One step forward, a million steps to go

In today’s second post, I am going to briefly discuss the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant for Omar al-Bashir, the President of Sudan.

The ICC proclaimed that the President was guilty of numerous crimes against humanity, most of them relating to Darfur. They called on Bashir to surrender to the UN, and asked any country he visits to detain him. The US State Dept. and the EU gave the ruling full support, and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon urged Sudan to cooperate as well. Human rights groups celebrated as well, declaring the day a "victory".

Bashir’s response was quite predictable: he refused to acknowledge the ICC’s decision, and has blatantly stated that he will not cooperate with the warrant or with the UN. He has scorned the UN and the ruling, and he will almost certainly not surrender to the ICC. Bashir then proceeded to call the ICC a “neo-colonialist” organization that has no right to arrest him. Interestingly, Egypt has sided with Bashir, and has called for an emergency meeting on the UNSC to “defer implementation” of the ruling. Also, the AU (African Union) stated somewhat cryptically, “We support the fight against impunity. But we say that peace and justice should not collide, that the need for justice should not override the need for peace.” By this I assume that the AU is unhappy with the ruling but does not   

Though this is a step in the right direction, it is far from a resolution to the Darfur conflict. UN troops will continue their usual attempted “peacekeeping” effort, and the genocide will continue. Even if Bashir is apprehended, the conflict will not stop. Though Bashir is undoubtedly linked to the genocide, his arrest will not destroy the janjaweed, the poverty, the tribal structure of the region, or the racial prejudice that caused the Darfur situation in the first place. This would probably take serious UN or AU intervention, and intervention is an unrealistic hope because the AU never wants to get involved and the UN doesn’t want to take on such a big task. Besides, peacemaking would violate the UN’s current Darfur policy of peacekeeping.

I am not suggesting that the Western world is wrong to point their fingers at Bashir—he definitely deserves the ICC’s ruling. But he is not the main cause of the conflict, nor will his arrest change the political situation in Sudan. Some of the overly optimistic human rights groups seem to thing that a large portion of the conflict will end with Bashir’s arrest. Instead, this is only the beginning.  

One thing is sure, though: if Bashir is caught he will never be exculpated or released. That, at least, is some comfort.