Daily Darfur

Wednesday, February 09, 2005

Daily Darfur

Tonight's "Nightline" will feature a report from Sudan with Don Cheadle as correspondent. Romeo Dallaire is to be featured as well.

The International Red Cross is warning that the situation in Darfur is deteriorating rapidly. The AU says the same thing.

Sudan says that its courts ought to be responsible for trying those accused of war crimes and/or crimes against humanity, not the International Criminal Court. Frankly, I think the discussion about the ICC is rather pointless. Sudan is not a party to the court, so the court has no jurisdiction unless Sudan agrees to submit itself to the court in this instance, which they aren't going to do. The only other alternative in this situation is for the case to be referred to the prosecutor by the Security Council, and since the US, Britain, Russia and China all seem to oppose this idea, that is not likely to happen. And even if this situation did somehow make it to the ICC, the court is obligated to defer to national jurisdiction so long as the state makes a good faith effort to carry out investigations and/or prosecutions. Sudan will do just that (except for the "good faith" part) and by the time the UN or ICC determines that Sudan is "unwilling or unable genuinely to carry out" to proceedings or carrying them out in a manner designed to "[shield] the person concerned from criminal responsibility" years will have passed while the Janjaweed, the rapes, and the starvation continue to kill the people of Darfur.

According to Reuters, John Garang, the leader of the southern rebel army that recently signed a peach accord with Khartoum, is calling for "30,000 Sudanese and international troops to stop the fighting in Darfur, demobilize combatants and institute power-sharing."

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