I knew I wasn't alone in arguing that Bashir deserves to be punished for his crimes: Al-Qaeda number two Ayman Zawahiri urged the people of Sudan to prepare for guerrilla war and for President Omar al-Beshir to "repent," in an Internet video message released on Tuesday. Zawahiri said Beshir's regime is "reaping what it sowed," in reference to the International Criminal Court...
I have received a number of emails from regulars complaining that their comments are being moderated. They are, but not on the basis of their content. Our comment system automatically flags any comment that contains a hyperlink, because spam comments always contain them. We then have to manually approve the non-spam comments, which we try to do as soon as...
At their most recent meeting, the judges of the ICC rearranged the composition of the Court's three Divisions. The new composition is as follows: The judges assigned to the Pre-Trial Division are: Judge Hans-Peter Kaul (Germany), Second Vice-President of the Court; Judge Sylvia Steiner (Brazil); Judge Ekaterina Trendafilova (Bulgaria); Judge Fumiko Saiga (Japan); Judge Sanji Mmasenono Monageng (Botswana); and Judge Cuno...
I have been reading Roger's fascinating missives from Rwanda with great interest and agree with much of what he has to say. But I have to demur from the claim that "Kagame is personally invested in making Rwanda a country that is committed to reconciliation, human rights and self-sufficiency." Self-sufficiency, perhaps -- there is no question that Rwanda has experienced...
I just can't resist: There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: "The Lord of the Rings" and "Atlas Shrugged." One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs. Courtesy of...
In its application for the arrest warrant, the Prosecution argued that the Sudanese government's genocidal intent could be inferred from, inter alia, the slow-death conditions in the IDP camps. As part of that claim, the Prosecution pointed out the numerous ways in which Bashir's regime had hindered international efforts to provide the Darfuris in the IDP camps with humanitarian assistance. One...
That is the conclusion of the most comprehensive study of the issue to date, "Confronting the Yugoslav Controversies: A Scholars' Initiative," conducted by Purdue University. From the New York Times, which held follow-up interviews with some of the sources cited in the study: Charles W. Ingrao, the study’s co-editor, said that three senior State Department officials, one of them retired, and...
The following is a guest post written by Kate Cronin-Furman and Amanda Taub, the brains behind the must-read blog wronging rights. My thanks to them for contributing it. Two weeks ago, Pre-Trial Chamber I of the International Criminal Court issued a warrant for the arrest of Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir. (We’re sure you all remember; it was kind of a...
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...
Alex de Waal criticizes Moreno-Ocampo''s decision to appeal the genocide issue today at his blog Making Sense of Darfur. It's a nasty and remarkably patronizing post. It also exhibits not even a shred of understanding of the Rome Statute or the Prosecution Application. Here is what de Waal writes: I was surprised to learn that the Prosecutor of the ICC is seeking leave...
Michelle at Stop Genocide reminded me of this fantastic riff on empire and genocide from the incomparable Eddie Izzard: Remarkably insightful stuff. Watch it!...
In public, Sudanese government officials have uniformly defended Bashir against the supposed depredations of the ICC. According to the Institute for War & Peace Reporting, however, they tell a different story in private: A minister with the president’s National Congress Party, NCP, said that members were left reeling by the announcement of an arrest warrant issued against Bashir by ICC judges...
