Photo: Flickr user Alkan Chagler

This week, an appeals chamber at the International Criminal Court ruled that the ICC should review evidence of genocide against the current President of Sudan, Omar al-Bashir. Currently he faces charges of crimes against humanity and  war crimes in connection with the ongoing conflict in Darfur.

Worldfocus contributing blogger Ayo Johnson, who blogs at Africa Speak International, writes about the complexities of the ICC and its rulings.

I have always wondered if the International Criminal Court (ICC) is a fair organization and what criteria it uses when selecting individuals who can be put before its judges in the Hague.

There are increasing calls world wide for both former President Bush and Prime Minister Blair to face the ICC for wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan resulting in the death and the displacement of thousands of people…

The ICC up until recently was labeled a white elephant costing millions of dollars annually and failing to yield any tangible results. The ICC gained some respectability in 1999; when Slobodan Milosevic was indicted and convicting for atrocities against Serbian forces in Kosovo.

In 2003 a vocal and boisterous court; in its ambitious move to date, captured Charles Taylor and charged him with crimes against people of Sierra Leone. Taylor’s rebel group captured and drugged children who in turn chopped off the arm and limbs of innocent citizens during a 10 year brutal war…

The ICC has gone one step further charging Omar Al- Bashir a sitting president of Sudan, with crimes against humanity and violation against the people of Darfur…

The Arab League and the African Union had earlier requested that the Omar Al- Bashir arrest warrant be suspended, as both institutions were fearful of knee-jerk reactions and reprisals against aid agencies and the people of Darfur…

Sudan like the United States of America (USA) is not a member of the ICC. A defiant Bashir refuses to recognise the court, claims that the ICC is in breach of international law and has no jurisdiction in Sudan. This is an argument that has all the hallmarks of double standards, justified on the basis that the U.S.also does not recognise the court and the court has no authority over any U.S. citizens…

Nesrine Malik, a Sudanese-born writer and commentator who lives in London, argues that the ICC ruling may in fact backfire.

Despite my belief that Bashir may be guilty of crimes against humanity, not only in Darfur but in other parts of the country, I cannot help but think that the ICC has over-reached itself in this instance. The timing was again unfortunate, with the first Sudanese elections in 24 years due in April and the country holding on to a fragile peace in preparation for a referendum in 2011 when the south will vote on secession.

But as Jerry Fowler, president of the Save Darfur Coalition, asserts:

Justice and accountability are essential components of the comprehensive solution required to finally end the crisis in Darfur… President Obama and other world leaders must ensure humanitarian aid and protection for Darfuri civilians – especially following the court’s latest decision — and push for a just and inclusive peace agreement to finally end the crisis in Darfur.

INDIA: Indian Foreign Minister welcomed his Russian and Chinese counterparts to Bangalore on Tuesday for talks about trilateral cooperation on regional and international issues.

SOUTH KOREA: Hospitals in South Korea on Tuesday began administering the country’s first locally developed vaccine for swine flu as three more South Koreans infected with the H1N1 have died. As of Monday the virus had killed 25 people in the country.

CHINA: The Chinese government has confirmed that two Tibetans have been executed for their involvement in the riots in Tibet last year in which at least 22 people died.

GUINEA : Human Rights Watch on Tuesday said that the killings that occurred on September 28 by security forces in the Guinean capital Conakry were premeditated. The European Union has imposed an arms embargo and sanctions against Guinea, and the restrictions specifically target Guinea’s military leaders.

SUDAN: Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir will not be attending an African Union meeting on Darfur in Nigeria this week. Human rights groups have been pressuring the government to arrest Bashir should he attend the meeting. Bashir is wanted by the International Criminal Court on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

ISRAEL: According to an Amnesty International report published today in Haaretz, Israel is denying West Bank Palestinians adequate access to clean, safe water, while allowing an almost unlimited supply to Israeli settlers there.

IRAN: Iran’s Al Alam TV reports that Iran will accept a United Nations deal on Iran’s nuclear program after “very important changes” are made.

TURKEY: Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is on a visit to neighboring Iran. Hurriyet reports that the purpose of the visit is to improve ties between Iran and Turkey.

Columbia University professor Mahmood Mamdani talks with Daljit Dhaliwal about the current situation in Sudan and the Obama administration’s policy shift.

Worldfocus.org’s weekly radio show explores tensions in South Sudan, the site of a two-decade civil war between the Muslim north and mostly Christian south that killed more than 1.5 million people. The south is also home to 80 percent of Sudan’s oil.

The war came to an end in 2005 with the signing of a peace agreement that exempted the south from Islamic Sharia law and established a regional southern government as well as a system of shared oil revenues. But with increasingly deadly tribal violence in South Sudan and a humanitarian crisis that could soon eclipse that in Darfur, trouble is brewing once more.

In a conference on Sudan in Washington last week, leaders from the north and south pledged to avoid a return to war.

South Sudan is set for a referendum on independence in 2011 and many in the region hope that the vote will allow a break from Khartoum once and for all, creating a new African nation. Others remain wary, pointing to corruption and incompetence on the part of South Sudan’s government and accusing leaders of squandering oil revenues.

Worldfocus anchor Martin Savidge hosted the following guests:

Jen Marlowe is a filmmaker, writer and human rights activist. She traveled to South Sudan for the forthcoming documentary “Rebuilding Hope,” funded in part by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.

Eric Reeves is a professor at Smith College and has spent the past 10 years researching Sudan. He has testified several times before the Congress and served as a consultant to human rights and humanitarian organizations in Sudan. He is the author of “A Long Day’s Dying,” a book about Darfur. He contributes to the blog Making Sense of Darfur.

Sunday Taabu left South Sudan at the height of the civil war in 1991. She is the founder of the South Sudan Institute for Women’s Education and Leadership and previously worked for the Government of Southern Sudan’s Mission to the U.S.

The show also includes audio clips from:

A Worldfocus interview with Scott Gration, the U.S. envoy to Sudan, on the importance of the region to the United States.

Peter Wankomo, who fled Sudan during the civil war and now lives in Canada. He’s the editor of a website, “South Sudan Nation,” which lobbies for the south’s independence.

A clip from Jen Marlowe’s forthcoming film, “Rebuilding Hope,” featuring a minister in the government of South Sudan and a woman living in the rural village of Akon. Both comment on what’s changed since the peace agreement and the end of the war.

Credits:
Host: Martin Savidge
Producers: Lisa Biagiotti, Katie Combs and Ben Piven

The United Nations has estimated that since 2003, about two million Darfuris have been displaced while some 200,000 have died, mainly from starvation and disease.

Gration joins Martin Savidge to discuss these issues and recommend a new approach to handling Khartoum.

Omar al-Bashir was indicted by the International Criminal Court on charges of crimes against humanity.

African member nations of the International Criminal Court (ICC) held meetings in Addis Ababa, Ethioipia this week to discuss their opposition to the arrest of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir. Last March, Bashir was indicted for crimes against humanity, including murder, rape, torture, pillage and displacement of citizens of the Darfur region of Sudan.

Semhar Araia is an African analyst and consultant. He discusses the wishes of the Darfuris and the goals of 19 African nations that oppose the indictment of Sudan’s president.

African Civil Society Demands More from Governments and African Union on ICC

As a two-day meeting between the 30 original African signatory countries to the ICC draws to a close, the peace-versus-justice debate continues to impact civilians on the ground and divide how Africa’s conflicts are addressed by advocates and policymakers.

This couldn’t be any more true than in Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, where peace advocates argue that if it weren’t for the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrants on Joseph Kony, Thomas Lubanga and Bosco Ntaganda, greater prospects for peace might exist through a viable peace process and stronger support for traditional reconciliation mechanisms. Justice proponents, however, argue that the international judicial mechanisms, absent any legal or judicial system, are necessary to enforce the laws, punish the perpetrators, and implement a peace process.

In my personal conversations with Darfuris and other Sudanese, they felt strongly that the ICC was the only body they could trust to bring justice to their lives. Lacking a viable and internationally-supported peace process for Darfur and a fledgling North-South Comprehensive Peace Agreement, many Sudanese have lost confidence in the ability of the Khartoum government to provide its citizens with any fair or legitimate legal recourse. For them, that means living peacefully, free from harm, with greater representation in government, greater access to wealth and resources, compensation for the damages incurred and punishment for the perpetrators — including President Bashir.

Nearly 70 African civil society groups recently organized in Kampala and Cape Town to express their support for the ICC and Darfuri wishes, arguing that the Court plays a necessary role when their governments are unable or unwilling to investigate and prosecute war crimes, genocide, and other crimes against humanity. Recognizing that their governments originally were supportive of the Court’s creation, they now demand that those same African countries and institutions, including the African Union, show greater support for the ICC. [...]

Nineteen African leaders met on June 8. Sadly, rather than heeding their people’s demands and cries for justice and legality, the group issued a statement calling for a suspension altogether of the ICC arrest warrant against Sudanese President Omar el-Bashir.

So it seems that despite the people’s demands, and the fact that thirty of the original signatories to the Rome Statute were African, African leaders prefer making decisions regarding the ICC and Darfur not based on the people’s wishes, but on theirs. Let’s hope this week’s meeting in Addis Ababa bears a more fruitful result that supports the needs of the Darfuris, Ugandans, and Congolese civilians on the ground.

To read more, see the original post.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user  Ammar Abd Rabbo under a Creative Commons license.

Past aid distribution in Darfur. Photo: United Nations

Sudan has agreed to allow aid agencies to return to the violence-ridden Darfur region, a move that received praise from the United Nations.

However, Sudan’s minister of humanitarian affairs said the 13 aid agencies that were expelled in March — after the International Criminal Court ordered the arrest of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir – will not be allowed back.

Rob Crilly is a freelance journalist based in Nairobi who has written for The Times, The Irish Times, The Daily Mail, The Scotsman and The Christian Science Monitor. Crilly’s blog “African Safari“ appears on the blog network “From the Frontline,” where he criticizes the arrangment.

Aiding and Abetting Khartoum

So you are an NGO recently expelled from Darfur. Over the years the government in Khartoum restricted your operations in the field, kicked out your country director and a security officer, whom the regime accused of being a Mossad agent. Then, just when you are wondering how you can ever actually help the millions of people that depend on your aid, the government expels you altogether. Overnight your operation is shut down, cars impounded and computers seized. Hundreds of Sudanese staff lose their jobs at a stroke and your international workers are treated as criminals as they are put on flights out.

Not all your staff can leave though. One or two have to stay behind to shut things down and help the government take all the good bits of kit. The government also demands you pay six months wages to the local staff. It is made crystal clear that the internationals left behind will not be allowed to leave until millions of dollars in “severance pay” is handed to the government. The internationals are effectively hostages held for ransom. They have at least got their passports back - but no exit visa. They are trapped.

Would you, given these circumstances, ever consider returning to a country that has done all this? Particularly if the deal essentially involved you changing your name thus admitting that you were at fault? Would you want to scale all your operations back up, invest millions of dollars, knowing that Khartoum can kick you out again whenever they fancy?

This is essentially the position Care, and three other American agencies find themselves in. I understand that the IRC, Oxfam and MSF have heard that they will never again be welcome in Sudan. (In some ways that is to the agencies’ credit). But the other agencies have got Scott Gration, Barack Obama’s new Sudan envoy, to thank for one of the most pathetic, weakminded deals I have ever encountered.

To read more, see the original post.

The views expressed by contributing bloggers do not reflect the views of Worldfocus or its partners.

Flags meant to represent the dead of Darfur, though the death toll is disputed and controversial.

Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir visited Egypt on Wednesday, his second trip abroad since the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued a warrant for his arrest on charges of war crimes in Darfur. He had visited Eritrea on Monday, seen as an act of defiance against the warrant.

Following the warrant, the Sudanese government expelled 16 aid organizations from the country, endangering millions of people displaced in Darfur.

Though the U.N. says that at least 300,000 have died in the conflict in Darfur, al-Bashir’s Sudanese government claims that only 10,000 people died. Other figures suggest the death toll is over 400,000. As Guy Gabriel, an adviser to Arab Media Watch, writes in the “Making Sense of Darfur” blog, the death toll numbers have been politicized and steeped in controversy.

The Politics of Numbers

For Darfur watchers, the death toll is as much a political statement as an expression of fact. For those with just a passing interest in the region, ascertaining the number who have died involves making judgements on the credibility of estimates, given that these can vary by hundreds of thousands, depending on the source.

Bitter battles were fought over the number killed in Iraq and Lebanon 2006, with no resolution on the former, and recurrent objections on the latter. The battle for the death toll during Operation Cast Lead in Gaza is just swinging into action, with protracted disputes over accuracy expected. This does not bode well for accurate information from Darfur, an area over 1,200 times the size of the Gaza Strip and with far greater access concerns.

The estimates for the number of people who have died in the Darfur conflict range from 10,000 to 500,000 (occasionally more), with many other figures in between. A lot of the academic inquiry and methodology on the subject is discussed elsewhere on this blog.

While ballpark figures are accepted and extensively used (by humanitarian actors, advocates, policy-makers and the media), the range between these figures is more than enough to create doubt. From this doubt stems the politicised environment of death tolls.

Given the size of Darfur and the persisting difficulties in conducting methodologically sound fieldwork, it is a near-impossible task to produce a responsive, accurate death toll from mortality data, however it may be collected. Figures rely on sample interviews, assumptions, limited contextual information, and ultimately, extrapolation - meaning that those with a political interest in contesting these figures have ammunition with which to object.

It is a bold writer that opts for a lower figure - the closer the estimate is to that of the Sudanese government (10,000), the more that writer will be cast as an ‘apologist’. In truth, it is very rare to see anyone apart from the Sudanese government quote lower than 200,000.

Sam Dealey, then-Africa correspondent for Time magazine, wrote an opinion piece in the New York Times (12 August 2007) about the subject of Darfur death tolls, suggesting that the upper range numbers are likely to be excessive. He wrote of “mortality one-upmanship” between advocacy groups, and concluded that “ultimately, the inflated claims fuel a death race in which aid and action are based not on facts but on which advocacy group yells the loudest.”

This sparked a furious response, not least from Eric Reeves, activist and upper-range-figure advocate, who produced a 1,800-word rebuttal the next day denouncing Dealey as “a disgrace to journalism, and to the New York Times opinion pages.”

At times, then, the question of the death toll forces its way into the media, but does not sit comfortably or consistently there, as the inconsistent figures reveal a logical uncertainty when the media aims to present fact.

An advert placed by Save Darfur and the Aegis Trust in a British newspaper in summer 2007 stated: “After three years, 400,000 innocent men, women and children have been killed.” On 8 August 2007, the British Advertising Standards Authority upheld a complaint by ESPAC (the European-Sudanese Public Affairs Committee) that this figure was opinion, not fact. Shortly thereafter, James Smith of the Aegis Trust lamented that the wording had not read “up to 400,000” (although this in reality would bring us no closer to a concrete figure).

The media, mindful of the imperative of fact, opts for a figure it can back up. The upper figure from a range provided by an institutional source usually suffices; currently, the most common figure is the UN’s estimate of 300,000. An article that mentions the figure given by the Sudanese government is very rare.

One footnote to add about the UN’s estimate of 300,000 is that it was subject to an arbitrary upgrade (from the 2006 figure of 200,000 to 300,000, an increase resulting from deaths attributable to disease and malnutrition) around spring 2008. Various media outlets reported the UN’s John Holmes comments at the time: “I am not saying I am sure… It is not a very scientifically-based figure,” but instead is “a reasonable extrapolation from the previous figures from studies done elsewhere.” This figure remains untouched and widely reported since then.

The use of these figures in the media is inconsistent; both individual journalists and newspapers themselves vary in the numbers they use. For example, a journalist for Britain’s Times newspaper used both 200,000 and 300,000 in articles published in February and March 2009 respectively, having previously used 300,000 for most of the previous year’s reporting. The same discrepancy can be seen in the Guardian, which predominantly quotes the 200,000 figure, but sometimes publishes 300,000.

When the application for the indictment of Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir was submitted to the International Criminal Court, a new figure of 35,000 was released into the public consciousness. This was the number of violent deaths for which Al-Bashir was alleged to be responsible, and comprises documented attacks dating from soon after the Al-Fasher airport attack in April 2003 to attacks in the Jebel Moon area in February 2008. It is worth noting that the actual arrest warrant for Al-Bashir does not give any number for deaths in Darfur, perhaps for fear that the attendant politicisation could cloud an issue of justice.

[...] Given the simplification (Arabs vs Africans) used to portray Darfur in many sections of the media, it is worth noting that who and how those included in the overall figure died remains largely unknown and unconsidered: Arab, non-Arab, Sudanese government, civilian, be it in government, rebel, or inter-tribal attacks.

Away from the sporadic interest of the media, another serious issue in this politicised environment is that it can detract from important decisions that should be kept free from politics.

Statistics such as the number of dead must be credible in order to help political and public health decision-makers plan effectively for the short- and long-term strategies relating to the conflict, a process complicated by the need for political evaluation.
This goes equally for humanitarian aid groups who must manage a relationship with the host country. Humanitarian aid has become more politicised, critically so now in Darfur, as the aid group expulsions demonstrate.

Does use of upper-end death tolls encourage the Sudanese government to harden their stance regarding admitting and facilitating the function of aid organisations in Darfur? This is a hard question to answer substantively, but instinct would agree.

Moreover, would the humanitarian situation in Darfur have been eased by the universal quoting of a low-end figure? Would the Sudanese government have been more inclined to let aid agencies stay?

In a way this is a moot point now that the indictment of Al-Bashir has taken place. Those actors who hope to influence the death toll - and the displaced and those in need of humanitarian aid - now have a much more complicated opportunity to do so.

One final observation is that the figure of internally (and externally) displaced is often relegated to second place: the death toll is often quoted without the IDP figure, but never vice versa. Given that the largest humanitarian operation in the world is in Darfur, this demonstrates a perverse over-emphasis on the dead at the expense of the living.

To read more, see the original post.

The views expressed by contributing bloggers do not reflect the views of Worldfocus or its partners.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user thatsparklychick under a Creative Commons license.

The court said Bashir directed attacks that resulted in the murder, rape and torture of hundreds of thousands of people in Darfur. However, it also said there was not sufficient evidence to support charges of genocide.

The United Nations says that at least 300,000 have died in the conflict in Darfur and 2.5 million have been displaced.

On Tuesday, Bashir responded to the impending warrant by saying the ICC could “eat it.”

Amir Idris, a professor of African studies at Fordham University who grew up in Sudan, joins Martin Savidge to discuss the chances that Bashir will stand trial, how it will impact violence in Darfur and the U.S. position on Darfur and the ICC.

Journalist Rob Crilly in Sudan argues that while activists consider the ICC’s warrant a triumph, the Sudanese reaction is less than jubilant:

The Save Darfur movement and human rights campaigners will tell you that it’s all worth it. There need be no conflict between peace and justice, according to John Prendergast and Omer Ismail in today’s San Diego Tribune…

But I can’t help feeling that they’ve been speaking to different people from the ones I have met in five camps across North and South Darfur this past week. Few have time for this debate. Few have heard of the International Criminal Court. Those that have are worried the government will come down hard on anyone celebrating Bashir’s indictment. And most seem to think that going home is more important than anything else.

Forgive me for putting words in their mouths, but I’m interpreting that as putting peace ahead of justice.

Today I met families who fled the fighting in Muhajiriya (incidentally they may not actually have fled - but that’s a post for another day). Some 50,000 are on the move. About 26,000 have arrived in Zam Zam camp.

One of them was Mariam Ahmed Abu, who reckoned she was 60 but looked more like 80 and whose daughter had been shot by her side during the fighting for Muhajiriya. She had survived six years of war but left when she realised she no longer had any children left to care for her. She made the journey with a dozen or so other elderly women who had all run out of children. This is how she summed it all up when I asked her about seeking justice for the misery inflicted on her:

“This is what happened and now we have to live and to forget it.”

She hadn’t heard of the ICC until I asked her about it and I’m starting to think that taking Bashir to the Hague will be more of a victory for activists far away from Sudan than for the people stuck in this miserable war.

The “Fai Notizia” blog interviews a young Sudanese man, who states that the ICC’s actions have allowed Bashir to position himself as victim:

I really hated what International Criminal Court, they gave the Sudanese Government a golden opportunity to polish its image and it’s President Bashir’s. Sudanese People are mostly simple people, after the ICC’s request to arrest Al-Bashir, the government went on and on about how this is a targeting of Islam, and how it’s an insult to the Sudanese Pride and how if this happened the US will surly have it’s clutches around Sudan, blah, blah. It wasn’t more than propaganda and a pethatric attempt to make Al-Bashir worthy of the coming elections, because honestly, before this, nobody liked this idiot. But suddenly I hear people in the bus talking about supporting him against the ICC. He became a hero.

“Mimz,” another Sudanese blogger, writes that the warrant has Sudanese people scared, pleading for calm:

So please, Sudanese citizens, those of you living in Sudan… stop panicking! And stop packing your bags! I know so many people who are actually gone by now because they are afraid of what might happen if the warrant is issued. I’m telling you, Egypt doesn’t need any more people crowding it!

Nothing is going to happen, and no I am not in denial, I am just thinking of the most reasonable sequence of events. You will not be attacked in your own home, you will not lose all your valuable posessions and you will not find a loved one dead outside your house. Don’t be so overdramatic!

A blogger at “The Sudanese Thinker” writes that the arrest warrant may reshape U.S. policy towards Sudan:

[T]he ICC can’t do much on its own in terms of enforcing the arrest warrant (if it issues it at all) and the UN is a fangless paper tiger, but…

… given that we now have Susan Rice as the US Ambassador to the UN, Hillary as Secretary of State, and a Blue Donkey administration in charge of running things, US policies towards Sudan will gradually become starkly different than they were just a few months ago when Bush was still in power.

An ICC arrest warrant issued within this new context will now have more weight, and hence its potential issuance will probably be more useful as a tool for pressuring Omar al-Bashir to act in favor of peace in Darfur and implementing the CPA.

Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir.

Several news organizations, including The New York Times and Reuters, have quoted diplomats and United Nations officials who say that the International Criminal Court (ICC) has decided to arrest and indict Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir for war crimes in Darfur.

However, the ICC has so far denied the media reports and said that judges have not made a decision about al-Bashir.

If an arrest warrant were to be issued by the international court, it would be the first such warrant against a sitting head of state.

Though the U.N. says that at least 300,000 have died in the conflict in Darfur and 2.5 million have been displaced, al-Bashir’s Sudanese government claims that only 10,000 people died and that it in no way constituted genocide. Sudan has denied all ties to the Janjaweed militias, who are blamed for much of the violence.

The U.K.-based human rights organization Aegis Trust recently released a short documentary featuring what it claims are former members of the Sudanese military and Janjaweed militia, who detail their alleged involvement in the Darfur conflict and discuss how the attacks were financed and carried out.

Read more about the film here.

Blogger “Michelle” wonders why the ICC and the media’s sources differ on the indictment decision:

Why the leak? I’m betting that the New York Times wouldn’t be likely to post such major news without a certain level of confidence in its sources…that is, enough confidence to allow it to weather the storm that could come from the ICC’s denials[...]

I think this might be an attempt, either by the UN or the ICC or both, to soften the political ground before the indictment is actually handed down. As I wrote previously, anxieties over Khartoum’s reaction to the arrest warrant, once it becomes official, are running quite high — by leaking the information in the days before the announcement, and then issuing an obligatory denial, someone out there might be trying to soften the blow, test the waters, or at least give a warning to the international community that this is finally coming.

The “For Sudan” blog also considers the ICC’s motives:

This could be a ploy by the ICC to keep the arrest warrant a secret, allowing them to arrest the President if he decides to go abroad and visit one of the member states of the Rome Statute, the agreement that created the court, without having publicly announced the arrest warrant. Or, they can simply still be in the process of working out the final details. Only time will tell.

Brett Schaefer of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty asks if the ICC is the proper forum for prosecuting Darfur’s war crimes:

Although supporters of the court have a noble purpose, there are a number of reasons to be cautious and concerned about the effect the ICC could have on national sovereignty and politically precarious situations the world over.

One of the most basic principles of international law is that a state cannot be bound by a treaty to which it is not a party. Further, long-standing international legal norms hold that a state cannot be bound to legal assertions that it has specifically rejected. The ICC, however, directly contravenes these norms and precedents of international law; it claims jurisdiction to prosecute and imprison citizens of countries that are not party to the Rome Statute and, more shockingly, over those who have specifically rejected the court’s jurisdiction.

[...]For these reasons and others, the United States has declined to join the ICC. It is not alone in its concerns as demonstrated by the many states that are not ICC parties. Major countries like China, India, and Russia have refused to ratify the Rome Statute out of concern that it unduly infringes on their foreign- and security-policy decisions — issues rightly reserved to sovereign governments.

In July, when the ICC chief prosecutor formally requested an arrest warrant for al-Bashir, blogger “Heba Aly” from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting wrote about the reaction in Sudan:

Endless opinion pieces in Sudanese newspapers have denounced the move. Daily, people who support the president have protested outside embassies who support the ICC, calling the decision “racist” and “unfair”.

They say the ICC is holding Sudan to a higher standard than say, the US, which they see as also responsible for their actions in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine. It sounds much like the anti-US sentiment I have heard in other parts of the Arab world. One man called those American actions genocide too - I’m not sure he understood what the word means. Sometimes, I think these people have been given lines to rehearse and say to the media, and the extent to which they understand and believe in what they are saying is questionable.

But that’s not to say there is nothing real about the anger over this decision. I think the biggest issue for people here is the perceived violation of sovereignty. I talked to one taxi driver who said he wasn’t a fan of Bashir, “but even if the devil was our president, no one would approve of this ICC decision” because Sudan is a sovereign country and “we should be the ones to remove him.”

Photo courtesy of Flickr user openDemocracy under a Creative Commons license.

Turkey admits to World War I-era mass killings in Armenia but denies that it was genocide. A memorial in Yerevan, Armenia, commemorates the killings.

The word genocide was coined in the wake of the Holocaust.

Since then, the term has been used in varying contexts to describe modern conflicts, from Rwanda to Darfur. But the term itself has become a source of conflict, as many look to whether or not governments and leaders recognize and punish genocide.

The United Nations defines genocide as “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group” and a convention criminalizing genocide became law in 1951.

Some people have been prosecuted and found guilty of genocide, including Rwandan politician Jean-Paul Akayesu and Serbian General Radislav Krstic.

However, while the U.S. has pointed to genocide in Darfur, the United Nations has refrained from using that term to describe the killings in Sudan.

The “Killing Denouement” blog discusses the historical use of the term and modern debates surrounding its usage:

Is Gaza a genocide; is Darfur a genocide? Where do you draw the lines between ‘land conflict’, ‘ethnic cleansing’ and genocide’, and what are the political value(s) of doing so? And how does something get designated as genocide anyway - is it, legally, only when the ICC at the Hague says so?

[...]The Rwandan genocide is popularly characterised as one of the most shocking massacres of a century already stained by violent bloodshed. Much of its associated visceral horror comes from the situation of neighbours turning against each other. Not unlike its historical cousin of the Nazi Holocaust, it too was structured around several poles of binary opposition. Citizen and subject; native and settler. Hutu and Tutsi; Nazi and Jew. Both of these atrocities have seeped their way into the collective Western consciousness, and have come to function as embedded points of reference for future conflicts.

The “Presidential Blog” writes about the debate surrounding the Gaza war and its casualties:

I see how the name-calling and the evocations of other historical horrors take us all further away from understanding, further away from any hope of resolution on a human scale. Comparisons to “genocide” or “apartheid” simply raise the rhetorical stakes; they may help speakers or writers score points (in their own minds and the minds of the like-minded) but they do nothing to advance shared understanding.

On the contrary.

Mahmood Mamdani of “Pambazuka News” points to similarities between violence in Darfur and the war in Iraq, exploring how the conflicts are named differently:

The similarities between Iraq and Darfur are remarkable. The estimate of the number of civilians killed over the past three years is roughly similar. The killers are mostly paramilitaries, closely linked to the official military, which is said to be their main source of arms. The victims too are by and large identified as members of groups, rather than targeted as individuals. But the violence in the two places is named differently. In Iraq, it is said to be a cycle of insurgency and counter-insurgency; in Darfur, it is called genocide. Why the difference? Who does the naming? Who is being named? What difference does it make?

Flickr user “Bullneck” posts an image of a protester with a sign declaring genocide, and argues that the word is misused:

Here’s an idea: Why don’t we all put the term ‘genocide’ (and ‘Holocaust,’ too) on a hiatus from placards and instead use words with more meaning, rationality, and thought? The only situation which calls for the use of such terms would be something akin to Rwanda in the ’90s. Everything else is self-righteous hyperbole which cheapens the word’s meaning.

Blogger “Stacey Perlman” argues that governments use alternate terms to avoid responsibilities:

The genocide in Darfur has gone on since 2003 and has not gained the attention it deserves. Other genocides include Rwanda in 1994 and the Cambodian Killing Fields in 1975. Not to mention the death of 11 million people, 6 million of them Jews, in the Holocaust during WWII.

Perhaps lesser known is the first genocide of the 20th century. No, it wasn’t the Jews in WWII, it was the Armenians in 1915 during WWI. It is estimated that one and a half million people died between 1915 and 1923. There is still controversy surrounding the mass murder of these people as the Turkish government has continually denied it ever happened.

In Kenya, the recent election controversy was the straw that broke the camel’s back after decades of tension from grudges over land. Using a term like “ethnic cleansing” is an easy way to avoid providing aid. [...] Until the situation is deemed “genocide” no legal action needs to be taken, which is disturbing. Ethnic cleansing is not any less minor of a situation than a declared genocide and efforts should be made to combat it.

The “BlogCritics” blog writes that Western governments only deem mass killing genocidal when economic interests are involved:

After the horrors of World War II, the world said “never again” to horrific mass killings. But, due to the Cold War tensions, idealistic ideas such as this one were abandoned in favor of realist politics and fighting for self-interests. “Never again” does not mean “we will do everything to stop genocides from happening anywhere in the world.” The Western world in particular considers stopping genocides only in countries where they have economic or other interests.

That is why in 1994 the American government did not want to use the term “genocide” to describe the fastest genocide in recorded human history that took over 800,000 lives in Rwanda in only 100 days. [...] Calling the mass slaughter “genocide” would obligate the US and other governments, signatories of the Resolution 260A(III), to intervene and stop it. But the US and other Western countries did nothing because they had no interests in the small, overpopulated, and poor African country. That a whole ethnic group was being exterminated in front of the whole world was not enough.

Blogger “Erica Thurman” argues that omitting gender from the definition of genocide allows violence against women:

Discourse of human security as it relates to women appears to avoid the “G” word—genocide. This is perhaps because the International Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide (Convention) fails to identify systematic sexual based violence as an act of genocide. Various threats to human security are gender specific. Rape, forced impregnation, maternal mortality rates and sexual slavery are components of human insecurity which have to be viewed through a gendered lens to recognize “who is affected and how, and what specific forms of protection or assistance are needed by whom.” [...]

A finding of systematic rape as genocide would serve two purposes. The first would allow the violence against African women to be classified as genocide, thereby compelling the international community to act to prevent future occurrences of this heinous crime. Secondly, the finding of rape as genocide would introduce the idea of sexually specific crimes in the discourse of genocide which could subsequently compel an amendment to the Convention establishing women as a protected class against genocide.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user Rita Willaert under a Creative Commons license.

As some of the 2.7 million people displaced by violence in Darfur, the youth faced hunger and alienation, with little future to anticipate. Now, they have formed an outspoken political group known as the “shabab,” Arabic for “young men.”

Mohamed Adam Yahya is a refugee from Darfur and the founder of the Damanga Coalition for Freedom and Democracy, an organization founded to promote the human rights of Darfuris in exile and in Sudan. He speaks with Daljit Dhaliwal about the current situation in refugee camps and about the motivations and future of the shabab.

See Obama’s policy statement on Africa on his Web site.

Sarjoh Bah, a research associate with New York University’s Center on International Cooperation, speaks with Martin Savidge about challenges in Africa, from Darfur to the crisis in eastern Congo. He says that Africans want a strategic relationship with the U.S., boosted by the opportunities of Africa’s growing middle class, its young population and its oil exports to the U.S.

Below, bloggers in Africa and around the world discuss the future of U.S.-Africa relations.

Prior to the election, bloggers Merle Bowen and William Minter argued that the U.S. needs to radically transform its Africa policy, moving from simply humanitarian and AIDS work — “a narrow view of Africa as a recipient of charity” – to multilateral cooperation and increasingly open trade.

Peter Pham outlines a comprehensive Africa strategy for Barack Obama at the “World Defense Review” blog, including high-level dialogue that could prove mutually beneficial.

Citizen journalist Gibbs Dube writes at “OhMyNews” that Obama will likely directly engage with African leaders much more than his predecessor, particularly in Zimbabwe where political upheaval continues.

Workers at a gorilla park in Congo — recently besieged by violence — share varying opinions of Obama at the “Virunga Park” blog. One hopes that Obama will encourage international intervention in the country, while another doubts that the new U.S. president will have any practical impact on the Congo.

Some of this trade, however, involves countries like Sudan and Zimbabwe, where human rights abuses have been cited. China is a permanent member of the United Nation’s Security Council, and the nation’s self-interest in Africa has been criticized for blocking U.N. action in Darfur and ultimately helping to fuel the crisis there.

In Kenya, the Chinese are building roads, shipping in goods and selling them in Chinese-owned shops. Kenyans are learning Chinese and Chinese are learning Swahili.

Listen to our online radio show on China’s role in Africa and view an interactive map of China’s recent diplomatic efforts on the continent.

Worldfocus special correspondent Martin Seemungal and producer Yuval Lion report from Kenya and Tanzania on China’s aggressive moves into the region’s marketplace.

A delegation from the northern Sudanese village of Selem visits the mayor’s office to complain of services in their village. Photo: Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting

Sudan: A Second Darfur?

It’s a flashy headline, but a question that some people are legitimately asking themselves. Could there be a rebellion in the north, as there was in Darfur, to the west?

The answer depends on who you ask.

Northerners certainly complain of marginalization. They say they are worse off than Darfur, in fact.

“We should have taken up arms before the Darfurians,” one village leader told me, “because we are in more need. But our values don’t allow us to use violence.”

I heard that line many times during my time in villages of the Nubian desert. “We are peaceful people. Rebellion is not the answer.”

That’s not to say northerners are happy about their situation. Many of them live without clean water or electricity; they’ve had to build their schools and health clinics themselves; and they lack any economic opportunities in their villages. But many seem to feel powerless to do anything about it. “What can we do?” they often ask.

If you ask government officials, the answer is certainly no. The idea of a rebellion in the north is something they brush off easily, almost as if to say, “Don’t be silly; that would never happen.”

But it is exactly this kind of quick dismissal that angers northerners, who seem to have been forgotten among Sudan’s many other problems.

Ask analysts, and people who have worked in Sudan for years, and the answer is more ambiguous.

One UN official who studies risk management said the Northern State could easily be the next problem spot. Until now, the region has not received much attention, but he said it should be studied before it explodes. Darfur, the south, the east have all rebelled due to perceived marginalization. “It’s like when you try to stop a bush fire. You think you’ve stopped it and then it pops up in another area. There aren’t many there areas it can pop up in Sudan, except Northern State.” They may be peaceful people, he told me, but they’ve seen that in the west, the east, and the south, people got something out of rebellion. “When their backs are up against the wall…” He didn’t need to finish his sentence.

To read the rest of this post at the Pulitzer Center’s blog, “Untold Stories,” click here.

The views expressed by contributing bloggers do not reflect the views of Worldfocus or its partners.