Sudan's leader: War Criminal

In an unpredecented move, the permanent International War Crimes Tribunal will today officially charge the President of Sudan with war crimes. We've known about this since Friday, although the imprimatur comes this morning. It's about damn time -- but it won't do a thing to solve the crisis in Darfur.

It is more than obvious that the neglect and even outright prejudice of the West allowed the situations in the former Yugoslavia and in Rwanda to escalate into the genocides that they became. The same is true for Darfur, especially considering the fact that the civil war there is between rival Muslim factions and not the traditional holy war between Christians and Muslims.

Naturally, Sudan refuses to recognize the legitimacy of the International Criminal Court and is warning any attempts to arrest Omar Hassan al-Bashir will only make things in Darfur even worse; of course Sudan won't allow the joint African Union / UN peacekeeping mission have its full compliment of 45,000 instead of just the 9,000 that are there right now.

Some have warned that this move pretty much shuts the door on any hopes for Darfur as well as any hopes for Sudan as a whole. The fact is, though, Sudan is as failed a state as Somalia has been for nearly two decades; in fact it ranks number one on the list of the worst countries in the world when it comes to an effective functioning central government, just slightly ahead of Iraq, Somalia and Zimbabwe. (Canada, incidentally, is the 10th least worst; the United States is 18th.)

In my opinion, doing nothing isn't helping Darfur. I can't see how picking up al-Bashir could make things any worse; in fact that so many villages in just the last few weeks have been torched on purpose and even more refugees created convinces me it can't get much worse.

We need to take a stand on this, and there is a first time for everything. It is only fitting that al-Bashir is the first given his unapologetic unstabilizing of not just his country but the entire region. The traditional stance of non-interference in another's affairs goes out the window when a leader refuses to recognize even the basic human rights of minorities.

Does that mean George W. Bush is next to be called out? Well, al-Bashir does set the precedent; and it's true that if there had been no war in Iraq, over a half million would not have died. Gitmo, among other suspensions of human rights, violates every rule of the rules of war.

But the chances Dubya will be charged with war crimes is next to nil. After all, America does remain a democracy with a mostly independent judiciary, albeit both still a feeble one at present and there's no indication that the incumbent intends to invoke martial law to prevent either Obama or McCain from assuming the White House next year.

Al-Bashir, on the other hand, intends to stay in power by any means necessary even if it means killing 2 million at a time. I do wonder if the attitude in the US would be different if Katrina had actually killed a million people, rather than just 1000 with 1 million refugees.

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