WORLD NEWS TRUST: ICC and al-Bashir: Ocampo’s Justice (Ramzy Baroud)

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(World News Trust) -- The crimes committed against innocent people in Darfur represent a shameful episode in the history of Sudan and its neighbours, including Chad, which has played a dubious role in sustaining the seething conflict. Equally disgraceful is the politicising of the bloody conflict in ways that will ensure its continuation.

The decision of the International Criminal Court's (ICC) prosecutor-general, Luis Moreno- Ocampo, to file an arrest warrant for Sudan's current President Omar Hassan Al-Bashir, and the international responses to his decision, demonstrate both the politicising of the crisis and the selectiveness of international law.

Consider this bizarre twist. The US Congress passed a resolution, on 22 June 2004, declaring that the violence in Darfur was state-sponsored genocide. The resolution -- named the Darfur Peace and Accountability Act -- was signed into law by President Bush in October 2006.

Between the vote and Bush's signature the United Nations conducted a sweeping investigation -- unlike Congress's rash decision which was based almost entirely on lobby and interest group pressure -- declaring, in early 2005, that both the government and militias were systematically abusing civilians in Sudan's western province. It insisted, however, that no genocide had taken place.

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