In my original article entitled U.S. support for Sudan president charged with Darfur genocide is complicated, I discuss the moral dilemma the U.S. faces by collaborating with Sudan's government led by President Omar al-Bashir who has the dubious distinction as the first sitting head of state to be charged of war crimes by the International Criminal Court (ICC).
It's become big news lately because he had genocide charges added last week and decided to travel to Chad. Per the Rome Statute, Chad was legally obligated to arrest him, but demurred,following the African Union’s orders not to cooperate because of the international court’s predilection towards charging only African countries with human rights violations.
The U.S. is stuck. According to U.S. policy they need a stable Sudan for its oil and to prevent it from becoming a terrorist haven. Yet, they certainly can't overlook al-Bashir's genocidal tendencies. The U.S. is not in it for just neocolonial gain (well there is that)- if al-Bashir is arrested the country could spiral into civil war. So, by doing the right thing the ICC and the UN could have more blood on their hands.
At surface glance it’s a classic case of Western neocolonialism - propping up a malevolent praetorian of a failed state while disregarding injustices suffered in order to protect America’s sacrosanct "national interest".
However, upon further inspection of U.S. collaboration with Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir - otherwise referred to as the architect of the Darfur genocide and the first sitting head of state to be charged by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crimes - restraint of judgment is wise as both sides of this issue bear a hearing.
Working with the devil
(Left image - Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir)
On at least one count the U.S. is unquestionably the hypocrite, that being the U.S. official position on whether or not President al-Bashir should be arrested and brought to justice at The Hague.
When the State Department gave its position it conspicuously refrained from advocating al-Bashir’s arrest. Instead, the official line was that the United States "strongly supports international efforts to bring those responsible for genocide and war crimes in Darfur to justice."
This is bothersome for two reasons, the first being that the U.S. never agreed to become part of the international court – a crime in its own right. The African Union and those accused have every right to tell the U.S. to go scratch. Secondly, the U.S. cannot outwardly deny that al-Bashir’s deeds were genocide, however – they fell short of demanding his arrest for practical purposes – because they need him.
Noam Chomsky discussed this issue in an IRIN interview in 2006:
The trouble is, the more powerful states will not submit themselves to that. The United States is so extreme that it even imposes penalties on countries that are willing to participate. It even got to the point where the US delayed the UN Resolution on Darfur because of some mention in it of bringing Sudanese criminals to the International Criminal Court. It is really fanatic. You have heard of the American Serviceman’s Protection Act which is sometimes referred to in Europe as the Netherlands Invasion Act. It grants the President authority to use force to rescue any Americans who are brought to The Hague to the ICC.
The last thing the U.S. needs is an al-Bashir prosecution because they believe it will destabilize Sudan, according to U.S. special envoy and Obama crony retired Maj. Gen. Scott Gration.
Mr. Gration also said last week’s fresh charges will impair his ability to work with al-Bashir's government (God forbid a war criminal is brought to justice – an insane notion considering it might interfere with the labor of a U.S. bureaucrat). To make matters worse, Gration also launched this fine imperialistic-laden disgorgement:
The decision "will make my mission more difficult and challenging, especially if we realize that resolving the crisis in Darfur and [the] south, issues of oil, and combating terrorism at 100 percent, we need Bashir."
Last week ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo wrote a damning and convincing piece in The Guardian arguing for al-Bashir’s immediate apprehension:
No more excuses. No more denial. This week, the international criminal court issued an arrest warrant for three charges of genocide against the president of Sudan, Omar al-Bashir.
The world once claimed ignorance of the Nazi atrocities. Fifty years later, the world refused to recognise an unfolding genocide in Rwanda. On Darfur, the world is now officially on notice.
The genocide is not over. Bashir's forces continue to use different weapons to commit genocide: bullets, rape and hunger. For example, the court found that Bashir's forces have raped on a mass scale in Darfur. They raped thousands of women and used these rapes to degrade family and community members. Parents were forced to watch as their daughters were raped.
Mr. Moreno-Ocampo ends his piece with a compelling call to action:
Arresting a head of state requires a consensus among the political elite. It is a matter of will. If all the UN security council members are in agreement the genocide will stop, "never again" will be a reality.
The Darfuris do not have the luxury of time. Their last chance is now.
Legitimate moral dilemma
It’s tempting to jump on the "never again" cause but facts must supersede frothy emotional appeal and without understanding the geopolitical ramifications of locking up the devil, haste action could lead to a multiplier effect regardless the motives.
The opposition argues that those on a crusade for al-Bashir’s head are ignorant of the political situation on the ground and many in the media and in the political arena are falling victim to groupthink.
Marc Gustafson, Sudan expert and Oxford scholar, asserts that the ruling parties in the South and the North have never had a better and more synergistic relationship. There has finally been an absence of war and the sharing of an astounding amount of oil wealth - a return to war would bring Sudan’s oil industry to a standstill and would cripple the economies of both regions. Gustafson wrote:
Dangers of "group think"
The calls for intervention are reminiscent of the pre-Iraq-war environment, when seasoned policy leaders and analysts were overcome by fear of mass destruction. "Group think’ permeated and war became inevitable in the minds of many.The determination of the international community to avoid war was ultimately ignored.
While the situation in Iraq is completely different than it is in Sudan, the common theme is that Americans seem to be consumed by fear more quickly than others, causing them to abandon the international community and go it alone.
Sudan has had a challenging history of tragic wars, and the record of the current Khartoum regime makes it impossible to predict Sudan’s future; however, the situation in Sudan today is much different than it has been in the past and the fear of calamity should be tempered by the knowledge of the current political environment.
Gustafson goes on to say that retaining al-Bashir in power through the referendum is key - and there will be no doomsday scenario afterward. The doomsday scenario will come if al-Bashir is locked up.
Washington should support the referendum
The referendum can therefore be looked at as the beginning of a new phase of negotiating peace, rather than a casus belli for a divided nation.
If anything has been learned from the past decade of foreign policy, it is that doomsday predictions of inevitable destruction can easily grab headlines and persuade policymakers to make decisions based on fear rather than knowledge. In Sudan, the peace agreement, and by extension, the referendum, are products of many years of negotiation and involvement from local, regional, and international partners.
The best role for the American government is to continue using its financial and human resources to support the process of mediation, but not try to guide it.
It sounds as if it’s not a matter of if al-Bashir is or isn’t a war criminal but whether or not now is the time to prosecute him.
Regime change at this point would sabotage the political process and prolong the suffering according to Khalid al-Mubarak, who is the media counselor at the Sudan embassy in London. Mr. al-Mubarak points to recent statements by some of the fiercest critics of the Sudanese government that have seen improvement, including Eric Reeves a professor at Smith College and one of the leading academic voices on Darfur:
"There is no doubt that violence has diminished significantly in the past two or three years — and many, including myself, have been slow to recognize how significant this reduction has been."
al-Mubarak points out that in 2004 UN investigators did not see evidence of genocide and in January 2010 the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters reported that 80% of the deaths during the conflict were disease-related (which doesn’t mean al-Bashir is not still a war criminal, but we get his point). al-Mubarak finishes by stating that Mr. Moreno-Ocampo’s desire to personally bring down a head of state is going to do more harm than good:
Moreno-Ocampo is right, however, that "the Darfuris do not have the luxury of time". So he should know that any actions designed to sabotage the political process are not constructive and will prolong the suffering. In his book about Sudan, Richard Cockett said Darfur activism (led by the Save Darfur Coalition) that culminated in ICC involvement misled the Darfur rebels into believing the US will invade Sudan and hand them power. This prolonged the conflict. Moreno-Ocampo's activism does the same.
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This was expounded upon from the original article at Examiner.com where there are more slides of the situation and some photos of the Darfur genocide - I am "hotlink" challenged, otherwise I would have thrown more pics up here.