Comments on: A Disaster in the Making

By: Amr Abdelmoneim

Amr Abdelmoneim — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 18:33:47 +0000

5 million dead in the Congo. Fighting has been taking place even before the Darfur crisis had started in Feb/2003. But Still Darfur is the # one crisis in the World with 200 thousand dead.

Placing Darfur as a priority seems suspicious.

Would the Western world consider Darfur still a priority, if a non Muslim was the President in Khartoum, not an extremist Muslim President like Al Bashir.

By: Hein Goemans

Hein Goemans — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 00:05:32 +0000

Deborah Ruiz Verduzco:
I am sorry you completely failed to see the forest for the trees.

By: Deborah Ruiz Verduzco

Deborah Ruiz Verduzco — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 22:31:45 +0000

Hein Goemans:
I am attracted to our side of the argument looking at how leaders have ended in 188 countries, yet your claim that “Bashir now has no incentive to quietly go into the night” presumes that Bashir is ready to leave.
Before the indictments, did Bashir had any incentive of leaving power?
You are missing completely the point of what the peace agreent in Sudan ment is trying to achieve, which is not a change of regime. Regardless of the actors’ positions on regime change in Sudan, it is not the current issue on the table, nor it is the purpose of the indictments of the ICC. It may well be a consequence in the long future but your argumentation is flawed and not serious by linking these three aspects to the way leaders end up.
Also, a question I would be interested in hearing on the basis of your research, and is not where do they end up either in exile, imprisonment or death, is why, what forced them to their end?
Finally, you also miss the main point of criminal justice which is not punishment, it is actually bringing the individual accountable, if found guilty for his/her acts, allowing victims for justice, and ensuring these crimes do not happen again. And this is achieved not through the manipulation of justice for political means (be that legitimate or illegitimate), but the fulfillment and upholding of rules. If you stick to the rules, then there is certainty, the certainty that gives room for the peace negotiations to happen, for development to happen, which are all uncertain processes. Without that certainty, there is really no hope.

By: Chris

Chris — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 06:15:04 +0000

Thank you to Mr. Natsios for sharing his informed thoughts.

While the legal-political tension of the ICC’s pending indictment was to be anticipated, this whole debate sadly misses a few key points.

First, Mr. Natsios is correct to base his analysis on what happens to the long suffering Sudanese people, a concern which I share having worked in Sudan. However, the system of international criminal justice (of which the ICC is a part) is not being constructed for the Sudanese people alone. Had it been in place - and more efficient - decades ago, the Sudanese people might not now be suffering, because the perpetrators would know they were acting under the threat of prosecution. So, it is not only the Sudanese people that the indictment may help; it is all potential future victims of State-sponsored crimes. It is important to keep this in mind. The Rome Statute was not drafted to try Bashir.

Second, this is not a human rights issue. It is an international criminal law issue. When commentators and journalists understand that important distinction, the debate will become more meaningful.

Third, neither the UN Security Council nor the ICC are responsible for what is happening in Darfur. It is the Sudanese government; end of story. Critics of the UN, the ICC, the nebulous “international community”, China, and all the other usual accused should be prepared to direct some of their criticism towards the true culprit. If Khartoum had met their obligations as a representative of all the people of Sudan instead of serving their tiny, aristocratic ruling clique, most of us would never have heard of Darfur.

Thanks for reading…

By: Kizzie

Kizzie — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 11:46:32 +0000

Hein Goemans,

I have heard this from a few Sudanese.
“If Bashir stepped down and allowed the formation of a transitional government, he could be granted amnesty”.

By: Hein Goemans

Hein Goemans — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 15:30:35 +0000

I study leaders and have collected data on all leaders in 188 countries between 1875 — 2003. Fully one quarter of all leaders faced some punishment, e.g., exile, imprisonment or death, within one year after they lost office. It is clear that the fear of post-exit punishment does fundamentally affect the policy choices of leaders. In the current context, it is clear that Bashir now has no incentive to quietly go into the night. ON the other hand, other and future leaders must now take into account that they might be held to account by the ICC, which will also fundamentally affect their policy choices. In some cases, this will make such leaders more ruthless, in other cases, however, such leaders will be deterred from pursuing policies which might lead them before the ICC. On balance, I strongly suspect, the deterrent effects will outweigh the dangerous “gambling” effects, although this make take a decade or more to become visible. Current criminal leaders, think Mugabe, Than Shwe and others, will resort to every available means to prevent transitions to democracy or any form of government that might extradite them to The Hague. Future leaders, however, especially if leaders such as Bashir really are made to feel the costs of the indictment (which does not necessarily require they are put in the docket in The Hague), are likely to behave more responsible to the international standards of law and human rights.

By: M.W. Daly

M.W. Daly — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 17:02:50 +0000

While Mr. Natsios’s predictions may prove correct, the fact that an indictment necessarily focuses on an individual or individuals may ironically help to break the logjam in Khartoum.

Those unindicted Sudanese government officials who have carried out the regime’s policies in Darfur and, more to the point, those army officers awaiting an opportune moment to break with the regime, may well now find Field Marshal Beshir expendable. As an ex-president he, together with other ex-officials, would be easy for a successor government to blame for the atrocities; the international community’s willingness to support such a new government (however noxious) in an announced attempt to open new talks, cooperate with the peacekeepers, and so forth, would help it to solidify its position in Khartoum.

In any case, what is the alternative to an indictment? The prosecutor and the court have credibility to maintain. And the ability of Beshir (or anyone else) to stay in power should not depend on the rest of the world’s fear that he might lash out against his own people if an indictment were handed up.

By: Khalid AlMubarak

Khalid AlMubarak — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 09:38:49 +0000

Andrew Natsois (an honest academic and politician) is like ex-president Carter
who dared to say what he really thought only after leaving office and no longer fearing the wrath of the poweful lobbies! To his credit Natsois was heckled while in office by what he called extremist advocasy groups.
He deserves respect for meeting Ocampo and trying to persuade him not to proceed along a destructive path.
What Ocampo and those behind him are after is not justice ;but the very chaos which Dr Natsois fears. Their actions are a result of dismay because the Elections Law has been adopted and because the Abyei confrontations are over . They would like to see the CPA unravel and collapse .
More disappointment awaits them .The rebels will be encouraged ; but Sudan will continue seeking peace in Darfur and moving towards pluralism and more stability .

By: Scott

Scott — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 23:59:46 +0000

The responsibility for what happens after an indictment rests on the members of the security council and on all the countries worldwide who are capable of providing manpower and resources to the UN/AU force that would enable it to carry out its work effectively. This indictment could well have come years ago, but it has been left on hold in the hope that international efforts led by Mr. Natsios would find a way to put an end to the genocide. Instead, the U.S. government that he worked for and all the other governments involved produced nothing but excuses, empty rhetoric, and worthless half-measures. While China continues to provide Khartoum with the money and weapons used to carry out genocide, governments refused to employ the pressure that the threat of an Olympic boycott could have created. While Khartoum imposed conditions on the deployment of peacekeepers with the obvious intent of preventing those peacekeepers from being effective, the U.S. and other governments bowed. And the U.S. continues to preclude stronger pressure on the Bashir government by maintaining a friendly intelligence relationship over decade-old information.
The ongoing disaster in Darfur is the result of the cowardice and failure of Western governments, African governments, and others. Trying to blame the ICC for whatever deterioration might follow the indictments is nonsense. If they continue to stall, leaving an understaffed, ill-equipped peacekeeping force on the ground that could not even protect itself–or even worse, if they withdraw the force–and simply point fingers at the prosecutors, that would be not only failure, but complicity.

By: muganwa gonza

muganwa gonza — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 18:31:25 +0000

I agree with Natsios that the idictments are more bad than good. there is nothing to be excited about, even for human rights advocates. there will be more violence because of such. The excitable human right lawyer ignore the very causes why states kill there own poeple.Its not because leaders are bad, its just that they are organised in such a way that violence is inevitable.
Indicting Omar Bashir Is paradoxical to finding a solution to Darfur crisis and could even unravell the CPA for south Sudan.
The security council and the African Union should block Ocampo’s mistake.

Muganwa