planet earth looks blue

“Eat the warrant”, says Sudan’s President Omar Hassan al-Bashir.  His arrest has been ordered by the Hague’s International Criminal Court (ICC) for the atrocities that he committed in Darfur.  Bashir wasn’t actually accused of genocide, which leaves one to wonder what exactly has to be done to receive the title of mega-evil.  300,000 people were murdered and 2.5 million people were forced to flee their homes. These are catastrophic numbers, but in no way sum up the horrors committed in Darfur.  After the Fur, Masalit, and Zaghawa ethnic groups were completely terrorized, the Janjaweed (modern day ring-wraiths) raped women on a massive scale - an intended violent takeover of the gene pool.

The War in Darfur, which began in 2003, is between the ruling party in northern Sudan, a mostly Arab-Afro minority, against the non-Arab farmers-turned-rebels, the Sudan Liberation Movement, and the Justice and Equality Movement.  President Bashir is declaring that he won’t recognize the international call for his arrest.  Sudan never acknowledged the ICC in the first place (nor has the United States), and has no intention of handing its leader over.  Bashir meanwhile has called out the “western colonialists” who are trying to make a power grab for his nation.  He is just as likely to turn himself in as Bush is to renounce his actions in Iraq and Afghanistan, or Israel in Gaza.

There is some concern, particularly from the Arab world, as well as China, that the ICC is only pushing peace in Darfur further into the future.  By ostracizing Bashir, the court’s decision has become a force to unite the country behind the President.  And rebel groups are now less likely to compromise with a known war criminal.  The ICC has only been opened since 2002.  They’re new at the game.  Despite criticisms, despite their lack of power to enforce, they do have a place in the land of humans; of wars, and genocides, of invasions, and oppressions.  The court is there to symbolize justice if nothing else.