fiogf49gjkf0d
By Abdel Bari Atwan, Special to Gulf News
Friday, March 13, 2009
On March 4, the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague issued a warrant for the arrest of Sudanese President Omar Hassan Al Bashir on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur.
The ICC, founded in 2002, has an ostensibly desirable and worthy mission: to prosecute individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.
The 2003 illegal invasion of Iraq which has resulted in the deaths of 1.2 million Iraqis springs to mind. As does the recent Israeli massacre of at least 1,200 innocent Gazan civilians (half of them children) and its ongoing genocidal policy against the Palestinians.
But, no. The eye that would recognise these crimes is closed. Only one is open and that is trained on Middle Eastern and African leaders.
The ICC has instigated four investigations since its inception - in Northern Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Central African Republic and, now, Darfur.
I deplore the atrocities and massacres in Darfur, whether committed by government troops or rebel groups. The death of even one innocent is to be deplored.
Nor do I deny that Al Bashir is guilty of using undue and excessive force against those who oppose him. I am very much in favour of an international justice mechanism but surely such an institution must be scrupulously fair and impartial.
The US has not yet ratified its membership of the ICC because the tribunal has yet to promise immunity from prosecution for American soldiers.
This does not stop the superpower using the tribunal as a political weapon, however, since Article 13 of the Treaty of Rome by which the ICC was established allows the UN Security Council to refer to the Court situations that would not otherwise fall under the Court's jurisdiction. This is exactly what happened in the case of Darfur.
This is the first time the ICC has indicted a sitting President and is, in effect, a call for regime change. The US and Israel would both like to see Al Bashir removed from power and Islamist Sudan - seen as an equally serious threat to Israel's security as Iran and Syria - dismantled.
The North is already effectively separated from the South after 18 years of civil war; now it seems the plan is to divide the North itself and isolate Darfur.
Anti-government groups - of which there are at least 30 - are armed, trained and funded by the US and Israel. Tel Aviv is home to the largest, the Sudanese Liberation Movement.
Al Bashir's real crimes are that he opposed the American invasion of Iraq, condemned Israel's recent aggression in Gaza and has failed to join the moderate Arab axis.
It is difficult not to think that if he established diplomatic relations with Israel, accepted the credentials of an Israeli ambassador in Khartoum, allowed water from the Nile to be diverted to Israel and supported US hegemony in the region, he could commit genocide against the people of Darfur without any objection from America or the West.
Using the ICC in pursuit of its hidden agenda aside, the US would do well to reconsider its policies in Sudan since these have a history of backfiring.
In 1996, for example, responding to US pressure, Al Bashir expelled Osama Bin Laden and his deputy, Dr Ayman Al Zawahiri, transforming Al Qaida into the most dangerous terrorist organisation on the planet.
In Sudan, the two men were engaged in agricultural and construction projects, expressing their political beliefs non-violently. It was only when they relocated to Afghanistan that the organisation took on its present character.
If Sudan is indeed dismantled, it will become yet another failed state in the region. Al Qaida and its allies thrive in failed states - one has only to look at Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia and, lately, Pakistan. If Bashir is removed, the way will be clear for the return of Bin Laden and like-minded militants.
Furthermore, Al Bashir is potentially capable of serving the West and has done so in the past: in 1994 he surrendered the legendary Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) fighter, Carlos 'the jackal' to the French; in 1996, as we have seen, he expelled Bin Laden and his entourage of radical Islamists and in January this year, he imprisoned the Islamist leader Hassan Al Turabi.
The international media machine is also culpable in the bias towards prosecuting Muslim leaders. Largely silent on the war crimes of Western troops and leaders, much has been made in Western media outlets of the massacre of 600,000 in Darfur by the Sudanese regime.
This figure had never been questioned or scrutinised either by journalists or the several fact-finding missions to the region.
Examining the documentary evidence against Al Bashir, however, we discover that actually the figure is nearer 35,000 and that these unfortunate people were killed by various groups, including, but not exclusively, government forces.
To have any credibility, the ICC must investigate all war crimes with equal fervour and with both eyes open. Imperialistic interests, racial bias and economic exploitation (Sudan has oil) can have no place on the agenda of Justice.
I support the prosecution of Al Bashir with the following proviso: the process should be suspended for one year (Article 16 allows for this) during which time warrants for the arrest of the world's other war criminals are issued and pursued.
ICC Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo of Argentina should first of all indict former US president George W. Bush and Middle East Peace Envoy (oh, the irony of that title) Tony Blair for waging an immoral and illegal war in Iraq that has resulted in the deaths of over a million people, for the many human rights violations perpetrated on their watch by soldiers against innocent Iraqi citizens and for the deaths of at least a million Iraqi children in the sanctions that preceded the 2003 invasion.
Moreno-Ocampo should next bring to justice the then Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, his Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Defence Minister Ehud Barak for their genocide in Gaza in January 2009 and the use of white phosphorous weapons in breach of international law.
If the ICC's interpretation of justice cannot extend to this, then it is deeply flawed.
If Al Bashir is prosecuted according to this justice and removed from power, Sudan will almost certainly descend into civil war resulting in millions of deaths (the last civil war claimed 1.9 million lives) and become an African headquarters for violent radical fundamentalists.
If the choice is between implementing flawed justice and avoiding a blood-bath, then I believe that kind of justice can wait.
Abdel Bari Atwan is editor of the pan-Arab newspaper Al Quds Al Arabi.