Word: darfur
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...Netherlands Justice vs. Peace in Darfur On July 14 the International Criminal Court (ICC) charged Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir with genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in the nation's Darfur region, where up to 300,000 have died and more than 2.5 million have been displaced since 2003. The allegations mark the first time the six-year-old ICC has brought charges against a sitting head of state. Al-Bashir's government vowed to fight the charges, while critics say the ICC's efforts to bring justice to Darfur could backfire, leaving peacekeepers and aid workers...
...their repressive rule and open themselves to arrest. Nothing has made that more clear than ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo's request on July 14 for an arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir on 10 charges of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in Darfur. Moreno-Ocampo claims that Al-Bashir, who warned against the move during a Khartoum rally (above), "personally instructed" his forces to annihilate three ethnic groups in Darfur. "His motives were largely political," said Moreno-Ocampo. "His alibi was a counterinsurgency. His intent was genocide." Human-rights groups applauded. Others, including Western...
...plans to pursue President Robert Mugabe by saying it has no authority over the country as Zimbabwe never signed the Rome Statute, which established the ICC. This is disingenuous. Sudan hasn't signed the treaty either, a snag overcome when the U.N. Security Council referred the situation in Darfur to the ICC - something it could do with Zimbabwe. As ever, justice and peace are both prisoners of politics...
America in the Brangelina ERA does not lack celebrity advocates: Scarlett Johansson for Barack Obama, George Clooney for Darfur, Matt Damon for clean water. Whether the famous are effective advocates for good is debatable, but Madison Avenue long ago proved they are great advocates for buying stuff. Ironically, considering the tonnage of celeb-inspired purchases choking our landfills, this also makes them ideal pitchmen for the environment. After all, green issues are about consumption: what to eat, how to build your house, what junk to fill it with and how to dispose...
...several things happened since that have forced a retreat from those heady days: the U.S. war on terror gave intervention a bad name by associating it with big-power unilateralism; the crises got bigger - genocide in Darfur, famine in North Korea, a cyclone in Burma. Global competition also worked against global unity: China, for instance, blocked U.N. Security Council action against Sudan over Darfur to protect is oil concessions. Zimbabwe may have repugnant rulers, but it also has a consistent and grateful ally in South African President Thabo Mbeki and his fight against Western hegemony. Additionally, Harare has the world...