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Darfur Genocide Charges For Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir
The international criminal court (ICC) today filed 10 charges of war crimes against Sudan's president, Omar al-Bashir, for allegedly leading a campaign of murder, rape and mass deportation in Darfur.
Evidence presented by prosecutors showed Bashir "masterminded and implemented a plan to destroy in substantial part" three tribal groups in Darfur because of their ethnicity, the ICC said in a statement.
The court's prosecutor for Darfur, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, will now ask a panel of ICC judges to issue an arrest warrant for the Sudanese president, who has repeatedly refused to recognise the court's jurisdiction. The process could take months.
Although Bashir faces three counts of genocide, five of crimes against humanity and two of murder, there is very little prospect of him facing trial in The Hague.
His country has not handed over two nationals previously indicted for alleged abuses in Darfur, a government minister and a militia leader.
"We don't recognise whatever comes out from the ICC, to us it is non-existent," a spokesman for Sudan's foreign ministry, Ali al-Sadig, told Reuters.
There are also concerns that reaction in Sudan over any plans to arrest Bashir could complicate humanitarian efforts to help the millions affected by the conflict or imperil UN-African Union peacekeepers in Darfur.
Tanzania, whose president chairs the African Union, called today for the court to call a halt to the process.
"We would like ICC to suspend its decision to seek Bashir's arrest for a moment until we sort out the primary problems in Darfur and southern Sudan," the country's foreign minister, Bernard Membe, said.
In a brief statement, the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, said he expected Sudan to "ensure the safety and security of all United Nations personnel and property".
More than 200,000 people have been killed and nearly 2.5 million have been made homeless since a revolt broke out in Darfur, a vast, mainly arid province in western Sudan in 2003.
Bashir's regime is accused of deliberately organising Arab Janjaweed militias to attack Darfur's black African civilian population, something it denies.
The ICC statement of charges says Bashir's policy amounted to genocide because those forced into refugee camps had suffered both regular attacks from militias and a deliberate policy of persecution and hunger.
"Bashir organised the destitution, insecurity and harassment of the survivors. He did not need bullets. He used other weapons: rapes, hunger, and fear - as efficient, but silent," Moreno-Ocampo said in the ICC statement.
Bashir was directly responsible, the prosecutor added: "[He] is the president. He is the commander-in-chief. Those are not just formal words. He used the whole state apparatus. He used the army; he enrolled the militia/Janjaweed. They all report to him. They all obey him. His control is absolute."
Speaking before he unveiled the charges, Moreno-Ocampo said he was not swayed by the possibility that the ICC's decision could prompt a violent reaction.
"The genocide is ongoing," he told the Associated Press. "Seventy-year-old women, six-year-old girls are raped," he said: "massive rapes, gang-rapes, rapes in front of the parents."
Drawing a direct comparison with the policies of Nazi Germany, the prosecutor said the international community needed to take stronger action.
"These 2.5 million people are in camps. They [Bashir's forces] don't need gas chambers because the desert will kill them," he said.
"The international community failed in the past, failed to stop Rwanda genocide, failed to stop Balkans crimes. So this time the new thing is, there is a court, an independent court ... who is saying, 'This is a genocide."'
Bashir's National Congress yesterday warned of "more violence and blood" in Darfur if an arrest warrant were issued, state TV reported.
Hundreds of people demonstrated in support of the president outside a cabinet meeting called by Bashir to discuss a response, waving signs condemning the ICC and Moreno-Ocampo.
Last year, Moreno-Ocampo issued arrest warrants against a Sudanese government minister and a commander of the government-backed Janjaweed militia over 51 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including murder, rape and forced expulsions.
However, the minister, Ahmad Muhammad Harun, remains in the government, in charge of humanitarian aid in Darfur.
This is the first time the ICC, a permanent court to deal with war crimes, has levied war crimes charges against a head of state. In the past, specific war crimes tribunals have been convened to charge the former Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic and Charles Taylor of Liberia.
© 2008 The Guardian
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30 Comments so far
Show AllDon't worry Omar Hassan. Lefties don't care if you murder and rape christians.
C'mon Ariel....you are still a wanted war criminal....albeit a vegetable now.
now they need to put Olmert on that list too....
Why not Bush?
You know damn well none of them will see the inside of a court room let alone spend a minute in jail - they are moslems their holy book the qur'an tells them to do these things to non believers and apostates, all they have done is follow the will of allah.
"Bashir's National Congress yesterday warned of "more violence and blood" in Darfur if an arrest warrant were issued, state TV reported."
Typical moslem response, hold us responsible to your stupid western standards of genocide and we will kill even more, we will kill even more anyway but now we can blame you for it because you upset us and made us angry - it's all the wests fault.
Here we go again, the self-righteous West on a crusade against an evildoer. Fine, but where's Bush, where's Cheney, where's Rice, Feith, Perle, Bolton, Addison, Gonzales, Woo, et al.? Let's clean the beams in our own eyes first.
FYI, a worthwhile interview of Mahmood Mamdani, who is himself African, on the politics behind how Darfur is portrayed.
Helena Cobban, a former Human Rights Watch staffer and author, also makes a relevant observation in this interview (MP3):
...also divert people's attention from what's happening in Iraq which, of course, is where we have direct, absolutely direct, American responsibility for the really atrocious deterioration of life that the Iraqi people have been suffering...we'll all be so busy worrying about Sudan that we won't notice that they're gonna go over and bomb Iran and I think it's important that we actually seek to control what our government does as Americans than we start gratuitously pointing fingers of blame at what a very poor and hard-pressed government in a distant place like Sudan is doing.
She and the interviewer also make pertinent points about who might have "ulterior motives" for using this conflict as an instrument to "get us into a mindset" that will allow their own depredations to proceed without friction.
EXACTLY wolf!
What kills me is that these so called "progressives" support the raping and murdering these fucks are doing!
You people are EVIL!!!!!
This is just another step by the Zionists and neocons to undermine Sudan's government and plunder Sudan's resources.
forex, you support rape and murder then?
You are arab right? That would certainly explain it. Does it not say in the koran that rape of non-muslim women is ok?
sl63 July 14th, 2008 3:02 pm
"The aid groups say Save Darfur's call for imposing a no-flight zone could lead to a halt in aid flights and put their workers at risk."
What a bunch of clap trap!!! The idea behind a no-flight zone is to keep the (small) Sudanese government air force from bombing Darfur's refugees. All The aid groups have to do is show when their flight is taking off where it's going and when it's coming back, the SAME thing virtually every private pilot and commercial pilots have to do when they file a flight plan with the FAA. DUH!!!
Nightwatch July 14th, 2008 2:32 pm
It is YOU that must "clean the beams in our own eyes first." There is no doubt that bushie boy et al have engaged some "criminal" actions, BUT it is YOU that give a pass to islam and its horrors that it inflicts on the world in the name of allah, horrors far worse than bushie boy ever dreamed of.
http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/
Wolf, obviously, the left wingers who make up those so-called "aid" groups do not really want to aid christians under attack by islam, as its not very "pc" to do so.
And to think you leftyscum call ME bloodthirsty! Look at the shit you are saying, and this is REAL genocide.
lol bligh, good question, why be concerned with real genocide when there's jews to kill!!!
Darfur is a tragedy and Bashir is a murderous tyrant. That being said, how can I support an ICC arrest warrant when US citizens and leaders are not liable for prosecution under the same court? Wouldn't that be hypocritical?
Ariel, what drug did they use to bring you out of the coma? Lots of people can use it.
Truth, why support the ICC? I just support anything to ruin this scumbags day, whether it be the worthless ICC or an assassin's bullet.
I am no longer astounded at the ignorance of Americans. About half these posts go on about how evil the Moslems are and blame this all on a Moslem plot to kill Christians when, if they bothered to check up on what they were spewing about, they would realize that the people being killed in Dafur are also Moslems. The main difference between the government and the victims is that the victims are blacks while the oppressors are Caucasian. What a bunch of knucleheads. No wonder America is in the mess it is with all these villages with more than their quota of idiots.
I join with others in calling out the international community that is only comfortable with prosecuting the war criminals from poor countries and not the wealthy western countries doing a whole lot worse. Will even Barack Obama raise the issue let alone pursue the republican administration for war crimes if elected?
dkm, excuse me? Is the person pictured in this article Caucasian?? The northern sudanese are arabs, not Caucasians. My god, how could you believe the leaders of sudan are white?
You are KIND of right about what you are saying, but by and large the victims of this have been christian and the attackers muslim. Its far from true all of the time, in typical cluster-fuck african style, everyone is killing everyone.
The president of sudan is clearly responsible for much of the violence though, and should face some kind of justice.
anarchis, forget "war crimes", because they get prosecuted in an international court where the penalty for mass murder is ten years in a country club eating better food then they have anywhere in africa. Try the bush administration officials at home for treason, where they will get the deserved penalty.
anarchris July 14th, 2008 6:42 pm: "I join with others in calling out the international community that is only comfortable with prosecuting the war criminals from poor countries and not the wealthy western countries doing a whole lot worse."
I don't know about the "international community" but the ICC is doing a good job on this. This is the first time that charges have been proposed against a sitting head of state. They have amassed a serious case backed by much corroborating evidence including eye witness accounts of mass child rapes and other clearly horrendous crimes, possibly amounting to genocide.
Truth_Forward July 14th, 2008 6:18 pm: "That being said, how can I support an ICC arrest warrant when US citizens and leaders are not liable for prosecution under the same court?"
Actually US leaders ARE liable, just as much as Omar al-Bashir is. Why do you think that Bush & Co. are against the ICC?
Hopefully in the future, the US will join the ICC and support it's efforts rather than become a haven for war criminals like Mr. Bush and Omar al-Bashir.
Let's arrest them all.
Ariel_Sharon July 14th, 2008 1:11 pm
Don't worry Omar Hassan. Lefties don't care if you murder and rape christians.
_____________________________________________________________________________________
And you do not care if Zionist pigs murder Palestinian's. Why are you on this site? You are a Provocateur, no person in their right mind listens to a thing you rant about. You stated, "forextrader, you are Arab, right?", you are nothing but a Zionist rabble rouser, so what if he was, although I'm sure he isn't, Yo schmuck, FIRST AMENDMENT! Scarem Seni, cok buk domus!!!!!
And Ralph Nader's Fidelity money helped fuel this genocide.
Fidelity-Magellan. Although public embarrasment prompted divestiture,
Finally.
The corpses were stacked like cordwood, for miles, at that point.
Ralph Nader. A True Progressive. Hear him on Fox news bashing Democrats (but rarely corporate-republicans hmmmm)
He's still got plenty of cash in armamanets though. Raytheon, General Dynamics, long as we're talking about killing any old how.
We should pick our saints carefully.
Turce, if israel was doing to the palestinians anything even approximating what's going on in sudan, I assure you they would lose my support right away, but that's not what's happening.
But Israel is committing atrocities even as I write this, why do you support that, Mr. Sharon?
lapaz, israel is most certainly not committing atrocities, unless you consider their last eurovision entry.
The "palestinians" have been nothing but canon fodder for their arab/islamist brethren for quite some time. They have been the public reminder of arab/islamist failure over the last century or so. However they are a useful propaganda tool used against the guilt ridden, compassionate to a fault, western world.
It's time to put an end to all of this. The "palestinians" are starving and dying because of their own lunacy, ignorance, and hatred. It's time to hold them responsible for their own actions.
If the palestinians took every gun, bomb, rocket and suicide belt and toss them all into the Mediterranean Sea tomorrow and turned their backs on the jews and said "we are tired of dying and want to live", and they took the billions that Europe, America and the arab nations (oil rich ones) give them and built sewer systems, water distillation plants (rebuilt the 10 million dollar hydroponic farm the jews left them in gaza that the palestinians destroyed), went to the fence the jews are building and laughed at the jews saying what a waste of money, and built the infrastructure of a civilized modern society, not one palestinian would ever be killed by a jew again and no jew would be killed by a palestinian.
But this will never ever happen thanks to people like you Turce, forextrader, lisa3210peace, lapaz000 and others, the palestinians read your posts and take courage from them thus thanks to all of you there will never be peace in Palestine.
Back to the topic at hand,
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,24025669-663,00.html
SUDANESE President Omar al-Bashir danced, punched the air in delight and shouted "God is great" in his first public appearance yesterday as a war crimes suspect.
Sudan promised to turn Darfur into a graveyard as it reacted to charges laid by an international prosecutor accusing Mr al-Bashir of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.
The threat was made by an official in Darfur after Luis Moreno-Ocampo, of the International Criminal Court, called for the arrest of Mr al-Bashir over his Government's campaign of violence in the war-torn region.
Turn Darfur into a graveyard? Yeah, that'll show that no genocide is going on, all right.
A R I E L,
Well for one thing, your sense of veracity
is an atrocity.
Namaste « Presence »
"We don't recognise whatever comes out from the ICC, to us it is non-existent,"
Sounds like the private thoughts of the Bush administration where it regards the American citizen, lol. "We don't recognize whatever comes out from the American public and its supporters, to us it's non-existent"...I'd bet money on that very thought mirroring Omar al-Bashir's proclamation *eye roll*