genocide
ICC indicts Sudan President Bashir for Darfur genocide
In a potentially earth-shaking move, the International Criminal Court has charged Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir with war crimes related to the Darfur genocide. LINK
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.
I have mixed feelings about this. On one hand, yes, Bashir is a war criminal. He IS responsible for hundreds of thousands, likely millions, of deaths in Darfur. He's a totalitarian leader with no consideration for his people and he's impossible to negotiate with. On the other hand, it's not like he's actually going to be arrested. There's no way for the ICC to enforce this warrant, so all it really does is make the Sudanese government that much more pissed off at the West, making it that much less likely any lasting peace deal can get done.
My friend May, who's been over there as an aid worker and knows more about the region than anybody I know, called this "the worst setback to the peace process that has happened in Sudan in recent years."
I wonder what'll happen.
Why did we fail in Darfur and Rwanda?
Most, if not all, humans agree that genocide is wrong. If any given person off the street had the chance to stop one, they probably would. So why didn't we stop them in Rwanda and Darfur?
I dont mean to pose this as a question about Bush or Clinton, or military intervention, or some narrow discussion of tactics and what we should have said and done on what date, with what equipment, etc. I'm more curious about why we as human beings have a political system that seems to allow things that are extremely heinous, things we all agree shouldn't happen, to happen.
800,000 dead in Rwanda, 1994. 400,000 dead in Darfur, 2003-07.
Why?
Genocide 2011
In 2008, President X campaigned on a platform of A, B and C. Never talked much about genocide, except to express anger over Darfur to score points with the base. Never made any serious commitment to “never again,” cause what is that besides a phrase everyone says but no one means?
But now it’s 2011 and yesterday some lurid reports came out of _______. A couple days ago, there were massacres in the north, ___ on ____ violence. A couple villages massacred---the men and boys being immediately executed, women and girls taken out and raped, then executed. Unknown number of dead. Possible government involvement. It appears as a little paragraph in the global roundup sections of major newspapers.
Global Reaction to New U.S. Sanctions Against Sudan
In case you hadn't heard by now, the U.S. imposed heavier sanctions against Sudan today.
The Treasury Department said it had blocked the assets of three Sudanese, 30 Sudanese government owned or controlled companies, and a company that violated the arms embargo in Darfur.
Conflict spreading into eastern Chad
Violence is spilling over into Chad (again).
ABECHE, Chad: Attacks on civilians and aid groups have intensified sharply along the Chad-Sudan border in the last two weeks, as the violence in Darfur continues to spill over into its African neighbor.
The violence is leading the United Nations to consider a new option: Stymied by a lack of progress on a proposal to put peacekeepers in Sudan's Darfur region, it now is weighing trying to put more than 10,000 peacekeepers in Chad along its border with Sudan.