The following news article from ALJAZEER.NET shows some of the complications involved in bringing charges of genocide and crimes against humanity against a sovereign head of state. I present this piece of journalism to show how the influence of internatioal bodies is questionable . I present this to show how the terminology involved in the charges ca often lead to more of the same political and socail unrest that is part of the situation being defined by the charges themselves.
David
From Sunday 7-20-08
The chairman of an emergency Arab League meeting has said that a decision by the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to charge Sudan’s president with genocide and war crimes sets a dangerous precedent.
Mahmoud Ali Youssef, the foreign minister of Djibouti, said at the opening of the one-day meeting in Cairo on Saturday that the 10 charges brought against Omar al-Bashir at the Netherlands-based court will have dangerous repercussions for the entire region.
“The indictment is a dangerous precedent in dealing with heads of state. It will have dangerous repercussions, not only on Sudan but on the whole region,” Youssef said.
He chaired the meeting convened by the 22-member Arab League to discuss the charges.
In his opening statement, Youssef criticised what he branded “the double standards” of the international community, saying that “the world watches Palestinian suffering without moving” to end it.
Extermination charges
Al-Bashir was charged on July 14 that he waged a campaign of extermination against three Darfur tribes that claimed up to 300,000 lives and drove 2.5 million people from their homes.
A three-judge panel from the ICC is expected to take two to three months to decide whether to issue an arrest warrant.
The charges against al-Bashir came a year after the court indicted Ahmed Harun, Sudan’s humanitarian affairs minister, who was formerly in charge of security in Darfur, and suspected militia leader Ali Kushayb on crimes against humanity.Arab foreign ministers were expected to discuss a proposal calling on al-Bashir to hand over two Darfur war-crimes suspects to the court in an effort to fend off the longtime leader’s own prosecution.
Al-Samani al-Wasiyla, Sudan’s minister of foreign affairs, after a brief meeting with his Egyptian counterpart Ahmed Abul-Gheit, said that “the Arab position is completely united” in condemning al-Bashir’s indictment.
Just before the Arab League meeting convened, Yemen’s lower house of parliament condemned the charges against al-Bashir as legally groundless.
A resolution passed by the 301-seat Yemeni Assembly of Representatives dismissed them as a “complete falsehood and an infringement on Sudan’s internal affairs”.
It said that the charges were “part of a plot targeting Arab and Muslim nations”.
