Darfur.2

Last week's ICC indictment against Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir meant absolutely nothing. Even if the ICC had any legitimacy, even if Sudan had signed the Rome Statute which created the ICC, even if the court had the full backing of Europe and the United States (which are afraid of charges leveled against their own leaders), even if al-Bashir gave himself up or was kicked out by a coup, the legal process is far too slow to do anything to stop the genocide in Darfur. Did anyone think the indictment would do anything? The only way to bring him to justice is an invasion, which the West lacks the will and the stomach to carry out. By the time the ICC "investigates" the atrocities and far understates the crimes of the Sudanese government, thousands more Darfuris will be dead. And al-Bashir will still be in power.

This article highlights the hypocrisy the Sudanese government and its allies see and exploit in the efforts of the West to stop the killing. If the West is unwilling to put its own leaders under the jurisdiction of the ICC then why should Sudan? The United States isn't even party to the statute anymore. President Bush's statement "We'll see how that plays out." seems to make genocide a spectator sport for the US.

The investigation is happening even though humanitarian groups have already provided all the evidence you could ever need in a criminal prosecution. There is no question that the Sudanese regime is guilty of the massacre, and yet the investigation continues to crawl along toward the justice that will never be served in Darfur.
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I will be in Washington D.C. tomorrow to visit, among other places, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, for a reminder of why we still say "Never Again". Afterward I will start working on letters to Congress and other influential leaders, as well as petitions and presentations, which I hope to release to the public in my local area as well as online.