ICC Vs Sudan: the name game

Although justice in Sub-Saharan Africa seems asyndetical, ever-approaching but never-reaching, is reaping important results. We can name a few cases: Democratic Republic of Congo war-lord and Vice-president Jean-Pierre Bemba, arrested in end-may 2008 and currently tried; Liberian President Charles Taylor, arrested and detained in Liberia, tried in 2007 but “disappeared” since march 2008.

Just Thursday July 10^th ICC (International Criminal Court, The Hague, NL) prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo maintained it was collecting evidence on Sudan State apparatus for war crimes in Darfour, and it is likely that the President itself (Omar Al-Bashir) would be named for indictment in The Hague. Sadly, the accused president is still in power, and the procedure would resemble a case against an internationally questioned but nationally feared Saddam Hussein in 1996. Now the International Community in Khartoum (Human Rights activists and UN officers) are planning to leave the country and expecting retaliation in the very aftermath of such an announcement.

The statement arrives in times of Sudanese blatant defy of the International Community: an attack on UN peacekeepers in Darfour killed 4 and has been connected to the Janjaweed (a para-militay force, yet allegedly a cadre of the Sudanese Army), and, as already reported in this Blog, in mid-June a ICC demand for a Sudanese Minister to be tried was blocked. As an output of this procedure, it may push the Presidency far from the Western Community directly into the Iraqi pre-2002 limbo, vanifying the South-Sudanese federal asset. Understanding this, it may be wise if Moreno-Ocampo omits presidential responsibility and aims just to the factual perpetrators.