Great news story today -- the International Criminal Court issued an indictment for Sudan's president Omar al-Bashir. The indictment alleges al-Bashir is responsible for War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity in the Darfur region of Sudan. Soon after the indictment came out, Sudanese citizens flooded the streets of Khartoum protesting the ICC and the U.S. I read that and had to laugh. Sudanese protestors -- THE U.S. ISN'T A PART OF THE ICC! THE U.S. HASN'T SIGNED THE ICC TREATY! THE U.S. DOESN'T TRUST THE ICC AND HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH IT! But it's okay, you just keep blaming the U.S. for everything.I suppose they do have a small point in that it was actually the UN Security Council that referred the matter to the ICC and the U.S. is a permanent member of the Security Council. The problem is that the U.S. didn't vote for the referral, it abstained. While it's true the U.S. didn't stop the referral by using its veto power, it's not like an abstention is a ringing endorsement of the action. It's basically saying "you guys just do whatever you want to do". So again, how 'bout some protests of the French, British, or Russians who pushed the referral? Furthermore, China didn't use its veto either (which is an interesting side note since China does a ton of business in Sudan and continuously used its veto to keep the Security Council from taking direct action on Darfur); where's the protests against China? Like I said, I just had to laugh. They probably also had thousands of American flags which they burned even though I don't know where I could get a single Sudanese flag, much less thousands of them. You know, assuming I had time to protest.
2 comments:
Thanks for the post Chris. It is great news. I’m not sure that it will really change things but I am hopeful. As for the protests I think you’re right. A lot of people have this idea that America is like the traditional Christian conception of God, omnipotent and omnipresent. Our government is somehow the force behind everything that happens in the world. I wish. The reality is so far from this that it is scary. Our efforts to puppeteer the world stage have not been a controlled effective plot but rather a series of blunders and misinformation, never understanding what was really happening and rarely having any effect on the outcome anyway. I fear Darfur will be the same way.
When I was in the Philippines during the revolution people would us the U.S as a bugbear to protest the Erap regime as if he were best friends with our government. Ironically he had little to do with the U.S. but the person chosen to replace him Gloria Makapagal Arroyo was a classmate of and close friend of then President Clinton.
christopher -- you belong in government policy.
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