Court issues war crimes warrant for Sudan's Bashir

Court issues war crimes warrant for Sudan's Bashir

THE HAGUE, Netherlands – The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant Wednesday for Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur. He is the first sitting head of state the court has ordered arrested.
Al-Bashir's government denounced the warrant as part of a Western conspiracy aimed at destabilizing the vast oil-rich nation south of Egypt. The U.N. said Sudan had ordered the expulsion of six to 10 humanitarian groups from Darfur including Oxfam, Solidarities and Mercy Corps, and seized assets.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called the move a "serious setback to lifesaving operations in Darfur."
Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo had accused Sudanese troops and the janjaweed Arab militia they support of murdering civilians and preying on them in refugee camps. He said the militia also waged a campaign of rape to drive women into the desert, where they die of starvation.
But the three-judge panel in The Hague said there was insufficient evidence to support charges of genocide in a war in which up to 300,000 people have died and 2.7 million have fled their homes.
"He is suspected of being criminally responsible ... for intentionally directing attacks against an important part of the civilian population of Darfur, Sudan, murdering, exterminating, raping, torturing and forcibly transferring large numbers of civilians, and pillaging their property," court spokeswoman Laurence Blairon said. If al-Bashir is brought to trial and prosecuted, he faces a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.
Blairon rejected accusations that the warrant was part of a political plot and said the decision was made purely on legal grounds.
But African and Arab nations fear the warrant will destabilize the whole region, bring even more conflict in Darfur and threaten the fragile peace deal that ended decades of civil war between northern and southern Sudan. China, which buys two-thirds of Sudan's oil, supports the African and Arab positions.
Some African nations reportedly threatened to pull out of the court in retaliation for a warrant. Thirty African countries are among the court's 108 member states.
In a show of defiance Tuesday in anticipation of the decision, al-Bashir told supporters at a rally, "We are telling them to immerse it in water and drink it," a common Arabic insult meant to show extreme disrespect.
Hundreds of Sudanese waving pictures of the president and denouncing the court quickly turned out in a rally at the Cabinet building in Khartoum. Security was increased around many embassies, and some diplomats and aid workers stayed home amid fears of retaliation against Westerners.
The U.N., which has a joint peacekeeping mission in Darfur with the African Union, will continue to deal with al-Bashir, U.N. spokeswoman Michele Montas said at U.N. headquarters in New York.
"President al-Bashir is the head of state of Sudan, and United Nations officials will continue to deal with president al-Bashir when they need to do so," Montas said.
Al-Bashir denies the war crimes accusations and refuses to deal with the court. Sudan does not recognize its jurisdiction and refuses to arrest suspects and there is currently no international mechanism to arrest al-Bashir. The main tool the court has is diplomatic pressure for countries to hand over suspects.
U.N. peacekeepers and other international agencies operating in Sudan have no mandate to implement the warrant, and Sudanese officials have warned them not to go outside their mandates.
The United States is not a member of the international court, but Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, told The Associated Press, that "the United States supports the ICC action to hold accountable those who are responsible for the heinous crimes in Darfur."
"Those who committed atrocities in Sudan, including genocide, should be brought to justice," she said.
The EU welcomed the court's decision to issue an arrest warrant for al-Bashir and urged Khartoum to cooperate "fully and provide any necessary assistance to the Court."
Ocampo suggested al-Bashir could be arrested if he flies out of Sudan.
"As soon as Mr. al-Bashir travels in international airspace, his plane could be intercepted and he could be arrested. That is what I expect," the prosecutor said.
"Like Slobodan Milosevic or Charles Taylor, Omar al-Bashir's destiny is to face justice," Moreno Ocampo said referring to the former presidents of Yugoslavia and Liberia who were indicted while in office and ended up on trial in The Hague.
Asked why judges, in a 2-1 split decision, did not issue the warrant for genocide, Blairon explained that genocide requires a clear intent to destroy in part or as a whole a specific group.
"In this particular case, the pretrial chamber has not been able to find there were reasonable grounds to establish a genocidal intent," she said.
She said prosecutors could ask again for genocide charges to be added to the warrant if they can produce new evidence. Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo said he would study the ruling before deciding whether to keep pursuing genocide charges.
The war in Sudan's western Darfur region began in 2003, when rebel ethnic African groups, complaining of discrimination and neglect, took up arms against the Arab-dominated government in Khartoum. In 2005, the U.N. Security Council asked Moreno Ocampo to investigate crimes in Darfur.
"With this arrest warrant, the International Criminal Court has made Omar al-Bashir a wanted man," said Richard Dicker, director of the International Justice Program at Human Rights Watch. "Not even presidents are guaranteed a free pass for horrific crimes. By ruling there is a case for President al-Bashir to answer for the horrors of Darfur, the warrant breaks through Khartoum's repeated denials of his responsibility."
The Rome statute that set up the International Criminal Court allows the Security Council to vote to defer or suspend for a year the investigation or prosecution of a case. It also gives the council authority to renew such a resolution.
The 52-member countries of the African Union and 26 states of the Arab League make up about a third of U.N. member states and they have said they would call for such a suspension.
But the council is sharply divided on suspending the case and is unlikely to take any action.

I'll say it again but in more detail:

Somewhat it gives me hope that things will be changing but only time will tell. I'm glad that the ICC and the U.N. has taken steps to establish what they deem to be going on even if it's war crimes and crimes against humanity ( better known as Genocide but deemed to hard to prove ) but it's one thing to talk the talk and another to walk the walk. With other countries turning their backs on what is happening in Darfur we have to make sure we hold the US,UN and ICC accountable for what it has promised and not allow them just to give him a slap on the hand. I truly hope that this is a start to the end of the nightmare these poor people have been living.

Truth be told there has never been a leader that has still been in power that has had these charges brought against him. With a mass of support from peoples this is a matter that will most likely see more terror before he's taken down and even when/if we do detain him the people that stood behind him are still going to rage war and terror. It maybe a start to an end but its far from over. My hope is that we haven't hit a hornets nest with a stone. The backlash could be far worse. "Al-Bashir denies the war crimes accusations and refuses to deal with the court. Sudan does not recognize its jurisdiction and refuses to arrest suspects and there is currently no international mechanism to arrest al-Bashir. The main tool the court has is diplomatic pressure for countries to hand over suspects".

It is a double edge sword here. These people (Darfur) need to see peace and an end to what has happened that never should have been. The fact it took so long to finally do something has made this much worse seeing as how his power got much stronger and his following larger. They are already starting to show that they won't give up power easily. Only time will tell what will happen next. I am glad however that Darfur is being heard now!!!!

Officials: US troops to leave Iraq by August 2010 (AP)

Officials: US troops to leave Iraq by August 2010 (AP)

WASHINGTON – The United States plans to withdraw most of its troops from Iraq by August 2010, 19 months after President Barack Obama's inauguration, according to administration officials. The withdrawal plan would fulfill one of Obama's central campaign pledges, albeit a little more slowly than he promised. He said he would withdraw troops within 16 months, roughly one brigade a month from the time of his inauguration.
The officials said they expect Obama to make the announcement this week. They spoke on condition of anonymity because the plan has not been made public.
The U.S. military will leave behind a residual force, between 30,000 and 50,000 troops, to continue advising and training Iraqi security forces, the two officials said. Also staying beyond the 19 months will be intelligence and surveillance specialists and their equipment, including unmanned aircraft, they said.
A further withdrawal will take place before December 2011, the period by which the U.S. agreed with Iraq to remove all American troops.
A senior White House official said Tuesday that Obama is at least a day away from making a final decision. He further said an announcement on Wednesday was unlikely, but he said that Obama could discuss Iraq during a trip to North Carolina on Friday.
About 142,000 U.S. troops are in Iraq, roughly 14 brigades, about 11,000 above the total in Iraq when President George W. Bush announced in January 2007 that he would "surge" the force to put down the insurgency. He sent an additional 21,000 combat troops to Baghdad and Anbar province.
Although the number of combat brigades has dropped from 20 to 14, the U.S. has increased the number of logistical and other support troops. A brigade is usually about 3,000 to 5,000 troops.
Obama's campaign promise to withdraw troops in 16 months was based on a military estimate on what would be an orderly pace of removing troops, given the logistical difficulties of removing so many people and tons of equipment, a U.S. military official said.
The 19-month strategy is a compromise between commanders and advisers who are worried that security gains could backslide in Iraq and those who think the bulk of U.S. combat work is long since done.
The White House considered at least two other options to withdraw combat forces — one that followed Obama's 16-month timeline and one that stretched withdrawal over 23 months, the AP reported earlier this month.
Some U.S. commanders have spoken more optimistically in recent months about prospects for reducing the force. Maj. Gen. Michael Oates, who commands U.S. forces in central and southern Iraq, told reporters earlier this month that he believed the gains in stability in that area were now irreversible.
According to officials, Obama had requested a range of options from his top military advisers, including one that would have withdrawn troops in 16 months. Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had recently forwarded withdrawal alternatives to the White House for Obama's consideration.
In addition to the U.S. troops to be withdrawn, there is a sizable cadre of contractors who provide services to them who would pack their bags as well. There were 148,050 defense contractor personnel working in Iraq as of December, 39,262 of them U.S. citizens.
There are more than 200 U.S. military installations in Iraq. According to Army officials interviewed by the Government Accountability Office, it can take up to two months to shut down small outposts that hold up to 300 troops. Larger entrenched facilities, like Balad Air Base, could take up to 18 months to close, according to the GAO.
As of Monday, at least 4,250 members of the U.S. military had died in the Iraq war since it began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. More than 31,000 have been injured.
Congress has approved more than $657 billion so far for the Iraq war, according to a report last year from the Congressional Research Service.

REPLY:

In part I'm happy that they will be comeing home (we shouldn't have been there in the 1st place but what's done is done). As far as leaving these troops 30,000 or so behind is insane. Either they will be slaughtered or when they start to become so they will just send back our troops to a far even worse war. Seeing as how the technololgy is growing (albeit slow) there Obama is setting up a WWIII. If it doesn't start before then. At this point its a lose, lose situation either way. Yes, Bush had this plan and Obama is taking cedit but he's pushed out the date. Makes me wonder why? Does he hope that they will become a peaceful nation by then or that some how we will become BBF with them?

ADDED NOTE:

I feel for the people of this country that has been torn apart by war. I don't think I could ever know how it would feel to live everyday in fear. Not just fear for myself but for my family, friends and home. How they have managed to hold on is beyond something I can understand. Everyday they wake to this and every night they fall asleep wondering if they will see tomorrow. Seems that everyday brings bad news to these people. My heart goes out to them.