US Ambivalent to ICC indictment of Sudan Leader al-Bashir on charges of Genocide
comment by Jerry Gordon
Yesterday, the International Criminal Court at the Hague indicted the Islamist strongman of the Sudan, President Omar al-Bashir on charges of committing Genocide. The ICC indictment was the result of a three years investigation by prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo of Argentina. There is evidence from a defector that al-Bashir was in on the decision making for mounting the genocidal campaign against nominally black Muslims in the Darfur region.
We have posted on the campaign by this Islamist overlord to overturn the so-called Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) of 2005 negotiated between the central government in Khartoum and the SPLM in Southern Sudan, an oil rich region controlled by the Christian animist rebel group. We noted that al-Bashir, a stalwart in both the Arab League and the OIC, has led a government that fought a two decade war that resulted in the loss of 2.4 million lives and the enslavement of hundreds of thousands in both the South and the Darfur region. We have also argued that the dismemberment of Sudan may also be in the offing. We also saw the desperate attacks of Darfurian political rebel groups in Khatoum itself. The UN peacekeeping force in the Sudan has for all intents and purposes failed to cope with the rampages of the central government-supported jinjaweed militias in driving hundreds of thousands of Darfurian refugees into neighboring Chad.
Today, we read in this AP report, that while the US has strenuously objected to the patent genocidal campaigns of al-Bashir in Darfur and the South, it will not countenance the ICC approach. Because the striped pants brigade in Foggy bottom does not want to be embarrassed by supporting the indictment of a state leader. Huh! What gives? Why is our government doing this, when the evidence for al-Bashir’s involvement appears to be overwhelming?
My thesis is that the perhaps the US realizes that the OIC that controls the UN general assembly may adopt resolutions blunting the ICC indictment of al-Bashir. After all, the Muslim ummah may support Jihad against black Africans, because after all aren’t they called ‘abed’ or slaves in the holy language of Arabic. But I also suspect that the US is trying to maintain relations with Khartoum because it wants to support the rickety CPA and oil revenue sharing deal it struck with the al-Bashir government and the SPLM. After all, Sudan has billions of barrels of oil reserves.
Read this baffle gab from this AP report about what our State Department is saying about the ICC indictment of al-Bashir and ask yourself where is our moral compass? The administration’s mixed feelings about the ICC are not new. Despite its frequent criticism of the ICC, it effectively allowed the investigation of al-Bashir when it abstained on a U.N. Security Council resolution in 2005 instead of using its veto. That gave the court the authority that led to Monday’s indictment. “At least as a matter of policy, not only do we not oppose the ICC’s investigation and prosecutions in Sudan but we support its investigation and prosecution of those atrocities,” John Bellinger, the State Department’s top legal adviser, later told The Associated Press. The State Department also strongly supported ICC indictments in 2005 of five Ugandans accused of war crimes in the country’s two-decade-old civil conflict. The move against al-Bashir may be raising another concern, however, because it is an indictment against a current head of state. “The U.S. is concerned about keeping U.S. officials and particularly the head of state out of the court’s jurisdiction,” said Madeline Morris, a professor at Duke Law School. Nonetheless, McCormack says the United States already is considering a recent request from the ICC for information involving Darfur but not al-Bashir. “The basis of a response probably would be what information we had,” he said.
by Desmond Butler, AP, July 15, 2008
WASHINGTON - For years, the Bush administration has taken a strong stance denouncing atrocities in Sudan’s Darfur region and labeling them genocide.
Yet it offered only an ambivalent response when the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court filed genocide charges against Sudan’s president.
For all its criticism of President Omar al-Bashir, the administration is reluctant to take steps that lend legitimacy to a court whose jurisdiction it has questioned and whose treaty it refuses to sign.
The administration offered some praise Monday for prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo’s charge.
“In our view recognition of the humanitarian disaster and the atrocities that have gone on there is a positive thing,” State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said.
McCormack emphasized, however, that the U.S. view of the ICC is well known.
“We make our own determinations according to our own laws, our own regulations with respect to who should be subject to war crimes and genocide-related statutes. The ICC is a separate matter, and we are not part of the ICC,” he said.
Some analysts say the administration is conflicted.
“I think there is probably a tension within the administration between those who would find the ICC to be an irritant and an obstacle to peace efforts in Darfur, whereas there are others who may be arguing that this might facilitate those efforts,” said David Scheffer, director of Northwestern Law School’s Center for International Human Rights.
As U.S. ambassador at large for war crimes issues in the Clinton administration, Scheffer negotiated the 1998 Rome Statute, which established the ICC. Clinton signed it in Dec. 31, 2000. The document was never submitted to the Senate for ratification, and the Bush administration withdrew the signature.
The Bush administration opposes the court because of suspicions that its jurisdiction is too broad and fears that American servicemen fighting abroad or the officials who command them might not be safe from politically motivated prosecution.
The administration’s mixed feelings about the ICC are not new. Despite its frequent criticism of the ICC, it effectively allowed the investigation of al-Bashir when it abstained on a U.N. Security Council resolution in 2005 instead of using its veto. That gave the court the authority that led to Monday’s indictment.
“At least as a matter of policy, not only do we not oppose the ICC’s investigation and prosecutions in Sudan but we support its investigation and prosecution of those atrocities,” John Bellinger, the State Department’s top legal adviser, later told The Associated Press.
The State Department also strongly supported ICC indictments in 2005 of five Ugandans accused of war crimes in the country’s two-decade-old civil conflict.
The move against al-Bashir may be raising another concern, however, because it is an indictment against a current head of state.
“The U.S. is concerned about keeping U.S. officials and particularly the head of state out of the court’s jurisdiction,” said Madeline Morris, a professor at Duke Law School.
Nonetheless, McCormack says the United States already is considering a recent request from the ICC for information involving Darfur but not al-Bashir.
“The basis of a response probably would be what information we had,” he said.
July 15th, 2008 at 6:55 • opinion • news • UN • OIC • ICC indictment of Sudan ledaer Omar al-Bashir • Darfur genocide • Washington ambivalence to ICC indictment • Sudan Oil • CPA of 2005 • 0 Comments •
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