The International Criminal Court’s (ICC) verdict against President Omar Bashir of Sudan has some people wondering what benchmarks of justice, if any, are being used by that agency. According to the ICC charges, some 300,000 people had lost their lives in the Darfur region of Sudan in an ongoing tribal conflict.
In an immediate response, the Sudanese president, addressing a Khartoum rally, countered by claiming that the ICC was a tool in the hands of imperialists targeting Sudan for its oil, natural gas and other resources. “We have refused to kneel to colonialism, that is why Sudan has been targeted ... because we only kneel to God,” he told the crowd outside the Republican Palace.
UN General Assembly President Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann regretted that a warrant had been issued to arrest President Bashir stating, “I am sorry about this decision of the ICC and I think it’s more a decision motivated by political considerations than really for the sake of advancing the cause of justice in the world.”
My issue with the ICC is this: If 300,000 people who died in the conflict in Darfur since 2003 prompted them to sit up and take notice and issue an arrest warrant, where had they been since 2003 when over one million innocent civilians have lost their lives as a result of US President George Bush’s illegal incursion into Iraq?
There was no justification for the war on the Iraqi people. There were no threats directed at the United States of America or its people. There was no Al-Qaeda operating out of Iraq. Iraqis did not take part in the bombings of the twin towers of the World Trade Center; nor were they involved in any conspiracy against the US government.
Where are the arrest warrants for Bush and his partner Tony Blair, who today pathetically claims he was duped into going along with the former US president when supplied with misleading information on weapons of mass destruction. How come Donald Rumsfeld of the “shock and awe” fame whose forces indiscriminately bombed Iraqi civilians into bits and pieces gets away scot-free?
And the rest of Bush’s band of neocons and accomplices including Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, Douglas Feith and John Ashcroft? Why is it that the ICC has not investigated their crimes and issued arrest warrants against all those with the blood of over one million innocent civilians on their hands?
Their methods were all based on deception, and their tools, apart from allowing weapons of mass destruction to be used against the Iraqi people, included manipulating the media and their political office.
They used “lies, lies and more lies, religion, patriotism, manufactured enemies, and the glory of democracy to motivate, mislead, oppress, and rob the masses of rational thinking in order to pursue their murderous adventures.”
Their strategy of using American soldiers as proxies for Israel to wage wars on Iraqis or any other people who might rise up against Israel had eventually led to mistrust and rejection of American policies in the region and around the world, as well as growing rejection at home.
And let’s not forget the atrocities of Ariel Sharon of Israel who today lies in a comatose state. He aligned himself with Bush soon after taking office and rained down atrocities on defenseless Palestinians. Do not his actions of massacre followed by the holocaust perpetrated against the civilians of Gaza recently by the current Israeli government warrant an investigation by the ICC?
The atrocities that Bush had committed against the Iraqi populace and the fatality numbers are well documented and yet the ICC did not dare raise an issue about his unlawful actions. History would undoubtedly depict Bush’s presidency as the biggest weapon of mass destruction in our times, but it is Bashir of Sudan who faces war crimes charges.
Prosecuting a sitting head of state and letting the crooks off the hook smacks of gross hypocrisy on the part of the ICC. Is it because the Sudanese president is a black man and an African?
