Rwandans.
In any case, this charge will complicate life for Bashir. Perhaps it will make Chinese support to the regime more odious but I doubt it.
Tom
Quote:
Sudanese president charged with genocide
CNN) -- The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court has filed genocide charges against Sudan's president for a five-year campaign of violence in Darfur.
1 of 4 Luis Moreno-Ocampo on Monday urged a three-judge panel to issue an arrest warrant for President Omar Hassan al-Bashir to prevent the deaths of about 2.5 million people forced from their homes in the war-torn region of Darfur and who are still under attack from government-backed Janjaweed militia.
The five charges against al-Bashir include masterminding attempts to wipe out African tribes in the war-torn region with a campaign of murder, rape and deportation.
So simple and then so complex
I am not convinced the attack on the UN / AU convoy by the Janjanweed is in anyway related to the ICC request for an arrest warrant for President Bashir.
Had the ICC indicated to outsiders, like the pernament five on the Security Council, it's intentions? I have a vague recollection that indictments in war crimes cases in Bosnia for example were "sealed" and very few knew they existed.
I am more persauded that the ambush was convenient for the Sudanese government, even if not ordered.
Secondly "back channel" communications with the Sudanese government exist, although going public on these will be difficult for awhile. The ICC indictment makes diplomacy rather difficult - not that it appears to have achieved much for so long in the conflict in Darfur.
From a faraway armchair.
davidbfpo
The ICC Indictments and What they Mean
Saw this and thought some of you might be interested...
The ICC Indictments and What they Mean -
Conference Call, July 16, 2008, 1pm
You are invited to participate in a conference call to discuss International Criminal Court's prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo recently filed genocide charges against Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir.
"Q and A: The ICC Indictments and What They Mean"
Moderator: Allyson Neville, Advocacy Associate, Genocide Intervention Network
Speakers: John Norris, Executive Director, ENOUGH Project
Colin Thomas-Jensen, Policy Advisor, ENOUGH Project
Date: July 16, 2008
Time: 1-2pm
Agenda
What is the current state of play/situation?
What are their implications?
What are/should be the policy/advocacy asks be?
RSVP: Meghna Raj at mraj@enoughproject.org
Update on General Karenzi
More on the Spanish case and General Karenzi
Quote:
Judgment without borders
What we are seeing is the birth of a type of worldwide judicial anarchy.
By David B. Rivkin Jr. and Lee A. Casey
October 6, 2008
'He may be a sonofabitch," President Franklin Roosevelt is supposed to have muttered, referring to a Nicaraguan dictator, "but he is our sonofabitch."
That is foreign policy realism in a nutshell -- straightforward, practical, pursuing the national interest regardless of ideology. Its counterpart, of course, is a foreign policy driven by idealism and conviction -- a credo often called Wilsonian, after President Woodrow Wilson, but most recently associated with the neoconservative movement. These days, the assumptions of both schools of thought are threatened by a new global actor in the form of international judicial activism.