IJCentral: International Justice Central

In the wake of the arrest warrants issued for his arrest by the ICC, Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir has predictably upped the ante in his defiance of international human rights norms by expelling several key humanitarian organizations from Darfur and seizing their assets - essential organizations like Doctors Without Borders and the International Crisis Group.  The Sudanese representative at the UN says there’s no turning back, and that the international community should be more concerned about the reversing the ICC warrants than with condemning Sudan. 

If the UN Security Council gives in to this sort of blackmail it will truly be a shameful day for humanity.  A serial genocidaire like al-Bashir has to face his day of reckoning at this point - enough is enough (during his 20-year regime 2 million died in a civil war with southern Sudan, he supplied arms and support for the Lord’s Resistance Army atrocities in Uganda, and now Darfur).  There are good signs from the Obama administration, as evinced by statements issued by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, UN Representative Susan Rice, and Obama’s appointment of Maj. Gen. J. Scott Gration, a Swahili-speaking retired Air Force officer who grew up in Africa as the son of missionaries, to be Sepcial Envoy for Sudan.  According to reports even China seems to be balking at this latest outrage from al-Bashir.  I urge all IJCentral members to write to Susan Rice urging her to support the arrest warrants for al-Bashir and put this international pariah on trial.