I should learn to bite my tongue/fingers. Here’s more from the FT on the al-Bashir indictment. This passage jumped out at me:
But the arrest warrant for al-Bashir is the big one. Not everybody, however, is convinced it will serve the cause of either peace or justice. Alex de Waal, a very knowledgable Darfur watcher, has posted a devastating indictment of the ICC case on the “Making Sense of Darfur” blog. He argues that: “The Public Application is not in the interests of justice, peace and democracy for Sudan. Pursuing an arrest warrant against a head of state is tantamount to demanding regime change, which is in contradiction to the international strategy of negotiating with the Sudan government to achieve peace and democracy. The approach is therefore a gamble with unknowable consequences and very large risks.” [emphasis added]
The Khartoum government has made it especially difficult. International pressure and internal negotiations eventually ended the South-North war (for now). Can a similar long-term peace plan be implemented in Darfur? Will this make for a more comprehensive, well-rounded and sustainable peace? In other words, can one negotiate with the Sudanese government and will they stick to their promises? And, with what we’ve seen happen in Iraq and Afghanistan, can Western-based human rights values be yielded to knock out unfavorable players? Or, am I splitting hairs and it simply comes down to the thousands displaced and dead in the conflict and the undeniable fact that Al-Bashir is implicated?
The “Making Sense of Darfur” blog on the SSRC is also a good source. Also, check out this IHT article which explains the basics, and highlights the difficulty of proving genocide (and why it might not be worth it).
