THE HAGUE, Netherlands (ABP) — In what would become the world’s first prosecution of a sitting head of state for crimes against humanity, the International Criminal Court’s head prosecutor is asking that Sudan’s leader be charged with genocide.
Luis Moreno-Ocampo, an Argentinian who serves as the Netherlands-based court’s chief prosecuting attorney, asked a three-judge panel July 14 to indict President Omar al-Bashir for war crimes in Sudan’s Darfur region.
The indictment request, which caps a three-year-long investigation, includes three counts of genocide, five counts of crimes against humanity and two counts of murder.
The evidence against the Sudanese leader “shows that al-Bashir masterminded and implemented a plan to destroy in substantial part the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa groups [of Darfur], on account of their ethnicity,” said a statement from the ICC. “Members of the three groups, historically influential in Darfur, were challenging the marginalization of the province; they engaged in a rebellion. Al-Bashir failed to defeat the armed movements, so he went after the people.”
Since 2003, government-supported Arab militias in western Sudan have been driving members of black African tribes from their homes into refugee camps scattered across the region and in neighboring Chad. According to U.N. estimates, more than 1 million people have been displaced from their homes as a result, and untold thousands have died from violence at the hands of militias as well as disease and hunger resulting from being forced into refugee camps.
Sudanese leaders have responded little to international pressure and repeated calls from the United Nations and other organizations to restrain the Arab militias, known collectively as the Janjaweed.
Moreno-Ocampo’s investigation began after the U.N. Security Council referred the situation to the International Criminal Court in 2005. The ICC, created by a 2002 treaty known as the Rome Statute, currently has 106 participating nations. However, Sudan has refused to sign on to the accord. ICC rules state that the body can only prosecute a crime in a nation that is not a party to the Rome Statute after a U.N. referral.
The United States has also refused to agree to the Rome Statute, fearing that its military or diplomatic personnel could face politically motivated charges in some nations around the world.
Many Christian groups, ranging across the U.S. ideological spectrum, have taken on the Darfur genocide as a cause. Although some conservative groups have opposed U.S. participation in the ICC, at least one conservative group commended the court’s latest move July 14.
“We are grateful for Luis Moreno-Ocampo’s courage and moral clarity. The world has treated the regime in Khartoum and the victims of its genocidal jihad with moral equivalence for too long,” said Faith McDonell, director of religious-liberty programs for the Washington-based Institute on Religion and Democracy. “At last the ICC’s chief prosecutor has, in no uncertain terms, laid the blame at the feet where it belongs.”
But some have cautioned that the move — likely to have little or no positive effect on the situation in Darfur — could end up creating more problems.
“China expresses grave concern and misgivings about the International Criminal Court prosecutor's indictment of the Sudanese leader," said Liu Jianchao, spokesman for the Chinese foreign ministry, according to the British newspaper The Telegraph. “The ICC's actions must be beneficial to the stability of the Darfur region and the appropriate settlement of the issue, not the contrary.”
China has been Sudan’s chief international backer. While its leaders have claimed that they are pressuring al-Bashir to end the atrocities in Darfur, China has been the main obstacle to unified international efforts against the genocide.
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Read more:
ICC Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo’s statement on the charges
U.N. report blames Sudan government for Darfur crisis, calls for prosecution (2/1/2005)