17 Mar In Defense of Alex de Waal
A reader has left a comment to my previous post in which he alleges that Alex tipped off Bashir that the OPT was going to seek his arrest and speculates that Alex might have promised Bashir to oppose the genocide charges.
I have reluctantly left the comment up, because I don’t believe that it is my role as a blogger to police the comments to my posts. That said, I want to make one thing absolutely clear: the commenter’s allegations are completely ridiculous and unequivocally false. I have very significant disagreements with Alex about whether Bashir is legally responsible for genocide in Darfur, and I did not pull any punches in my previous post. But I have nothing but respect for Alex — very few people in this world can rival his expertise or his commitment to improving the lives of ordinary Darfuris. I believe that I am right where Alex and I disagree — as my mentor, Stanley Fish, once said, it’s impossible not to believe what you believe. But I freely confess that I always think twice before I disagree with Alex, and when I do disagree with him, I do so with trepidation. That is the highest compliment I can pay someone.
We are all better off for Alex’s work, as angry as it often makes some of us. I hope I will have the privilege of disagreeing with him for a very long time.
On my provocative comments on the genocide debate, I have seen everyone came in defense of Alex De Waal and faulting me. Well, I may accept where I am at fault, but I am also compelled to clarify my position further. In this discussions, what I have seen are three major issues: (1) whether the atrocities in Darfur constitutes genocide, (2) if the case of genocide can be presentable in court, (3) and should someone be held accountable for the atrocities committed in Darfur, especially if that someone is Omar al-Bashir, the president in Khartoum. Leading the discussions is Alex De Waal who dismisses any claim of genocide committed in Darfur, laughs off at any evidence of genocide charges that can be presented in court, and adamantly opposes Omar al-Bashir to be held accountable by court. However, I can prove beyond reasonable doubt that De Waal’s current position is a drastic shift from his previous position on the same questions. The question then is: why a sudden drastic shift of positions? Below are plenty of examples showing those shifts over the short period of the conflict in Darfur. In July of 2004, in Addis Ababa, Alex De Waal wrote that… Read more »